This Sunday, catastrophe struck Niles, leaving many residents in sheer panic.

There was not a tornado or a big fire. A flood did not fill our roads. No grand violent act occurred.

Instead, a large percentage of Niles residents lost their power — and boy, was it chaotic, judging by the statuses on social media and the number of phone calls I received asking what in tarnation had happened.

I poke fun at those individuals seemingly devastated by the power outage because I, too, was up in arms.

I understand completely that business owners lost business due to the outage. We were worried about how we would get the papers out, and spent the entire outage attempting to use power savers to turn our server on long enough to get the files. That is a level of mayhem to which I can relate.

On the other hand, I had to chuckle at folks panicking about the cell phones that were not charged and the televisions they could not turn on.

A friend posted on Facebook that a slew of folks attempting to shop at Martin’s were irate that they were unable to buy their groceries during that time period.

Another whined that they were missing the end to a television show (a syndicated one at that).

As much as I hate to say it, it seems we have been spoiled by all the conveniences of modern technology.

While so many of us were complaining about our inability to connect digitally,  perhaps we should have been thanking our lucky stars that we lost power while the weather was pleasant, rather than having to deal with the frigidity of winter weather.

Better yet, maybe we should have been using the time to remember how it feels to connect in person.

At one point during The Outage, I decided to go outside to get some fresh air. What a thought!

I was not alone in my meandering. Children were drawing with chalk on sidewalks. A man was playing catch with a young boy. Folks were sitting out on their steps talking — face to face. (Insert gasp here).

Maybe some of this wild interaction could be attributed to the warm weather. I am sure at least some of these people would have taken advantage of the sunny skies regardless of their ability to plug in.

Nonetheless, I have worked in downtown Niles for nearly four years now, and I rarely remember seeing so many people outside at once.

Maybe this little tragedy of ours was not a catastrophe at all.

I dare say it was a blessing in disguise.

Ambrosia Neldon is the general manager at Leader Publications. She can be reached by phone at (269) 687-7700, or by email at ambrosia.neldon@leaderpub.com