I heard a sound coming from somewhere in our house last night close to midnight. The sound was similar to when one of the cats knock their smaller condo or a chair over. I could not find anything disturbed so blew it off. Ten minutes later I notice a bunch of red and blue lights outside our living room windows reflecting into the house through the minute spaces in the windows blinds. I peek out one window to see several cop cars and a fire truck in the road. I thought maybe a neighbor had a small fire or something since it was thundering and lightning out. I look out a second window and see that yellow crime tape attached to the corner of our house going out to a tree.
I thought what the hell? I pictured a silhouette of a dead man in my driveway.
I threw shoes on and went out the back door looking for the dead man silhouette but no such luck. Instead I almost walked into a drooping high voltage line coming off our house almost touching the driveway and resting on our backyard fence. I also saw 10 or more firemen and a few cops all standing in the rain in the road by my driveway talking.
I went back into the house and as I got more dressed so I could go see what was up a fireman knocked at the front door. He said we should evacuate our house because a tree (on our neighbors property) was hit by lighting and fell on the power lines (going to my neighbor’s house) pulling the utility pole on an angle away from our house which then pulled our electric, phone and cable lines almost completely off the house so they were slack.
They wanted us to evacuate because the electric company probably would not be there for hours since the storm caused similar problems all around our area. They said if the utility pole falls further over and the electric lines get completely torn off the house (including the mast) then a fire would be very likely.
Well the downed lines went directly in front of both garage doors so we could not get either car out to go to a motel so we stayed all night.
They closed the road (well there was a tree completely across it anyway. Barricaded our driveway the perimeter of the utility pole, etc, and then left for the night.
In the morning Spitfire walked to her work which is a half hour walk or so from our house. I worked from home since I have VPN to our terminal server, company cell phone, etc.
Finally around 11:00 AM today a contractor for the electric company came out and reattached the electric wires to my house in a rather fucked up manner. Half assed threw the phone and cable wires back on the house and said to call the phone/cable companies to have them fix it right. He also said that his company won’t touch the pole because it’s Ameritech’s responsibility and the city would have to clear the tree out of the road. He suggested I call the city about the tree blocking the road. I told him I could care less about the tree and thanked him for his crappy ass work.
I was able to go to a 1:30 meeting that I wanted to catch at one of our facility’s 45 miles away and still make it to Spitfire’s work by 5:00 to give her a ride home since it was 95 degrees F. with the humidity and all.
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posted 07-22-2004 10:22 PM
