I was working at my desk last week, on the computer, fairly focused when “Kaboom!!!”, and then everything went dark. I fully expected to turn my head to the right and find that my neighbor’s house had imploded, and was now nothing more than a pile of rumble, but it looked just at it had only moments before. Stunned and not knowing what exactly had happened, I moved my eyes around the room taking in the sights outside every window from where I sat, almost afraid to move. There is only one thing that makes that kind of explosive bellow, causing the power to be suddenly extinguished. A transformer had blown, but I was checking for something more villainous, just in case I was wrong!
The computer screen was black, the t.v. was dark, the hum of the refrigerator had been silenced, and the air conditioner had gone quiet. “Oh no! Not the air conditioner!” While most of the country is shaking out sweaters and donning wool socks, perhaps enjoying the silky warmth of hot chocolate, Florida is still basking in the warmer days of summer, even if the calendar does say October. No air conditioner reminded me of our all too recent encounter with Hurricane Irma, and I wasn’t interested in revisiting days without this comfort. What to do?
I tapped on the Florida Power and Light app on my phone and reported the outage. To their credit they were already aware, and reported back that there were five of us in the neighborhood effected. Seriously! Only five? Since when did I get so lucky? They gave me an estimated time for repairs to be done and apologized for the inconvenience. Okay, I could handle a couple of hours. Drop a few blinds to mitigate the outside heat from sneaking inside and use it as an excuse for not finishing the housework. I certainly didn’t want to work up a sweat!
Not much later, Kim called from work saying he had gotten a message from FPL saying the power was back on. Really? News to me. I was right here and I saw no signs that it was. The app told me to flip the main breaker if I didn’t have power, which I did, but nope…no power. So, I reported the outage again. An hour later I checked in with FPL. Good news, “Your power has been restored”. Looking around I could safely say, “No, no it had not.” I reported the outage yet again.
The indoor temperature continued to climb and now I was getting reports from FPL that it was going to take a little longer than they originally expected, and probably wouldn’t be back on till 8:30 that evening. Bummer! Checking in a bit later, the time and date had changed to an expectation of power just after midnight. Midnight! The inside and outside temperature currently matched! Patience was running on empty! This saga began at 11:30. It was now approaching 4:00 and the only messages I was getting from FPL were either erroneous or discouraging.
I checked again. Miracle of miracles! FPL said the power had been restored to my address! Do they even know where I live? All was quiet in the house. Too quiet. Electrical appliances make noise. We’ve become accustom to it, don’t even notice it, except when they aren’t making it. Then we notice. I flipped the main breaker again. Still nothing. What…did they think I would take them at their word? That I wouldn’t notice? I may not know the specifics of electricity, but I do know when I don’t have it, and I didn’t have it now!
Again I reported the outage. The message had now changed. A crew was on their way. Well now, that was an improvement! Within the hour I heard the beautiful rumble of a heavy truck. This time when they said I had power, I really did!
You may wonder why I didn’t just call FPL? The only number to call was for a downed live power line. That’s an emergency. What I had was an inconvenience. Those were to be reported through the app. I have no problem doing that, but might I suggest they work on that app. It lies!