Raymond,
Water was not a major problem. Every day we would go to the firehouse and fill up. That was so we would have enough to flush the toilets and cook pasta, make tea and coffee, wash faces, brush teeth, etc. The first few days we cooked what we had in the freezer as we had a grill and natural gas on our stove. After that the food started to spoil. So that became a minor worry.
For warmth, we had a fire place but we went to bed early, no later than 9pm, with at least three layers of covers. Invariably, I would wake up at 3am, worrying about this and that, not being able to go to sleep. No gas stations were open because they had no electricity. Then one opened and I waited four and one half hours to get gas. A few days later another one opened and that was a three hour wait. The station was patrolled by police with machine guns. I kid you not. However, you could sense the gas situation start to ease. Until then I worried that we would run out of gas and then what. As we had no food, we ate ate at a Catholic Church a couple of times and then went out after that. My son and I took showers at the local YMCA.
The low point for me came on November 6, Election Day. I was waiting for my son at his job, charging my work Black Berry and iPhone and when I went to start the car I had drained the battery. I nearly broke down then but the local maintenance man at my son's school, Ruben, helped me get it started.
We rarely saw any electric crews and a sense of desolation pervaded our town. Then they started to show up on Monday or Tuesday. By Wednesday, I had had enough. I was starting to lose it and we moved for the evenings to a hotel about forty minutes away. I couldn't take the dark or the night anymore.
It made you realize how fragile life can be. As I type this I still can't believe the last two weeks. I would dread the mornings.
Brad