Deployment Woes

Yesterday at around 10 am the power went out. This was not surprising for me since the power has gone out quite a bit since we moved here and it was windy yesterday. I decided since I couldn’t use my computer I’d read the assigned chapters for this week’s assignment instead. Not a big deal.

About three hours go by and I’m getting tired of reading, plus I have a “date” to chat with Mr. I at 4pm. At this point, I’m also starting to get a bit nervous because the electricity usually comes back on by now. I figure I’ll go next door ask the neighbors if their power is on, drive by the housing office on my way to Panera to have dinner and talk to Mr. I. The neighbors aren’t home and the housing office is closed. I thought to myself, “Oh, well. I’m sure it’ll be back on by the time I come home.” So, I go to Panera, I get to talk to Mr. I and I drive back home. My neighbor meets me at the front door and at the same time we both ask each other if we have electricity. The obvious answer is no. Then she proceeds to tell me, “I think the electrical box caught on fire.” HUH?! What?! I follow her to her side of the duplex and sure enough the box is covered in black soot. Her husband is on the phone trying to call anyone and everyone. It is Saturday and the housing office has closed early. I guess they got a hold of them before they closed but the person working there earlier in the day to ask about the outage but they didn’t know who to call…don’t get me started. He ends up calling the emergency maintenance number and the electric company. They came out about an hour and a half later.

It’s about 7:00pm and it’s getting cold and dark! Apparently, the electrical box didn’t catch on fire but the wires under the ground were rubbing up against the foundation of the house which caused them to spark and inevitably shoot black soot all over the box. They didn’t get done replacing the wires until almost 10:00pm. We did have a lot of great conversation and learned that the guy working on fixing everything has been in the business for 37 years.

Now, I can add “exposed electrical wires and 12 hour power outage” on my list of deployment woes.