Call 911

Just after 10am we heard a crash, on this windy but otherwise beautiful day. Not the kind of sound you like to hear when you’re browsing the internet from the safety of your home. I could hear that it wasn’t the giant oak next door, but the noise came from out front. Yup, a tree went down.

It missed the pickup and definitely didn’t reach the house. Yay!

But, it did swish a power line affecting us, and brought down the feeder line for a neighbor. We had a couple of surges, and then the Guru shut off the power to the house at the breaker box. There was a teeny hot electrical smell, and that’s never a good thing, but we couldn’t quite localize it. Not the TV. Not the upstairs furnace.

After no-show by the power company, the Guru called the non-emergency number for the fire department…and was told it was a 911 situation, yes sir. So, he called 911. And soon a fire truck showed up. Not from the station around the corner, but one from a bit farther away. Why? Because they have the high crane/ladder (not needed, but, hey, am I a fire-person? do I know these things? nope).

Firemen are good guys and gals (just guys on our street, today). After plenty of phone time and standing around, they donned safety gear and fired up a chain saw and cleared the street. And took down most of the yellow plastic warning tape.

They also told the Guru that he could turn the breakers back on. Several had switched. It turned out that two surge protectors had done their final work, saving the TV and my desktop machine (and producing smells). There’s at least one more breaker that isn’t happy (bathroom fan upstairs), and the Guru relit the downstairs furnace, but it won’t turn on. It’s cool and will be cold tomorrow morning, but then it’ll warm up!

Later, I saw a contractor truck working on the overhead lines, not one with a Georgia Power logo on the side, so I assume our neighbor has power again.

And how was your day?

One comment

  1. Puppetlady says:

    You have quite a history of errant trees. Of course it was April Fools Day.