We lost the neutral line on top of one of the poles about 75 feet from our house on Friday, March 2nd at 2:45 pm. I was not home at the time but my wife told me the power was surging through the house with the lights getting extremely bright and then dim. It's typical of what happens under this circumstance. We lost a TV about 15 years ago when the neutral line broke.
About 7-8 hours later the rest of the neighborhood saw its power restored. Not us because, buried in the woods the way we are, we're on a line that no one else shares. We were at the bottom of the list in terms of priority for restoration.
On Sunday afternoon a rep from Eversource, our power company, came up to inspect the damage. I walked him the length of our line and pointed out the damage. He assured me he would have a team up to do the repairs within a couple of hours. After almost 5 hours, two lineman were knocking on our door. I walked them back to the damage and watched them inspect the line. Of course, by now, it's 7:30 pm and its pitch black in the woods.
The two lineman mumble to each other and turn to me, informing me that they were not equipped to restore the neutral line (they never mentioned that is was the neutral, they just said they couldn't do the work). They left saying they had no idea when another team would be able to reach out to us.
Multiple calls to the power company resulting in absolutely no satisfaction whatsoever. Watching the outage map revealed a slow but steady decline in the numbers of people without power. Sunday night passed into Monday, Monday night into Tuesday. At around 10 am on Tuesday morning a bucket truck with a single driver appeared in our driveway. He was an older gentleman. We walked back to where the damage was behind the house and he immediately told me he couldn't do the repair without a second man there to help. Something to do with using a ladder as opposed to a bucket. But, he assured me that he would call is local supervisor and have someone sent up asap. He was furious that the line wasn't repaired on Sunday night, asserting that anyone would have had the necessary equipment to do the repair. He also assured me that he would call later in the day to make sure that someone had been up to do the work.
I was out later in the afternoon. Driving up my driveway at around 3:00 pm I saw a pickup and a bucket truck in the driveway. I got out and walked around the back of the house where two linemen, both older gentlemen, were fast at work getting my power restored. When they saw me they started joking about the two jackasses that ran away from doing the job on Sunday night. They were done in minutes and power was back to my house.
All was good until about 27 hours later when the entire neighborhood went down, again. So, from early Wednesday evening until about an hour ago, we were without power. So, for the last seven days, I've had power to the house for that brief interlude between Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm tired of the "Bomb Cyclones," I'm tired of people who don't want to do their jobs but I'm thankful for the old timers that repaired my line and I'm thankful for a 13,000 watt Generac generator I bought 6 years ago. Without it, I'd have lost my mind.
About 7-8 hours later the rest of the neighborhood saw its power restored. Not us because, buried in the woods the way we are, we're on a line that no one else shares. We were at the bottom of the list in terms of priority for restoration.
On Sunday afternoon a rep from Eversource, our power company, came up to inspect the damage. I walked him the length of our line and pointed out the damage. He assured me he would have a team up to do the repairs within a couple of hours. After almost 5 hours, two lineman were knocking on our door. I walked them back to the damage and watched them inspect the line. Of course, by now, it's 7:30 pm and its pitch black in the woods.
The two lineman mumble to each other and turn to me, informing me that they were not equipped to restore the neutral line (they never mentioned that is was the neutral, they just said they couldn't do the work). They left saying they had no idea when another team would be able to reach out to us.
Multiple calls to the power company resulting in absolutely no satisfaction whatsoever. Watching the outage map revealed a slow but steady decline in the numbers of people without power. Sunday night passed into Monday, Monday night into Tuesday. At around 10 am on Tuesday morning a bucket truck with a single driver appeared in our driveway. He was an older gentleman. We walked back to where the damage was behind the house and he immediately told me he couldn't do the repair without a second man there to help. Something to do with using a ladder as opposed to a bucket. But, he assured me that he would call is local supervisor and have someone sent up asap. He was furious that the line wasn't repaired on Sunday night, asserting that anyone would have had the necessary equipment to do the repair. He also assured me that he would call later in the day to make sure that someone had been up to do the work.
I was out later in the afternoon. Driving up my driveway at around 3:00 pm I saw a pickup and a bucket truck in the driveway. I got out and walked around the back of the house where two linemen, both older gentlemen, were fast at work getting my power restored. When they saw me they started joking about the two jackasses that ran away from doing the job on Sunday night. They were done in minutes and power was back to my house.
All was good until about 27 hours later when the entire neighborhood went down, again. So, from early Wednesday evening until about an hour ago, we were without power. So, for the last seven days, I've had power to the house for that brief interlude between Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm tired of the "Bomb Cyclones," I'm tired of people who don't want to do their jobs but I'm thankful for the old timers that repaired my line and I'm thankful for a 13,000 watt Generac generator I bought 6 years ago. Without it, I'd have lost my mind.