I've mentioned before that a "hurricane" in the opening weeks after your birth led to a power outage that caused our shiny new family to spend a few days living in a hotel. But in digging up some old work today, I was reminded that you were present for a previous power outage. One that did not result in three days of free breakfast, but one that resulted in the following column:
http://www.nvdaily.com/news/2011/03/matt-pallister-a-failure-of-power-frustrates.php
Here is the text version because I don't trust the Internet:
Dear SVEC,
Nothing disgruntles a customer more than a shivering, pregnant wife standing in the middle of a darkened living room nine hours after the power went out.
That's the image stuck in my head after the Feb. 25 outage affecting parts of Frederick County. It's an image that, more than a week later, still makes me angry.
The whole episode is especially frustrating given that an increasingly larger portion of my salary has been devoted to paying you the last few months. I think it's fair for any customer to expect that, in exchange for the significant increase in payments during the winter, the power will not go out from the middle of the afternoon to the middle of the night. I'm paying a lot for your service; I should be able to count on it.
I understand interruptions are inevitable, especially in the winter. But this is the 21st century. We live outside of town, but in a fairly large residential area. We're not isolated on a vast prairie. And while it was a very windy day, there was nothing limiting access to the area. It wasn't a snowstorm. Service should have been restored completely long before the temperature in our living room began to plummet.
The power initially went out shortly after 3 p.m., and we were quick to report it. The power returned about 4:30 p.m., but only briefly. Eventually, darkness set in and it wasn't until after 10 that there was light. I got a call from my wife telling me everything was OK. That made me feel much better. Then I got another call five minutes later saying it was dark again. And 51 degrees.
When I finally got back to the neighborhood, some of the houses had lights on. Not ours or any around us. After close to an hour of trying not to think about how cold it was, we decided to make a trip to Wal-Mart. It was 15 miles away, but nothing else was open, and we needed to warm up.
My wife, brilliant even when she's freezing (and has a bad cold) suggested I ask the team of workers down the road if they had any idea what time we could expect the lights to come back on. So I did.
I pulled up close to where your crews were working, just a few blocks from the house, walked over like I belonged and asked a nice, older man with glasses who seemed to be in charge if he knew the ETA on when our power would be restored. I was surprised by the response.
"The power's out up there?"
"Yeah, has been all day, since about 3."
"The power's out here (pointing to the house a few feet away)."
"It's also out at our house and all around it. If you go up a few blocks and take a right, you'll see none of the houses has power. It's completely dark."
"Well, we're not from this district, but we'll check it out."
"OK, thanks. We're running to Wal-Mart to get out of the cold. Hopefully this gets fixed soon."
We got back within an hour, disappointed to find the house still dark. So I hopped back into the car and sought out the crews again. I was told the power was turned back on as I was walking up to them.
Sure enough, when I got back this time, light. I walked through the door with a big smile on my face and started to dig through the refrigerator (which thankfully was still relatively cold). You can guess what happened next.
Back out I went. This time, I noticed the crews were sitting in their trucks. At least somebody was keeping warm. I was told a fuse must have blown and it was being checked out. I stormed off.
About 20 minutes later, about 1:30, as we lay in bed under every blanket in the house, the lights went on. This time, for good. I was finally able to make a sandwich. It was 10 hours after the initial outage. It was 48 degrees.
The kicker to all this, though, is that we went an entire day without power, but still ended up paying for it because the emergency heat immediately kicked in when the power was restored. Wonderful.
Sincerely,
An average customer
Dad
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