Friday, October 22, 2021

Electrical Outage

I've mentioned often enough that one of the positive things about my neighborhood is that we have buried cables.  So naturally we lost power yesterday!   Usually that means something at the switching station or a car accident knocking over a pole on the main road through town and lasts 5-10 minutes.

After 30 minutes, I knew something was unusual.  So I looked outside and saw construction equipment on the corner...  Great, some damn fool chopped the cable.  

Actually, the timing was fortunate.  10 minutes earlier and I would have been all soaped in the shower in a windowless bathroom.  THAT would have been fun!

So after another 30 minutes, I decided to go out to do some errands.  Haircut, grass seed, food...  Of course, that meant unhitching the garage door from the electric opener (yes OF COURSE I unthinkingly hit the "open" button first - habits are habits).  Geez, that door is heavier than I remembered.  

As I was pulling the car out of the garage, I noticed the small lamp on the opener was lit.  Was in on a battery backup?  No, the power had just been restored!  I closed the door and drove off anyway.

On the next street, I saw that people were burying concrete pipes along the side of the road (improving our drainage situation).  Certainly they had cut a cable.  If *I* had done that, I would have been charged for the repair.  But the County isn't going to charge a fine to itself, LOL!

Other than having to reset a few clocks when I got back, everything was fine.

3 comments:

Meezer's Mews & Terrieristical Woofs said...

Power outs are so frustrating. We have a generator that kicks in after 30 seconds of no power from the mainline. We live rurally so we sort of need it...and in the 20 plus years it has served us well many times, a few times for longer than a day, once for almost a week, after an ice storm played havoc with the whole electrical grid around here.

Megan said...

It's annoying, isn't it? Our electricity supplier has a service that allows you to phone to hear a recorded message that indicates how long the outage is likely to be. It's very useful information as it means that you can set your expectations and organise the rest of your day. I also think it's very clever that they always provide an overestimation of how long the outage will be, so that when the power is restored earlier, you're really pleased - and aren't as cranky that you lost power in the first instance! LOL

Megan
Sydney, Australia

pilch92 said...

You are lucky your power doesn't go out for long. IN recent years we have lost it for 7 days and 4 days.

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