Dark when night falls.

Impossible to take a shower.

A nuisance.

But it’s not the storm of the century, says Norman Wilson, Pfeiffer University librarian, who’s back at work this morning as though he and his wife, Patricia, and younger daughter, Emily, haven’t had to abandon their home on Fall Street and move in with an older daughter in Albemarle for the duration.

And they’re not alone.

The Jason Moxleys packed up 5-year-old Brandon and 17-month-old Andrew and headed to the Holiday Inn in Salisbury. It’s warm and light and has hot water and a snow rate and an indoor pool. Jennifer Moxley is a Post reporter.

Dr. and Mrs. Richard Brewer toughed it out one night but then took the dog to the vet and found themselves a motel room.

The Mick Barringers have a wood stove so the grandchildren from elsewhere in hard-hit Stanly County joined them.

And Joe and Ruby Fisher were comfortable for a while with their gas logs but finally went to visit children who had power. Not that they spent the night. They returned to their cold house and piled on the blankets.

And everybody in this area is hoping for power any minute — and getting it rapidly.

Duke Power had 17,000 outages in the Charlotte area Wednesday but that had dropped to 8,500 by this morning. And the Salisbury area — which includes big portions of Stanly County and some Cabarrus communities — had dropped from 5,000 customers with no power to 800.

In North and South Carolina, Duke Power reported approximately 10,600 customers remained without electric service at 5 a.m. today, down from the peak of 132,000 Tuesday morning.

Union Electric membership line crews also restored power to several thousand more homes overnight bringing the total of Unon EMC consumers without power to approximately 2,500 in Rowan, Stanly and Cabarrus and 11,000 in Union County.

The storms bad news of power outages hit everybody in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.

Wilson woke up at 2 a.m. and realized he had no power, so he built a fire in the fireplace.

“Being without electricity is the worst of it,” he says, “but it’s not the storm of the century.” Even a very young century. More will come, he said. This is “just a real heavy snow that brought down a lot of trees and knocked the power out. ... But life is going on.”

“We toughed it out under a lot of blankets the first night,” says Eileen Brewer, “but the fireplace doesn’t keep the house very warm, and my husband’s not very well.”

But getting out of the driveway to head to the vet with Jake, their beagle, and find a motel for themselves was one of their biggest problems.

Mick and Millie Barringer of South Hill Branch Road just automatically went back to the wood heater and welcomed their grandchildren.

“Two go to Rockwell Christian School in Rowan County,” he says, “and the local schools are out. They’re enjoying it” — and wringing all the fun they can out of the situation — snowball fights, a snowman, and fried pancakes on gas logs.

“From what I’m understanding we could be till the end of the week before we get power back. The sheriff’s wife said they’ve got 25 trees down in their yard. We’re stocked up real good, and we’re doing fine.”

But granddaddy worries about the older people and those on disability, so he was trying to keep check.

And Ruby and Joe Fisher are keeping check on their beef cattle.

“I think they’re doing pretty well,” she says. “We have a lot of bales of hay. They have access to the barn. They can go in if they want to.”

But they don’t seem to mind the snow.

Ruby Fisher is grateful for the gas logs in the fireplace and three of their children in the area.

“Our sons-in-laws came over and took us home yesterday, but we came home last night, of course, and put extra cover on the bed. We’d gone to sleep for a little while, and then I woke up.”

The power was on.