At bedtime I had 2 loads of laundry in the bedroom that were dried earlier but not folded yet. Decided I could fold them tomorrow, but I pulled out 2 pink blankets for Dolly to have ready first thing in the morning when I did her first bedding change. I went to bed thinking there were a bunch more pink blankets in the unfolded pile of laundry.
At 1 AM I was mostly asleep when I heard that loud "NNNT! NNNT! NNNT!" alert of the National Weather Service on the radio, broadcasting an advisory. Everyone in the west part of the county should take cover immediately. A storm pattern with rotation was indicating a tornado in the area. We're in the northeast and it was softly sprinkling out. They only played it once and I didn't know how fast it was moving or what direction.
Five minutes later the radio went dead. 
I laid there wondering if I should go turn on the computer and try to find out, but I didn't want to disturb the pets, so I decided to just monitor the weather. I pictured those videos of people walking around their wrecked house after a tornado and wondered if I should put my jeans back on so at least I'd be dressed. I was imagining what we'd do if we needed to take cover. Could I get 2 playpens into the interior hallway for Pip and Dolly? They'd fit, the trick would be getting them through the doorways. What was best for our kitty? Just open her crate and let her find her own safe place, or put her in a kennel in the interior hallway with the dogs? What about our elderly dog? It might be safest for her to put her in a closet, but she'd have a fit and try to scratch her way out. Put her in one playpen with Dolly? Find a leash and tie her to the doorknob? I finally went back to sleep but got up 3 times during the night. Each time I looked out the window I could see the red lights of the distant radio towers, so I thought the weather couldn't be too bad.
This morning, no power. No lights, no radio, nuthin'. I could hear emergency sirens where people were probably having car wrecks due to wet roads or traffic signals being out. Filled the lantern so I could see and got breakfast for everybody in almost the normal way. It's a good thing breakfast does not require opening the fridge, because I didn't dare. I was trying to guess when the power went out. Could it have been at 1 AM when the radio went dead? How many hours could frozen food go? I had 3 new bags of Pip's expensive raw diet in the freezer.
Had to figure out what to do about Dolly's seizure med. She's been back on 5.5ml for a while. They said at the first sign of a seizure, give her 2ml, and then 1ml per dose till seizure free for 48 hours. I was afraid when the house heated up with no a/c or ceiling fan, she would be more likely to get one. It was already above the usual indoor temp at 8 AM and the sun wasn't even really out yet because of the clouds. But when she is on a high dose, it affects her GI tract and she gets messy. But what was worse, a seizure or a mess and not enough clean laundry? I gave her 1ml, judgment call. Do not have instructions on what to do in a case like this. Got Dolly freshened up, bed changed, everything went fine.
But the real problem occurred after breakfast when I went in to fold the laundry from yesterday and discovered there were NO more pink blankets in the pile!
They were in the wash. I had managed to wash the last load yesterday before bedtime, but not dry it, so they were clean but not dry. The power was still off and I couldn't hang them out on the line till it dried up outside. There was water standing in the yard and droplets on the clothesline. I hoped the sun would come out later. Wrongo. Later it got dark so you couldn't see well indoors, and started raining again. 
I think I had 2 pink blankets left in Dolly's bedroom and she goes through about 8 a day. I have extra blue blankets for Pip and Libby, which I didn't really want to use, but might have to.
About 11 AM I started wanting to know how long this might continue, how widespread it was, etc. I called the city information number and the power company said there were widespread outages, they were working on it. There had been reports of outages in my area, but I could leave an outage report for our address if I wanted to, so I did.
Five minutes after I got off the phone, I was standing out in the garage planning where to string a rope indoor clothesline, when the light came on.
What a relief! 
So what have I learned? Never go to bed with a load not dried? Should I do a test run of sheltering in the interior hallway? I don't know. I didn't think until now, I have Pip's net-sided soft crate in the car. That would solve the problem of one playpen. Dunno. Need to think. Also could use some sleep.
The only issue now is the ends of the wire are sharp where it's looped back, so I've got 6 cut ends where I could potentially poke myself, and knowing me I will sooner or later. I need to see if there's some proper way to cover the ends, other than the tape I put on there for now.
