l period, the company will be generating electricity at its own risk, implying that the power it will be providing to Tanesco will be at no cost from "Symbion to them." "This will enable an immediate benefit to the country," he said. "Symbion has been ready to commence online testing of the plant since last Friday. We are waiting for official approval to do that and we hope to receive this early this week. We have not yet received a response to our proposal from Tanesco so we assume that they are still evaluating it." Symbion Power acquired the 120-MW fuel-fired thermal plants earlier this month. The plants, which previously belonged to Dowans Tanzania Ltd., haven't been in operation for over a year following a power supply dispute between Tanesco and Dowans. Tanzania, Africa's fourth-largest gold producer, has been grappling with power shortages due to rising demand, mainly from the mining and manufacturing sectors. Upon signing the power purchase deal, Symbion is expected to start generating power at the plants using gas and heavy oils, according to people familiar with the situation. Earlier this month, Tanesco asked gold mining companies to cut consumption ft the damages pale when compared with the carnage of Joplin, Mo., the tornado-stricken towns of Alabama and imperiled cities along the Mississippi River. But this is a slow-moving catastrophe. And it has no end in sight. In fits and starts, the freshwater lake — 120 miles long and up to 400 feet deep — is draining northward, ever so slowly, into the Richelieu River in Quebec and the St. Lawrence River beyond. But it could take until July to drop below flood stage. It passed flood stage — 100 feet above sea level — in mid-April, peaked at more than 103 feet on May 6 and has hovered just below that for weeks. The water on Hoerr's street, Broadlake Road, has fluctuated, but hasn't been low enough to drive through. About five of the 17 houses in the neighborhood are still occupied. The holdouts are enduring inconvenience, stress and moods that rise and fall with the U.S. Geological Survey's online lake level chart, which gives hourly updates. "It's a month without taking a shower indoors, without washing dishes or doing laundry indoors," said Bryan Ducharme, 46, who lives next door to Hoerr. His flooded septic tanks are leaking. Hoping to avoid overwhelming his septic system, he and his wife and their three sons sometimes go to McDonald's to use the bathroom. They use an outside shower to bathe — and more. "Every morning, my wife is outside in her bathing suit, taking a shower in the outside shower, washing the dishes when it's 40 degrees out. It gets old after a while," he said. Down the street, Susan Andrus, 67, and her husband, William, were so rattled one night when water-borne logs smashed into their home that they left at 1:30 a.m., walked through the floodwaters to their car and slept in it. They spent nine days out of the lakefront home, but they're back now, watching as their lake-facing screened-in porch — screens ripped, roof supports separated, floor sinking — threatens to detach from the house entirely. Insurance adjusters have been through the house, but no firm assessment of damages can be reached until the water recedes. No one knows when that will be. "You're roughing it," Susan Andrus said. "You're going to the Laundromat and bringing in groceries by boat and bags, and carrying everything. You have to go to the post office to get your mail, no newspaper. We don't get the TV because the satellite's on the roof of the porch, so we have no television. I don't know what's happening or who won 'Dancing With the Stars.'" Like her neighbors, she knows the flooding is a costly inconvenience, not a catastrophe. "This we can live through," she said. Still, the stress is tangible. "It's very unsettling," said Hoerr,