Environment & Energy

ignition that activated the flame on the burner after a small delay to prime the flame. The gas smell alerted the family. After the second time, they pulled the knobs on the front. I had gas ranges at home too; it was great when the power was out and one could still do more than make coffee in a percolator. In fact, I remember making chocolate-chip cookies by flashlight in the gas range during a wicked summer storm that had zapped the electric at a nearby power station/transformer at night. That calmed down and distracted the terrified kids. We also humidified by bowl near the registers with the gas/forced air furnace system during the winter.

Have to say, though, I love our all-electric townhouse apartment; the lines are underground and we seldom have a long outage. The longest outage was when the dry but wicked winds of Ike came through and we had power in about a little over an hour. The rest of the city was still chopping up fallen tree limbs for three days so they could find and repair the downed poles and lines and using gas grills to cook their thawed foods and camping coolers and lanterns before power was restored.