The electricity has been up and running for about 5 days now. We got lucky, as there are still thousands of households across the state with no power.
I've got to hand it to our local electric company. They had a crew out the next day to fix the electric pole that had broken directly behind us (which was, I'm sure, the main reason our neighborhood was in the dark). These guys worked from noon until 8:00 pm putting up a new pole and getting all the lines attached and reconnected. Not only that, they did it in bitterly cold weather with a light rain falling on them intermittently.
The electricity prices in this town have always been too high and that's not likely to change. We still have a right, I believe, to bitch and moan about that. But despite it all, the people on the repair crews definately earned that money this past week.
The guy behind the counter at Burger King told me that he spoke to one electric company worker who'd had 9 hours of sleep in the last 5 days. Now there's a man who deserves a nice LONG paid vacation after this is all over. NINE HOURS SLEEP IN 5 DAYS! Can you imagine that? I'd be bouncing off the walls making life miserable for any and everyone within 50 yards of me.
So here's a toast to these hard working men and women who have restored to us the most taken-for-granted "convenience" this world has ever known.
Bottoms up, fellars.
