The Grid and the Village: Losing Electricity, Finding Community, Surviving Disaster.

Book review by Jane
I ordered this book from the library because I wanted to learn more about the power grids, and perhaps about living efficiently off the grid. Well, this book was more closely about an ice storm that occurred in 1998, which I only vaguely remember. The storm shut down massive areas in the Northeast and Canada with ice as thick as 4 inches hanging on the trees and lines. It also affected the power grid and energy. The book outlines the author’s personal experiences in making it through the storm, and more importantly, through the power outage. The book also considers the area before the power grid existed and discusses the dependency upon power that we all now share. The author apparently wants to give the reader something he gained from the storm: a sense of what the power we take for granted really means in our lives—both individually and as a community. Also considered is what a disaster of this sort means to the community, even separately from what the newscasts report.

Although this was not the book I thought it would be, I was not disappointed—just momentarily somewhat lost. Of course, if I had seen the subtitle: Losing Electricity, Finding Community, Surviving Disaster, I would have been a little more orientated.

Jane.