Some buildings lost their roofs, mini-warehouses were transplanted, but trees fell everywhere. Daylight showed that every home in the city of 151,000 lost branches, some trees were split, and many were completely uprooted taking sidewalks, power, and telephone lines with them. Streets were blocked by debris and Commonwealth Edison estimated that more than 80,000 of their customers lost electricity. That's just about everyone in town, schools and businesses included.

The only sections that didn't lose electricity were the newer subdivisions where utility lines are underground.

I live in one of the older sections of town, a mere ten blocks from our zero-zero corner in the heart of downtown. I was wide awake when the storm hit, babysitting two Great Danes, one of whom was a twenty-nine pound eight week old puppy new to our home and the other an eight year old floppy-eared guy who every time it thunders thinks God is after him and begins shaking all over.

When the sun came up, I went into my routine of letting the dogs out and getting their breakfast ready, but a glance outside showed the extent of the damage. Half of a neighbor's maple tree was laying in her front yard and the street was covered with fallen trees and branches. Before long, I was out there with most of the neighbors listening to giddy stories of what had happened to each of them, making jokes about duct tape, and moving limbs into the boulevard so cars could drive by and repair trucks could get to us.

Thus began four days of being without power and, in our case, without a telephone because the neighbor's tree had taken the phone line down in short order. Even some of the cellular services had towers down. By noon battery operated radios were telling us that power wasn't going to be restored anytime soon. Power grids were down across the city and the sound of chainsaws took over. It's not the year to be in the firewood business.

Supermarkets and stores without backup generators were closed. Milk, meat, and anything frozen began to rot and people were on searches for ice anywhere they could find it. Temperatures reached ninety-two degrees and more by Sunday and Monday making life without electricity even more miserable.

Supermarkets quickly learned that the amount of product lost in one day without power would have more than paid for the sort of big generators, and probably backup generators too, that power whole islands in the Caribbean.

The Rockford Park District estimated the loss in its parks and golf courses at 1,205 trees down and destroyed. No one has an estimate of those destroyed on private property.

Spirits and camaraderie were high at first. No one had been killed or seriously injured and 110 repair units from other cities volunteered to help our local ComEd and Public Works crews restore power and clean up debris. Families were enjoying each other and living by candlelight without television, fans, and air conditioning. Everyone cooked and ate whatever they could before food spoiled and some left the city to hole up with friends or hotels in other cities that had normal power.

Traffic lights were all knocked out. We had no traffic control other than the patience and good will of drivers politely taking their turns while every policeman in the city was guarding buildings that lost their alarm systems and patrolling neighborhoods that might be potential spots for looting. And frankly, I think it worked pretty well with only a few fender benders that probably amounted to less than what would have occurred if the lights had been working.

Talk radio was filled with callers reminding us that our great grandparents had lived happily without many of the conveniences the current generation takes for granted and reporting constant updates about hospitals and old age homes that were first on the list to get their electricity back. It seemed that everyone who had a working telephone was calling in to tell their individual story and ask questions. Power company executives were frequent guests trying to answer questions and report progress.

By the third and fourth days the calls were becoming more and more hostile but were still in the form of questions rather than complaints. Some would get power back only to lose it again as more damage was found during the grid turn on. Others started complaining about favoritism and racism they felt was taking place because the richer neighborhoods might be getting power before they did and the power company had the unenviable task of trying to explain how they assess damage and deploy repair crews.

One particularly difficult thing to explain was where the power company's responsibility ends and the homeowner's begins. ComEd brings power to the house at a junction box on the roof or wherever. From that point to the main panel in the house it's the homeowner's responsibility to supply and maintain a line to the main panel in the house. Many were calling to complain that neighbors on all sides had power, but they didn't. And these people usually could not understand why the power company had not fixed things all the way. Finally, the repair crews volunteered to do the job for more than 6,000 homeowners that couldn't afford or find an electrician to handle their end of the hook up.

On the fifth day, our young 43 year old mayor collapsed at a meeting with one of the neighborhood groups. He simply fainted from exhaustion and lack of sleep, hitting his head on a brick sidewalk. After a day in the hospital, the doctors released him only if he promised to go home and rest.

It's still too early to point out some of the obvious problems in the bigger picture. For instance, if a thunder storm can knock out a city of this size imagine what deliberate sabotage might do and how vulnerable we are to coordinated terrorist attacks.

Secondly, our energy companies do not seem to have any concrete plans to revitalize and improve the infrastructure. When only subdivisions with the newer homes survive an outage problem like this, it's obvious that everyone needs their power and communication lines underground instead of strung from ugly "telephone poles" that have been around for the last 100 years or so. At least from the time Western Union replaced the Pony Express.

The federal office of Homeland Security probably depends on electricity in every city much more than individual homeowners so there should be some federal money to help power companies improve the situation, but Homeland Security has had its funds cut too. The Bush administration borrows an average of $2 billion a day, weekends included, increasing the national debt and deficit, to instead fund its New World Order and conquests of other sovereign nations.

Don't you think it's time we brought our own country up to par before we rebuild other countries?