- Apr 8, 2001
- 32,539
- 260
- 126
Last Thursday was a pleasant afternoon, just sitting in the den after work browsing on the computer while watching the beginning of PTI. Then I hear an odd noise and then the power flickers. I say out loud "what was that". The wife being the classic female that we all love and adore says "the power went out for a moment" 
While looking out the window now I see a large bright flash, like a flare sized weld arc, and then power flickers again. A moment later another spark and then power goes out for good. By this time some smoke is hanging around the roof of the house where this is going on with a faint smell of burning wood. So I call 911 on the cell, get transferred to my city and get a busy signal. Call again and same result. 3rd time it connects to the right city but puts me into hold. Let the operator know we have a power line problem going on and the fire truck probably needs to stop by.
Once the call is done I head out to the truck and drive around the block. Looks like the residents of the 4 families from and around the affected house are all standing in the street looking at the house. Knowing the response time of the local utility, even though they have a large depot only about 10 blocks away, I also now call them. The automated voice tells you to press 1 for flickering power, 2 for an outage, and 3 for damaged power company equipment or a life threatening emergency. I can't see exactly how bad the damage is, but since I'm smelling the house being cured by heat I hit #3. I tell the guy the house behind and adjacent to me had a couple flashbangs and a nice cloud of smoke on the wiring and connections to that house and now the power for the block is out. About 5 minutes later the FD is there and starts putting up yellow ribbon around a 3 house radius.
Seeing how dinner is not going to be cooked very well at the house we head out to grab something. We pull back down the road about an hour after the original call, the tape rope is still there but the FD is gone. In its place we have 3 power utility trucks. In what can only be described a minor miracle, in about an hour after the event power comes back on just after we had returned home.
So all is good now, until I come home the next day. On the door is a "we came by" tag that says the utility came by but could find now transformer or other equipment in my backyard and to call again if I have any problems. I almost want to call and ask then what the hell where the 3 trucks doing out there an hour after I made the first call, but I dare say it would have no effect on the schmucks that work there.
Cliffs:
kaboom
FD arrives
power back on
power utility comes next day and says they found no problem
While looking out the window now I see a large bright flash, like a flare sized weld arc, and then power flickers again. A moment later another spark and then power goes out for good. By this time some smoke is hanging around the roof of the house where this is going on with a faint smell of burning wood. So I call 911 on the cell, get transferred to my city and get a busy signal. Call again and same result. 3rd time it connects to the right city but puts me into hold. Let the operator know we have a power line problem going on and the fire truck probably needs to stop by.
Once the call is done I head out to the truck and drive around the block. Looks like the residents of the 4 families from and around the affected house are all standing in the street looking at the house. Knowing the response time of the local utility, even though they have a large depot only about 10 blocks away, I also now call them. The automated voice tells you to press 1 for flickering power, 2 for an outage, and 3 for damaged power company equipment or a life threatening emergency. I can't see exactly how bad the damage is, but since I'm smelling the house being cured by heat I hit #3. I tell the guy the house behind and adjacent to me had a couple flashbangs and a nice cloud of smoke on the wiring and connections to that house and now the power for the block is out. About 5 minutes later the FD is there and starts putting up yellow ribbon around a 3 house radius.
Seeing how dinner is not going to be cooked very well at the house we head out to grab something. We pull back down the road about an hour after the original call, the tape rope is still there but the FD is gone. In its place we have 3 power utility trucks. In what can only be described a minor miracle, in about an hour after the event power comes back on just after we had returned home.
So all is good now, until I come home the next day. On the door is a "we came by" tag that says the utility came by but could find now transformer or other equipment in my backyard and to call again if I have any problems. I almost want to call and ask then what the hell where the 3 trucks doing out there an hour after I made the first call, but I dare say it would have no effect on the schmucks that work there.
Cliffs:
kaboom
FD arrives
power back on
power utility comes next day and says they found no problem
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