We were just ready to watch the local news at 6:00 AM when there was a thud/boom. I momentarily thought a bird hit the window, but instantaneously our electric went off.
I texted PPL (our electric company) to report it and messaged the neighbors on either side of us. Karen (to our south) said she heard an explosion, but they had electric. Sarah (to our north) also had power, so Cerwin went outside to check if something happened to our transformer.
Notice anything that doesn’t belong there? This poor squirrel made one fatal step.
It’s amazing how one small misstep affected his life (forever) and ours (for a few hours).
PPL came shortly after 8:30 – just as I was going outside for a morning walk. I watched as he turned off the power and dropped the squirrel to the ground.
Before long (9:00 am) we were back on the grid.
It’s amazing how much we miss electric when it is off for 3 hours. No water for a shower; no lights for getting dressed and combed; my coffee got cold without the automatic cup heater by my La-Z-Boy; no news; no internet; and no microwave.
We have a propane stove, which we can light with a match when there is no electric, consequently Cerwin toasted bread by using a long fork and I reheated my coffee.
It was nice to be back to “normal”.
We are so spoiled with electric and quick service when it goes off.
We are in a week-long (or more) heat wave, with wind warnings too. We call it a red flag warning. There have been too many fires sparked by our outdated power transmission lines, mostly a little north of here, recently. SoCal Edison now pre-emptively turns off sections of the grid in such conditions (especially with winds) — they have warned this week the parts of the South Coast could be without power for a week or more — so far it’s just a warning, and today’s a different situation (with no winds), but Santa Barbara and the 50 miles or so north of that may be without power for the rest of the week, just as the temperatures hit 100 and above! Hopefully, this will prevent brush fires, but at what cost!
Oh, wow. And we only had to deal with 3 hours.
This could happen repeatedly, every time there’s a heat wave during the summer!