There's always a slightly unsettling feeling that crawls up the spine when the power suddenly and unexpectedly goes out.
One might usually first anxiously wonder what just happened and how long it will take before the lights come back on.
Mere moments, hours, the whole day, or ó perish the thought ó even longer?
Fortunately, the power more often than not seems to return sooner rather than later.
But when it's out for as long as an hour or more, we are reminded how much our lives revolve around power.
Barely more than 100 years ago, electricity was a novel luxury that was only just emerging. Many streetlights were still gas-lit in the early 19th century. Flimsy little flying contraptions, which evolved over just a few generations to become modern supersonic airplanes, were struggling to take off and space exploration was largely undreamed of.
Today, electricity is all too often taken for granted. It's always been there for most of us, after all we're pretty well conditioned from birth that flicking that switch on the wall turns night into day.
We can largely rest assured that when the power goes out, it will short of a cataclysmic catastrophe eventually be restored. But that's only because of infrastructure that must be maintained and repaired.
And when something goes wrong ó a motorist loses control and veers into a power pole or a random lightning strike causes a failure during a storm ó a response is mobilized almost instantly.
Emergency responders such as police officers, firefighters and paramedics are rightly recognized for their efforts to help in times of distress.
But less frequently praised are the efforts of repair crews.
Their commitment is also commendable, as nothing less could be said for anyone who willfully takes on a role that involves going out into what most of the rest of us would rather avoid.
When it's below 30 or 40 and a power line or water main fails, they're out there doing everything possible to restore services.
Meanwhile, always make sure you've got some flashlights and some bottled water handy.
Emergency and repair crews might be fast to react, but every situation is different and a variety of variables might mean the difference between minutes and hours before the lights go back on.
Last week, local responders briefly rerouted traffic from Highway 27 less than two kilometres east of Sundre. They were concerned fire damage might have compromised a power pole and that a power line crossing over the road could potentially collapse, creating a serious traffic hazard on top of a fog that was coating the area.
Yet in the course of roughly an hour, the situation was resolved through the coordinated efforts of emergency and repair crews.
At the very least, we owe them our gratitude.
So should you ever find yourself driving through treacherous conditions like dense fog, remember to not only slow down a notch or two but also to keep an eye out for any responders and repair crews working to maintain the infrastructure that ensures we can turn our lights on and flush the toilet whenever we need to.
