Three Days Without Power

For four years, Lena Ortiz had lived on the sixth floor of the Ridgeview Apartments, and in all that time she had learned very few of her neighbors’ names. She used to leave for work before seven and come home after dark. On weekends, she used to visit her sister across town. The building was simply the place where she slept.

Then, on a hot Tuesday in July, a storm brought down power linespower lines×A cable that carries electricity from place to place.Useful chunks: bring down power lines · a fallen power line across the east side of the city. The lights went off at four in the afternoon and did not come back. By Wednesday afternoon, it was over ninety degrees inside, the elevator had stopped, and most refrigerators were full of spoiledspoiled×No longer good to eat because it has started to go bad.Useful chunks: spoiled food · the milk has spoiled food.

Lena was climbing the stairs with two bottles of water when she noticed something strange. The newspaper outside 6B was still on the mat. Mr. Abara, an older man who used to say good morning at the mailboxes, usually picked it up before eight.

She knocked. After a long minute, the door opened. Mr. Abara looked tired and palepale×Having less color in the face than usual, often because of illness or tiredness.Useful chunks: look pale · turn pale. He explained that he had run out ofrun out of×To use all of something so that none is left.Useful chunks: run out of water · run out of time drinking water the night before. His phone battery had died, and his knees were too weak for six floors of stairs.

“Why didn’t you ask anyone for help?” Lena asked.

“I didn’t want to bother people,” he said. “Everyone is busy.”

Lena gave him her water and sat with him for a while. As she walked back downstairs, she realized that the real problem was not the storm. The building had almost two hundred residentsresidents×A person who lives in a particular place.Useful chunks: building residents · local resident, but nobody knew who needed help or who could offer it.

That evening, she taped a large sheet of paper to the lobby wall. At the top, she wrote four headings: Name, Floor, What You Need, What You Can Offer. By the next morning, the sheet was full.

A man on the second floor had a car, so he drove to a store outside the area and came back with ice. Two teenagers carried water up to the higher floors. A retiredretired×No longer working because of age, usually after a long career.Useful chunks: a retired nurse · recently retired nurse offered to check oncheck on×To visit or contact someone to make sure they are safe and well.Useful chunks: check on a neighbor · check on older residents everyone over seventy. Mr. Abara had worked as an electrician for thirty years, so he showed people how to charge their phones safely in their cars.

The power came back late on Thursday night. People cheered in the hallways.

Months later, the sheet of paper was still on the lobby wall, and Lena knew most of her neighbors by name. She still left early for work. But she no longer walked past closed doors without thinking about who was behind them.