Power Outage - Again!

As we were drinking coffee and catching up on the news this morning there was a loud bang - and then the power went out. But the refrigerator was still on…. I wasn’t able to get through on the app because the internet wasn’t working, and I didn’t have the phone number to call Old Dominion power to report the outage. So we decided to go for our morning walk and see if the phone worked outside. And it did. So I got on the app and reported the outage and it said the cause was “pending investigation” and it should be corrected by five PM. Usually the cause is something a little more specific. We are getting familiar with this process because it has happened at least 5-6 times since we moved to northern Virginia. It was also one of the first questions I asked about the building. And the answer was we would have a building generator. The trouble is is that the building generator only supports the emergency building items like the elevator and hallway lights - not inside of the condo units. Luckily heat nor air conditioning is needed at this time and it was morning and daylight. We saw the power trucks parked around the very ugly power poles on our way back to the house. We ran in to another building resident and he said some of the units had lights while others didn’t; some had hot water and others didn’t, etc. Apparently everyone who needed to be contacted was and it was just a matter of time. So we took the car out for a short ride and on the way back we received a notice that the power was on followed by a phone call saying the same. The odd thing is that only one clock needs to be reset in the house. This was the strangest power outage. Why it only affected parts of the building will remain a mystery. All we know it was due to a “foreign object” - whatever that means. 

Power Outage From the Storm

Since we moved from Capitol Hill to northern Virginia two years ago we have had four - or five - power outages. At least on Capitol Hill the wires were buried and any power outages were related to human error. Here, the wires are very much above ground and it was a specific question we asked about before moving - is there a generator? Ironically the first two times the power did go out we still had lighting in half of the house and the refrigerator stayed on. Last summer, the lights went out everywhere including the hallways and elevator. It was completely dark. Luckily it was the afternoon and I used my power pack to charge my phone. Last night at around 10 PM it started to lightning and pour rain. The lights flickered, came back on, then everything went out except for the back up battery light. What made it worse was that the lights were on in the building across from us as well as all the street lights. It reminded me of living in the Midwest and our one block was always dark and everyone around us always had light. There was no warning about this storm, and the weather app hadn’t indicated rain - but growing up in the south made me an expert at weather predictions. I felt it coming. So I got on the Old Dominion Power app to report the outage, called the front desk and sent an email asking what happened to the generator. We didn’t hear anything back from anyone - which I thought was odd. The power came back on at 12:30 PM. This morning we got an email from the building that the generator works in the building, but not specific units. Something has changed from when we first moved in until now. I have a feeling we will never learn why. I also found out that my phone and iPad are never charged when these things happen and that I can’t watch any streaming services without Wi-Fi. We certainly depend on electricity for so many things. It seems these outages are happening with greater frequency and storms are expected again tonight. Yippee. We will keep our flashlights at the ready. The light under my flying carpet mobile looked lovely. I suppose we can always get in the car to power up our devices and stay cool if necessary. 

No Power - Thank Goodness We Weren’t in the Elevator

We just got back home from picking up groceries at Harris Teeter. That meant an elevator ride from the parking space to our condo. Just as we settled down, everything went quiet - eerily quiet. The usual humming and noises and sounds stopped, the Wi-Fi quit, and the peep hole view looking in to the hallway was dark. The emergency light in our den was on, so I knew it was not just our condo. The office building across the street was dark. So I searched the internet for power outages and it was noted in our area. I checked dominion energy and logged in our problem and it indicated there was an outage that would be addressed between 5-10 PM. The next door digest app was full of neighbors saying they were experiencing the same thing. Verizon sent an email and text that service was disrupted. The condo building sent a text that the power was out widespread in our area. My question was - why didn’t the building generator kick in? That was one of my first questions before we bought a condo here. When we lived on Capitol Hill probably one of the few perks was underground electric. We probably had 3-4 instances of power outages over 13 years, and those were due to human error. So I got my spare phone charging battery out and zapped my phone to full charge, thinking we may need our personal hotspot later in the evening. The power was restored about 2-3 hours later, just in time to prepare dinner. We still don’t know what happened nor did we get an explanation about the generator - yet. It just makes us realize how dependent we are on electricity and how utterly helpless one feels when it’s gone. Thank goodness we weren’t in the elevator. 

Weird Week - Power Outage, Library Program, Jury Duty, Visitor, TPMS, Dinner Date

It was an unusual week. Since I've been retired for a few months, a new routine set in. It is a much more pleasant one than the daily work grind - a routine I was very happy to get away from. Monday was a power outage that lasted several hours - the second one in two weeks. After a bit of a hiatus, we went to a program at the Library of Congress. It's always a nice break to go there and I invariably run in to a past colleague or two. Unfortunately I was summoned to jury duty and was in the pool for a murder trial. Luckily they reached their quota of jurors before my group was interviewed by the attorneys. Our daughter in law was in town for the day for work and stopped in unexpectedly - always a very pleasant interruption! We realized that the TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) works just fine on our Subaru Forester. Starlink is a good thing! And last evening we had dinner at the Tabard Inn near DuPont Circle with some good friends. Now that it is Saturday, I would say it was a half and half good and bad experience this week. And for the first time in many days, it's in the 70's rather than the 90's. That means we might actually take a walk in the evening (my favorite time) rather than the morning (my husband's favorite time). And that would really cap off a very odd week indeed. 

Pepco Power Outage - the Second Time in Two Weeks

My husband woke me up out a deep sleep this morning to tell me the power was out. There's not a whole lot you can do about it except report it and try to get updates. The odd thing was was that half of the power was working. Luckily the refrigerator was, but the air conditioning and lights weren't. So I checked the pepco app and saw it was already reported with 161 affected and a 9 AM resolution time. So we decided to go for a short walk and see if pepco trucks were anywhere to be seen. We saw three on the corner and when we returned, the power turned back on at 11AM, giving us enough time to shower and make breakfast. But it went out again with even more people affected and a 2PM estimated correction time. So of course this means there is no internet service - something that was validated using the Xfinity Comcast app. Thank goodness we don't have to be anywhere or do anything - except take a ride in the car to charge the phones if it gets to that. What I'd like to know is why this has happened twice now in two weeks? It reminds me of when we lived in Milwaukee that ours was the only block in the neighborhood that had consistent power outages until they finally changed whatever was causing the problem. It was most annoying to have no electricity only to see the neighbor's across the street with all the lights on in the house. At least it's daylight and we can't really tell who is affected. It still doesn't make us feel any better.