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Where were you when the lights went out
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By WENDY MITCHELL
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I don’t mind an occasional electrical outage, but lately every time a deer passes wind in the woods, the power on the Piqua grid goes off.
Sometimes it is just a few minutes, sometimes much longer, but off is off, and it is almost always at night.
It has already been off over five hours.
So, go to bed you say.
Did I mention the electric is off?
No air conditioning means no sleeping at Casa Mitchell in July.
The airport level noise of the A/C and ceiling fan are what lull Rooster to slumber.
I have to be tired out by CSI reruns on TV.
No electric, no sleep.
Even if we did manage to fall asleep, the lights were on when we lost power; and I don’t know which ones. This place is likely to light up like a disco when it come on … waking us up.
Sure I understand there are sometimes severe storms which mean prioritizing response calls. And as those of us in Piqua who watched utility trucks pass by our doors every day for six days in February, 2003, know, Piqua is at the bottom of the utility food chain.
Ooh was that them ...?
No, probably someone just looking for a catalytic converter.
I couldn’t even get through to the utility company to report it this time, I know Mason, Bracken, Fleming and Lewis got hit too in this storm.
What bothers me is that the electric goes out here with little provocation lately and that leads me to believe there is another reason our grid is so sensitive.
‘Scuse me, I thought I heard frozen foods in my freezer getting melted again. That may not be healthy. (But tomatoes are safe again.) Looks like hamburger helper for dinner tomorrow.
If I had a solar power or wind generated back up source I would at least not be typing this in the dark; spell check is getting a work out.
The battery on this computer will give out in about one hour, 45 minutes.
If utility companies would cooperate in individual installation of such devices, as wind turbines or solar panels for individual homes just think about how much fuel would be saved. Even a small kilowatt generating device could offset some fuel usage.
Sure we could invest in a gas or diesel generator. It would make the noise Rooster requires to fall to sleep, but it also has to be checked every few hours. It also consumes fuel like a chipmunk stuffing its cheeks with nuts.
For the price of a cheap generator and enough fuel to run it for a day there are individual wind turbines on the market which would help and not impact the environment as badly.
If every individual household in the U.S. saved 400 kilowatts a month there would have to be a positive effect.
One of our bills would nearly disappear.
Instead of another economic stimulus check pretty much filtering down to big oil companies, fueling the economies overseas; maybe the government could train some of the job seekers in solar and wind generator installation and put up a few million of these units on individual homes. Use Kentucky as a test case.
And maybe the utility companies could cooperate when customers ask them about alternative energy.
Happy anniversary honey … where are you? Are you in the house? Rooster?
It is 11:52 p.m.; do you know where your utility repair truck is? |
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