The 20th was "interesting"

Started this in the wee hours of 12/21/2022

Well, it’s been quite a day! I’m a night owl and shortly after I went to bed at 2:15 on the 20th, an earthquake hit. Being born and raised in California, I’m used to them and could feel it was from the south and not from the near by volcano. It was strong enough that both my sons were awakened by the shaking, but no pictures fell off the walls or anything like that, so we all went back to bed.

Morning started normal enough, my sons woke up before me. My oldest son went off to work, and right as I began to wake up things went to hell! The lights started flickering and there was a burning electronics smell- the some of the surge protectors were making zaps.

After a short bit of anxiety and frantic running around disconnecting surge protectors and flipping off the breakers, we called my older son at work and found out, no, this was not a wide spread thing (like when everyone’s power went off during the fires). It was just us.

So the next call was to the power company and after a description of what was going on, they said they would be sending out a truck. About 2 hours later, a guy in a truck showed up. I was surprised at the relatively fast service.

My son came home from work early since he was worried about possible damage to our electronics. We have about dozen surge protectors and half of them were VERY clearly “fried”. The one in the living room even left a small scorch mark. Scary! If this had happened when we were all gone, it could have been a real disaster!

I had to leave for an appointment, so my older son drove me. And I had the wrong date – it’s next week! So the trip to town wouldn’t be a total waste, I got to thinking if our power was going to be off for a while, we needed to get some more bread, cheese and other easy to do stuff. So we got that done and we headed on home.

When we got back, there were TWO trucks from the power company! Not a good sign. Our power was still off and I decided the best way to keep warm was to just take a nap- after all the morning’s excitement, I thought a redo on waking up was in order. I crashed for about 2 hours.

So while I slept, they got the power on, but now there’s this big old transformer sitting in my driveway and it looks like they are going to have come back tomorrow (?) to dig up the lines in my yard! My eldest son made a quick trip to the local hardware store and bought $150 worth of over-priced surge protectors. There weren’t enough surge protectors to do my room, so I'm spending most of my time in the living room where it's warmer. And my brand-new electric blanket (I got it on the 17th) also died. My son is still checking all his electronic stuff (he has a lot).

Fortunately, the power guys also gave us a form to get reimbursed for anything that got damaged. I went through this sort of thing years ago when I was a housekeeper/ cook for an elderly stroke victim. The transformer down the street blew and several electrical items were ”fried”. To my surprise, the claim was handled quickly- hopefully it will be the same for us this time.

We’ve gotten most everything back to running normally. Our best guess is that the earthquake messed up the rather old underground lines- the ground is still very damp from the last real storm, so maybe water got in them?

And to bolster that thought, it looks like we weren’t the only place with damage to the electrical system. Two fire engines pulled up in from of my place at about half past midnight, freaking me out for a moment. I kept going from the front door to the back door to see if they were coming to my place. But then they backed up and went to another part of the neighborhood. They had just made a left turn where they should have gone right.

Didn’t notice when they left- I’ve been watching late night rerun TV, waiting for the news to come on. So I started writing this.

Since I took a nap today, I knew I’ll be up until dawn. The way things have been going today, having someone awake all night just seemed to be a reasonable thing to do. My sons woke up at about 5 am and I went to bed. ***


12/22/2022 - just to follow up
Nothing happened yesterday, the 21st, except my sons went shopping at the nearest Walmart to get more surge protectors to finish getting all the electronics re-set up, and also a turkey for the feast. A couple of our electronics were damaged, so they will get added to the list of items we needed to get replaced. But my son did a few "work arounds" and everything related to our computers is working. I ordered another electric blanket from the same Ebay vendor. But with it being so close to Christmas, I don’t expect it until New Year’s Eve or later. Nothing from the electric company, but I had power, so "no prob".

The morning of the 22nd, power guys came in spite of a heavy fog. They did some more work and hoisted the transformer on a truck. Our power was off again for several hours. But that’s no big deal when you know it will soon be back on.

So I’m back in my cozy room, and all is back to normal, except I don’t have an electric blanket for another few days. Good thing that I’m a quilter and can just pile a few on my bed to keep myself (eventually) warm, but I'll be even happier when the new blanket arrives.

Hopefully, we are done with the excitement, and the rest of our holidays will be calmer! We have gotten all the shopping done and don't have anywhere to go until well after Christmas. However, there is a storm coming in and the weather around here is unpredictable! I know the mountain will definitely get snow, but as for us... We might have a white Christmas, or a wet Christmas!

Happy Holidays to you all,

Granny