One day (I don't remember which one) I took the train home from work because Hubs needed to work late. I normally don't like to take the train home, but this night it was convenient because I needed to pick up some groceries and there is a small grocery store between my house and the station. After leaving the store, it is only a few minutes walk to the house.
After picking up some essentials in the market, I crossed the parking lot to get to my street. When I rounded the corner to approach my casa though, I was stopped dead in my tracks by yellow caution tape! Our end of the street was completely blocked off by tape, fire trucks, police, and ComEd workers. I panicked because we’ve had several break-ins in our neighborhood recently and I was convinced someone had gotten into our house. The dogs! My homework (saved on my computer)! My imagination was running wild...
I ducked under the tape and sequestered a fireman- what on earth was happening?!? The fireman explained that a concrete truck had knocked over the electrical pole right across from our house. The truck was too tall and when it tried to drive past it got caught on the wires and pulled the whole pole over--breaking it near the base and disconnecting the wires from our house (and the neighbors). So that explained the electric people swarming all over our yard and the road.
At first I didn’t think the fireman would let me through because there were wires zigzagging all over the ground, but he reassured me that I was safe (as long as I didn’t touch them—Don’t worry sir, I wasn’t going to grab them). As I walked over to my house, I could see the pole- snapped in two like a twig. Honestly, I was happy to see it down. Hubs and I always felt that pole was a death trap; it was leaning over precariously way back when we first moved in.
As I approached my front steps, another fireman stopped me to find out where I was going. I explained to him that I was headed into my house and had gotten permission at the end of the street. For a brief moment, I thought this new guy was going to tell me to turn around, but then he nodded towards the house and said that when I got inside I should walk around and see if there was any smoke or if I smelled burning. He explained that sometimes when electricity is ripped away suddenly, appliances can short circuit and start fires.
Aghhhh! I hurried into the house and did a quick tour- checking the washer and dryer, fridge, stove, every room. Goodness knows my wonderful, old house is just a big tinderbox full of 100 year old wood.
But praise God, everything was fine. Even the dogs seemed calm, despite the mayhem out the front window. Trust Judson to keep quiet and calm when there is actually something of substance going on.
ComEd was incredibly efficient. They showed up just minutes after the truck knocked the pole over and stayed until they got the electricity back on around 10pm. I thought it would take them days to get everything back up and running, but they were awesome—They had the old pole out and a new one in within two hours. Hubs and I sat outside on the front porch and watched the whole thing. I briefly wondered if we were bothering the workers, but dismissed it quickly because we had nothing else to do (reminder- buy a battery operated lantern for emergencies/power outages).
Now, we have a brand new pole. It is the straightest and tallest one on the street- not that I'm comparing... We also have new wires running to our house. The only real bummer is that we lost our Comcast connection. No more cable for me (sad face). Se la vie- I’ve been doing a lot more cleaning, reading and exercising without The Food Network to distract me.
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