My furnace died a week ago.
The kids and I pulled out the fleece, blankets and/or space heaters while we waited for the official “she’s dead, Jim” verdict. And it wasn’t so bad — at first, anyway.
By the time the guys showed up yesterday morning at 7:30 am, though, it was 60 degrees in my house (even though I had four space heaters blasting away.) And the temperature continued to drop both inside and outside as the flakes started to fall.
I was lucky. Five hours later, I had a new gas furnace to replace the creaky old oil furnace (my profuse thanks to the people at Carson Oil who treated this as an emergency & got me taken care of on a Sunday!) And within 30 minutes, the inside temp was a toasty 70 degrees.
But my little heating crisis was temporary and solvable. There are plenty of people outside right now who aren’t nearly as lucky as I was, and the forecast isn’t calling for warmer temperatures for at least a week or so.
So because I’ve had heat (or the lack thereof) on the brain lately, I’ve been digging around looking for more information about how best to help here. There are a few warming shelters open at night (visit the Oregon Red Cross for locations and details; read this OregonLive article for other ways you can help.) But what about during the day? What options do people have to stay warm and dry?
What are you doing to stay warm right now? What could you do to help someone else out as well?
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The Library. Go to the Library. They’re trying to be open as much as possible during the bad weather, though branches may close early (at 6pm).
Read some magazines, get your super-fast Internet fix, ask a Librarian that nagging question that you haven’t figured out on your own. You might even find a DVD to snuggle up with.
Thanks for the shout-out, Betsy! If folks are interested in volunteering at the Emergency Warming Centers, there’s actually an orientation session this afternoon. For more information, visit Hands On Greater Portland and sign up there!
http://www.handsonportland.org/projects/viewProject.php?_mode=occurrenceView&_action=load&ixActivity=2508
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