Keep Calm and Carry On

Written for Funeralcare magazine, December 2018

Few outside Gisborne will remember the region being without power for two days in December 2016. It was not a disaster which affected the nation on the scale of the Christchurch earthquakes, or the Kaikoura one. Not as devastating as the flood damage in the Eastern Bay of Plenty last year, or the road closures which isolated the small rural community of Ruatahuna.

As I write this, the evening news reports a power outage affecting 16000 Taupo residents. I wonder how they are coping with uncertainty, and how their businesses will be affected.

In Gisborne two years ago, most focused on the tragic light plane crash which caused the blackout. The accident claimed the lives of a pilot and a loader driver on the afternoon of 11 December 2016. We had met the latter at a fancy dress party just the weekend before.

The first indication that something was up was the power cut. My mobile phone rang and the incoming call failed six times in the early evening. A text message came through from the fancy-dress-hostess asking me to ring her urgently. The call failed, as did several attempts to text. Over the next few hours we pieced together what must have happened. Calls to the duty funeral director - diverted to mobile of course - were also failing.

Neither of our two available funeral directors had a home landline, so the boss drew the short straw. Cell phone coverage was intermittent and unreliable, but the only choice the following day to divert the business phone when the PABX failed. Power connection was sporadic – our hopes would get up when the lights came on, only to fail again within minutes. The fifth power surge took out the computer network. In my dual roles of FD and computer tech I fought a brave but losing battle to power equipment down safely, competing with an optimistic team who were certain that if we just kept this one running we’d be able to carry on with business as usual.

Without computers there was no emailing family notices for the 9:45am deadline. Forced to go old-school, we phoned notices in to the local paper. When the phones failed, a trip to the local newspaper office revealed an electronic entrance door which none-would-pass, and finally a growing realisation that there might not even be a newspaper published that day.

Demand for generators was high, with the hospital an obvious first, followed by supermarkets and petrol stations. The hospital mortuary was made available to us.

Thank goodness I’d printed the service sheets for my 11am Monday funeral the Saturday before – not that we could see them especially well in the dark. The mobile network spluttered back into life allowing access to the planned music on Spotify, and a bluetooth speaker was pressed into action. LED candles bought for the following week’s Christmas service were arranged around the casket. The celebrant had an easily-heard voice which didn’t need help from a microphone.

The best and the worst of people is apparent in times of stress. The following day’s funeral was a polar opposite. Grandchildren had a generator shipped in from out of town so the service – all four hours of it – could go ahead as planned. They were extremely inconvenienced. Forty-plus mobile phones plugged in is an enduring image.

Power was restored to most areas just after 5:30pm that Tuesday night. A barbecue birthday dinner went ahead as planned.

I count my blessings. I remember how things were done once upon a technology-free time. Being without mobile phone and internet did not result in an existential crisis. Both technologies were available briefly to allow a plan B for the morning funeral, but I’ve no doubt the group of like-minded and like-aged funeral-goers would have coped regardless.

How would you?