Power Down

Around 9 a.m. yesterday (friday) morning I opened the back door to let the pooches outside for their morning business. As they sped out, I heard a loud crackling sound, and as I looked around to see what was happening, the power line that runs from our house to the line in the alley fell into our back yard. It freaked Fred out, and he came in right away. Belly, on the other hand, isn't so easily unnerved and it took several minutes to get her back into the house. I didn't want to go outside to see what had happened, so I went to the back back door (the one in our room) and opened it to see what I could see. Turns out that the line that runs from the main line in the alley up to the house is run through a pvc pipe and attached to the house with a bracket around said pvc tube. This bracket had come apart from the house, and said tube had fallen to the ground. (Not sure if this had anything to do with the fact that the back and south sides of the house were covered in ice- even the windows were covered and could not be seen out of.) We called the power company, to see if they could turn off the power, have the electricians (the ones that put the lines in the pvc tube and attached to the house as the old way was dangerous and not up to code when we moved into the house) re-attach the line to the house, and have the power company put the power back on. The man said he would call PJ back when he was on his way to cut off power to the house, but as the number of customers without power grew in number in the radio reports, we thought we'd better hedge our bets and wait until Monday. The people who didn't have power needed to take priority. So there's a power line in the back yard. Needless to say, the car is parked out front, and the dogs are being walked. And even tho I am angry about the expense, I am grateful that we were able to stay warm and have light and provide shelter to our friends last night.