Some Days...

Day 9: Ever have one of Those Days when you don't even feel like you should bother shaving? I was awakened some time between 4 and 5 AM by what sounded like a gunshot. It took me a second to realize that the dim light of my digital clock wasn't brightening the bedroom. Yeah, I should have known that was coming. We had a wind-and-rain storm last night, and the power had gone out. It wasn't particularly cold, so I just pulled the covers up over my head and went back to sleep. Our PUD (Public Utility District) is large geographically but serves a significantly smaller number of people proportionately than, say, Tacoma City Light. When the lights go out, they're usually only out for an hour or two. I figured I'd have power again by breakfast time.

I was wrong. When I got up, the house had cooled down substantially. I was going to have to argue with the propane fireplace whether I wanted to or not. It's invariably cranky the first time I light it up each year, and today was no exception. Once I got it to stay lit, I settled into my chair to crochet by headlamp. Ten minutes into a row, the fire sputtered and went out, a new variation on its normal recalcitrance. I struggled with it for twenty minutes but when I couldn't get it to re-light, I decided to let it rest for a bit before trying again. I figured there might have been some water condensation in the line. Eventually, I got it to light and stay on, but at 11 o'clock, I still didn't have power.

I don't usually like to bother PUD Dispatch, but since this was an unusually long outage for us, I thought I'd better call. The dispatcher was surprised by the news. He'd already sent his crews home after a rough night because they'd reported that all repair tickets were completed. He told me he'd have to try to round up "somebody who's home" (remember, this is Sunday), but assured me that I would have my lights back by evening.

At 4, I called again to see if he'd made any progress on finding a repairman. He had, and they'd tried to reach me, but the road between Morton and Elbe was washed out. He was sending a crew the long way around, i.e., through Chehalis, Tenino and Yelm. "They'll be there in a few hours," he said. When the crew finally arrived, it took them all of five minutes to remove the branches from the line and replace the fuse which had blown. The outage had only affected me and my two neighbours, and neither of them had called in. If I had only called Dispatch immediately, I wouldn't have had to spend my day in the gloom.