Thursday, July 21, 2016

Hot and bothered

We're having a heat wave! I am grateful I live in a first world country, no matter how crazy our leaders are acting.



Tuesday evening at bedtime, we heard a loud boom in our back yard. We have a power pole with a transformer in the yard behind us. All of our neighbors came outside in night clothes with flashlights. We figured the transformer blew in the storm with those 70 mph wind gusts. I reported the outage which they were already aware of, but because it only affected 116 residents, I assumed we weren't high priority. We made it through the night, though.



The next morning, hubby saw a repair truck up the block. The lineman said it was not a transformer issue; a power line snapped in our neighbor's yard when a heavy tree branch fell on it. He assured us power would be restored in 20 minutes.




Thank God for those power crew people. Good man! A job well done.The storm was long gone. The sun radiated, and the thermometer climbed into almost triple digits. Air conditioned breezes soothed this old gal, and I was again privy to all the news I don't need to know, about whose line it was anyway. And I'm not talking power lines.



Less than two hours later, I heard an awful rumble from the bowels of the house. We live on a busy street with large trucks passing frequently. It sounded like a semi truck with no wheels going past the house. Nothing outside, then no electricity inside, as it all came to a grinding halt.







My sweet hubby took another walk up the block. He discovered an awful mess. The top of a power pole behind a small retail plaza had snapped off, along with two attached transformers, which pulled live wires down. All of  it was laying on the ground oozing oil or some liquid in a stream down hill.


I called 911 and the firefighters came. Old men with stories to tell gathered under shade trees, swapped stories, and complained about the heat. We headed back to the house.



Hard working hubby gassed up the generator, hooked up a couple of extensions, one to the TV and fan, and one to the fridge. We were back in business. He came in pouring sweat, so he went to take a shower. When he came out of the shower, the power came back on. Apparently they swung our neighborhood to another system or something.



Hubba-bubba hubby unhooked all the wires, and headed back into the heat to wind it all up again. Came back in and took shower number two.



I am so grateful for running water, electricity, food to eat, a bed to lie in, and most of all, being hooked up with a man who knows how to hook things up. Without him, I'd have spent my day in the library.
  

8 comments:

Connie said...

Wow, you had more than your share of electrical troubles all at once. I'm glad to hear everything is working again now. You are fortunate to have a husband who knows how to keep you wired! :-)

Val said...

We don't realize how much we appreciate those first-world perks until we have to go without them! A couple of Julys ago, our power went off for 12 hours or so every week. At least I could go to my mom's house to cool off. No library for me! Our septuagenarian volunteers scare me with their sternness.

Sioux Roslawski said...

It sounds like you had a hot hubby!

DUTA said...

It's nice that your hubby can fix things. Nowadays, more and more women can also do that. It's part of their wish not to depend on anyone, even not on husbands and sons.

A power outage that lasts more than 20 minutes is terrible. Luckily we have only one or two serious outages at the beginning of winter until things settle down for the rest of the season (trees that cut off power lines during a storm , water entering neighborhood electricity boxes, and other things which have to be dealt with before winter starts, but are delayed).

Pat Wahler said...

Yikes! It's a terrible time to be without electricity. Glad you're back in business, as it's so darn hot the soles of my shoes are melting.

Pat
Critter Alley

Susan said...

Oooooooo, Linda. I can only imagine how you felt. We are due for a big heat wave this weekend. I do NOT like feeling like my face is in the hot end of a hair drier. Ooo wee. I already hit that air-conditioning button and hope to keep that baby whirling the whole sweaty weekend. Take care. Glad you're a cool babe once more. Susan

BECKY said...

Wow, you've had more than "your fair share" as the saying goes. Yes, we're definitely used to having all the "necessities" if life. I'm glad that I'm old enough to remember those years living in a house without an air conditioner, and not having a/c in a car... I can't even imagine how hard it was on housewives, cooking and baking and cleaning, etc. And for those men and women who worked outside the home...going to and from work in cars or city buses...with no a/c. I often think about those times...glad I lived then....but also really glad I'm alive now, too!

Lisa Ricard Claro said...

Oh, my gosh, talk about one thing after the other! You appear to have kept your good humor intact, and I'm sure it helped get you through it. Although spending the day at the library would have been a nice way to pass the time. ;)