I live in the NW Atlanta burbs, in a neighborhood that used to be the out in the country but now you can't swing a cat without hitting a chain drug store or a nail salon in a strip mall. But that's progress, right?
In the old days when the power went off, I'd get in the car, ride the streets between the house and the main road, see something wrong and call the dispatcher at the power company and report the problem. It might take a few calls to get through since he was the only man answering the phone but eventually we'd talk, he'd let me know what was going on, assign a crew and roughly when the power would come back on. I'd know for certain the problem was known, there might be other outages but I knew they knew about it and our outage would get fixed in turn.
But that was the old days...
We had a "snow event" here starting yesterday morning(as usual, the weather forecasters were calling it a "50% chance of light frozen mix in the morning") until it started snowing at 7:00 AM and didn't stop. Then the forecast changed to 1-4" of accumulation. It snowed all day, big fat fluffy flakes that built up on the tree limbs. Today after it finally quit snowing there was 10" of snow on the cars in the driveway, so much for the weathermen.
Our power went out at 6:00 PM yesterday, I figured it was a temporary thing and I was right, it came back on around 9:00. By then trees were shedding limbs like a cat shedding a winter coat, it sounded like a war zone outside. 15 minutes later we were in the dark. And we've been there ever since.
I made my run up to the corner, at the corner before the street hit the main road there was a tree fallen across the power lines and high-voltage lines laying in the road. The shotgun fuses on the circuit had blown so there wasn't any of the arcy-sparky thing going on but the street was blocked and power to the whole subdivision was out. I first tried to call in and use the computerized phone system but the line was busy. 25 redials later the same thing. So I went to the website on the iPhone, go to the report outages page, no joy: "Problem with the network". Then to their outage map where you can put in an address only to find that my address "can't be found in the company's service area". That was a surprise, they've been sending bills to this address since 1972. Maybe I should ask for my money back with interest?
So here I am 30 hours later, no power, no word from the power company. I've repeatedly emailed and Tweeted with no acknowledgement that me or my neighbors exist or that our power is out. My daughter found a post on their Facebook feed that said not to pay attention to what their outage maps showed, they were't right. The map shows 38,000 outages but they say they're down to 11, 000. Their Twitter feed continues to tell people to call the phone # that doesn't work, use their online report page(which still gives a network error) or, if all else fails to email member services with your outage. But don't expect a response, they're too busy. Thank God for my two Honda generators, I'd have lost 2 refrigerators and a freezer full of food if not for them.
Ain't progress wonderful?
So I gave in tonight and dialed 911 to report the downed lines as a life-safety issue. Hopefully they can talk to a live person at the EMC.
I worked for a power company many years ago and I know that the guys on the trucks are busting ass to get everything back up. They're great people trying to do a difficult and dangerous job as fast as they can. It ain't easy working a 48-hour shift with a few 30-minute breaks to grab a nap or something to eat at the Waffle house. They're the heroes when something like this happens.
The geeks that "value-engineer" the computer systems that can't provide their customers with the information they need when they're cold and in the dark are the zeroes, they should all be fired along with the bean counters that hired them. Or better yet, have to work as a grunt on a line truck for a year or two.
Rant over, soapbox back under the bench. Apologies but I'm just pissed about the no-contact thing. We're supposed to call this "progress"?
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