The Night the Lights Went Out

I've been in Atlanta for a few days. On Thursday night we went back to the Trailer. When we got there is was dark, not just the sun going down but the trailer lights and the carport automatic lights did not come on.

Not Good. But not that bad. I've had similar problems before with the trailer blowing a breaker or Entergy losing power, although I thought since summer was over that particular problem would subside.

I checked that panel in the trailer the main breaker was tripped. I reset the breaker and still no power.

I checked the panel in the house and all of the breakers were fine. There must be an Entergy outage in the area. I went out and checked around the neighborhood.

I was wrong. The power was out but only in my house. There were circuit breakers blown in the trailer but not in the house.

She called Entergy and they told us they would send someone right out, sometime between 7:30 and 10:40. Yes that accurate 10:40. I have no idea how they arrived a that particular time span.

We decided to go store the groceries we had just bought. Entergy said we didn't need to be there. At about 7:15 She got an automated call on her cell phone saying that the problem had been corrected. We turned around a headed back to the Trailer.

When we got there still no power. I checked and Entergy had indeed been there. They removed the seal from the meter but had not done anything else. We called Entergy again. Again they said they would send someone out before 10:40. I decided to stay and if necessary spend the night as we could not be sure what Entergy would need when they came back out.

She decided to wait for a while and see what happened. About 15 minutes later another Entergy guy showed up in a bucket truck. That seemed a little odd as our electric service is underground.

It took him about 15 minutes to determine that all of the wires from the manhole in the sidewalk to the house were dead. He tried several ways to get the service back up but it was useless. He offered to have another larger crew come out and see if they could replace the wire or rig a temporary supply that night, but he said he it would be late, very late and he wasn't sure they could really do anything anyway. He suggested we go stay somewhere else, if we could.

She could go to her mothers I was considering staying in the trailer anyway, it was cool and I didn't need electricity to sleep. Eventually I realized that I did need electricity for hot water so I went with her.

The next morning I dropped her off at work and headed to the house. Entergy was there setting up when I got there. Two guys gave me a run down on what they were going to do and the possible things they could do to get us back up. They also said they might not be able to fix it.

I went about some chores I had to do and let them work. In a little while they came and told me it was no good. There was a short in the underground cable either under the house or under the driveway. I would need to get an electrician to replace the service.

They gave me their numbers and told me since I was living they they would put me at the top of the list as soon as I was ready and they would come and hook me up.

Great. I am now trailerless.