When the Power Goes Out

Wednesday, November 05, 2014 by Carin Diaz 0 Comments A ⁺ a ^-

Coming home in a blackout welcomed me in the house yesterday. Weird. Part of the house had

Sirloin steak on top of veggies, after the power outage.

power like the basement, half of the master’s bedroom outlets, and the fridge. Since the microwave, stove, and washers run with electricity, we could not use them.

To make it easy for dinner time, I bought burgers from Wendy’s . That is one thing my teens screamed for joy about as I rarely get burgers for take out. They love fast-food hamburgers. They were not happy about the loss of internet though. We even plugged the modem downstairs where there was power. It still did not work.

By morning, we had our power back but still no internet. I walked the dog outside as usual and guess what I found? At the back of the house were crushed cable and electricity boxes. Upon research (questioning neighbors) I found out that the city-hired yard workers ran over the boxes, crushed them with their machine, and managed to pull out the cables and wires. First, I got mad. How on earth did they do that? How incompetent, I thought. Then, I thought it had to be an accident and not intentional. I hope nobody got hurt.

It is obvious; they did not finish the job as they left the cut off branches from a tree behind my fence. I wondered why they did not notify me about the accident. Paul, my son, and I were like crazy taking turns with the electric service panel, checking if a circuit breaker was tripped, resetting the breaker off and on in the darkness of the backyard at 8:30 at night.

Frustrated, we all went to bed early because our efforts did not return the power back. We needed and electrician we thought.

Lessons Learned (What to Do During Home Power Outage)

Thank you, Paul, my electrical engineer (not an electrician) for the tips.

Make sure your hands and the floor are dry to avoid a possible electric shock hazard, make sure your hands and the floor are dry. Oh, did I say that already?
Check home's electric service panel. Mine is a gray metal box on an exterior wall of the basement by the outside electric meter.
In the panel, check if a circuit breaker is tripped. If so, reset the breaker by moving the switch off and on.
If a particular breaker keeps tripping (or fuse keeps blowing), there may be a problem on that circuit. For safety's sake, have an electrician check it out.
If the above does not work, check with neighbors to see if they also have no power.
Report power outage immediately.

I am glad to have the power back at home though. I was able to make my own food, and eat healthy food too. Here is my today’s food diary for day 7.