Hello? *Taps microphone gently* Everyone OK out there? No, of course you’re not.

I’m currently writing this column on my phone and while I will certainly endeavor to maintain proper spelling and AP Style, I do hope you’ll be forgiving as it turns out it’s quite difficult to put together a newspaper nowadays without power and internet.

My predecessors were much better at it — what I wouldn’t give for an old wood block press right about now …

It’s amazing how fast we become dependent on technology — and how helpless we are once it’s taken from us. My boys, ages 9 and 12, have been beside themselves without their constant digital distractions, despite my lectures of how lucky we were.

“There are people right now with no food, no water, a tree in their house! There are people with serious medical conditions who are trapped because of downed trees and powerlines! There are people who have lost everything — people who have died!”

And they just don’t get it. They just want the wifi back on …

It’s not a lack of empathy, they just can’t wrap their heads around it. Things like that — awful things — they don’t happen here, right? They know they’re safe, warm and fed. They know they’ve always been safe, warm and fed. The concept that our home can be taken from us in an instant at the whim of Mother Nature has never occurred to them.

If I’m being truly honest with myself, I don’t think it’s occurred to me either. Not really.

I was sadly unprepared for this storm. I bought some batteries and bottled water ahead of time — but I was in no way set to be without power or water for an extended amount of time. Had we lived in western North Carolina, we’d have been in real trouble.

Again, lucky.

As it was, my husband and I spent most of the time coming up with ways to occupy the kids. We removed the table and laid out mats in our dining room for wrestling practice (my husband is a wrestling coach). We took a bunch of old spray paint cans and redecorated (graffiti-ed) our picnic table to be bright and colorful. We read books and colored pictures and took walks.

For the most part we heeded local officials’ pleas to stay home and off the roads to give repair crews room to work, but I will admit to a couple of trips out in search of some necessities, others for reporting purposes.

Overwhelmingly, what I saw while out was neighbor helping neighbor.

I saw groups of people with borrowed chainsaws banding together to open an access road to their subdivision. I saw community BBQs to feed people in the absence of power. I saw online postings from people who had power offering their homes and freezers and showers to complete strangers without.

I saw, in short, a community coming together.

I’m writing this on Sunday night and my hopes are that if you’re reading this on Wednesday, you have a running refrigerator, an intact (or tarped) roof and a (somewhat) lessened feeling of anxiety about what tomorrow holds.

But if not, lean on each other. Your community is stronger than you know.

Kasie Strickland is the publisher of The Easley Progress and The Newberry Observer and can be reached at kstrickland@championcarolinas.com. Views expressed in this column are those of the writer only and do not necessarily represent the newspaper’s opinion.