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With plenty of heat and activities, the Bangor Public Library’s Children’s Department has been a saving grace for Paige Fairbanks, Sam Woodman and their three children during this week’s power outages.
They arrived in Maine on Dec. 14, after moving back to the area from Arizona. Fairbanks and Woodman had three days to adjust and introduce their kids, Jackson, 8, Jameson 5, Amanda 2, to Maine’s cold weather before they lost power.
As of Thursday afternoon, the family was still without electricity.
“We’re very thankful the library has heat or we’d be shivering in the cold,” Woodman said.
While some of the 86,900 people still without power throughout the state Thursday evening are able to get by with generators and wood stoves, Fairbanks and Woodman show how difficult it can be for people without resources and who lack familiarity with the area to navigate days without heat and electricity.
Woodman and Fairbanks grew up in Maine, and their oldest, Jackson, lived here his first two years before they moved to Arizona. Jackson doesn’t really remember the cold and the younger two children were born in Arizona, their parents said.
The short walk to the library from their apartment on First Street left the kids shivering Thursday morning.
“They’ve never experienced cold like this,” Fairbanks said. “They didn’t even like walking here.”
Thursday was the family’s second day spending time on the third floor of the library, playing with toys, games and reading books in the heated building. The space was busier Wednesday but by Thursday had cleared out as more families got power back.
Fairbanks, Woodman and their children will be back Friday if they’re still without power.
The family went grocery shopping on Dec. 15, buying about $150 of food with their food stamps; however, a lot of the food had to be thrown away after the power went out. Much of their savings went toward their cross-country move and losing the food is a financial strain, Woodman said.
People using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program can be reimbursed for food lost during power outages, but the family hadn’t switched their food stamps from Arizona to Maine yet — they planned to do so Monday but power outages meant that wasn’t possible.
Woodman doesn’t think they’ll qualify for reimbursement.
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches along with ham sandwiches are the main foods the kids have been eating because they don’t have a way to cook, Woodman said. He’s eaten a previously frozen uncooked burrito, but that isn’t something the parents want to feed the kids.
The power outages Fairbanks experienced in Pittsfield growing up were shorter, not spanning days without estimated restoration times. In Arizona the family only experienced outages that were a few hours long.
“We were not prepared for this at all,” she said. “I’ve never experienced a power outage like this.”
The lack of warming centers with showers in Bangor is frustrating, and it’s been four days since the family has showered, Fairbanks said. The warming centers she knows about are the area’s homeless shelters, and they don’t want to take their kids there.
“There’s no way we can take care of ourselves,” Fairbanks said.
The lack of resources and the way families with kids have seemingly been ignored during the outages is frustrating, Woodman and Fairbanks agree.
“If it wasn’t for the kids I probably wouldn’t be complaining like this,” Woodman said.
Their landlord has said their power will be back Friday, but that’s not a guarantee, Fairbanks said. They likely have at least one more night in the cold, with temperatures dropping to a low of 14 degrees Thursday night, according to the National Weather Service.
“We’re sold out of luck if we don’t [get power back],” Fairbanks said.