Zach Small is a first-time dad and he already knows he’s not having a typical experience.
It was sunny at 2 p.m. on a recent day and he’s bundled in layers of coat and hoodie and hat — while indoors. Small was standing near his kitchen and pointed to a thermostat reading 44 degrees. He said nighttime temps have read just above freezing. The thermostat also says “Heat On.” But it’s not.
His dogs are in large crates covered with blankets. “They’re hardy hound dogs, so, they’re doing okay,” he says, “I think they’re a little confused by the baby!”
Baby Otto arrived on Thursday, Jan. 22. That’s less than 48 hours before the storm hit — the one that Otto will likely have to hear about the rest of his life. Otto’s mom, Joanna, had her labor induced, hoping to beat the ice. Then with a 3-day-old baby and freezing weather, they lost power in their East Nashville home. They’re among more than 200,000 customers who lost electricity in the first day of the ice storm. By day four, about half were still without power.
For the Small family, neighbors pitched in with a generator and space heater.
“We just tried to focus all the heat in one room — in his room,” he says, and boasts they’ve gotten it up to the mid 60s. “So it’s holding good.”
Not the only ones
Just down the road, Nikki Parra and her family found themselves in a chillingly similar situation. Baby Brynn made it home from the hospital on Thursday, got snowed in on Saturday and lost power Sunday.
Parra says it’s the first time she’s been in a storm like this one. She and her family hunkered down with the baby on her chest and the other two kids occupying themselves. Parra’s oldest child is 10, her middle son is 7 years old, autistic and nonverbal. When the power went out, she says she panicked.
Her husband posted their situation on the neighborhood Facebook group. She says they got a lot of response and folks, “reached out and were able to offer their homes to us.”
So, the whole family got to relocate to a nearby Airbnb. It wasn’t easy. Parra says it was only Baby Brynn’s second car ride, “other than coming home from the hospital.” She says she was shaking the entire way “because there was ice on the road and it was just very scary.”
But they made it.
Parra has made a connection with the woman who took them in and says they both started crying when they met. “It’s just a very emotional thing, especially with her being so little and just how quickly everything was able to come into play — and also how quickly everything happened from the storm.”
Parra’s husband checks on their dogs back at home as much as he can, and she’s really worried about them. Overall though, she’s just grateful.
And there’s also some good news for Zach, Joanna, Baby Otto and their dogs. Their power has been restored, and the thermostat is going up — in a city where, for now, electricity is not guaranteed.
Newborn Baby Brynn Parra resting peacefully in the AirBnb her family vacated to after they lost power in the ice storm
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