In Which My Parents Still Don't Have Power

As I mentioned in my last post, my parents lost power at their house yesterday morning.  It is just their house and their neighbors' house -- only the two of them on the entire street.  That never bodes well in terms of how quickly you are going to get repaired.

I checked the status on the Central Hudson website last night, and it gave an estimated time of restoration.  Huzzah!  According to the website, their power was due to be restored around 12:30 this morning.  Even if it was a little later, at least they were going to get power and heat back soon.

I cropped it somewhat.  You don't need to see their address.

The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was to check and see if my parents had their power back.  I had sent my mother a text last night telling her that her power should come back overnight.  She had replied this morning.  I was expecting to see a message that said that power had been restored.  I did this before I even had coffee, which was a mistake.  I'm not a "morning person", and those who know me know better than to piss me off before I've had my coffee.  Her message said they still did not have power -- and this was several hours after the "estimated restoration" time.

Now I'm was annoyed.

So I went back to Central Hudson's Storm Central, and this is what I see when I check their status:

Seriously?  You went from 12:30am to "We don't know"?

I made some coffee, before I got any more pissed off, and called my mother to tell her the news.  She had already called and spoken to a live person at Central Hudson, and they gave her an estimation of 4:30 this afternoon.  I told her that I hoped that was correct, as the online status check had no such news.

And then she told me the part that really just pissed me off.  It probably didn't help that as she was telling me the story I was checking Central Hudson's Facebook page to see them talking about how hard they are working.

Post by Central Hudson.

That's great.  Really, I appreciate all of these people who came to help, many of whom I sure left their families on Thanksgiving to be here.  I appreciate it, I honestly do.

However, this all could apparently have been avoided --or the possibility of a power outage could have been decreased.

Their neighbor -- the one other house that has no power -- had been keeping an eye on things.  He also lived through the last go-round when their houses had been without power for four days.  He had reported to Central Hudson several times over the past few months that it appeared to be a bare wire running from the main electric line to their post.  It didn't look to have the same thicker cover over it that went from the main line to the other connections.  He had been proactive and reported this to them several times trying to avoid this exact situation.  Did anyone listen?  No.  And here they are, with no power once again.

I really should not be that surprised that they ignored him.  There is a streetlight out on my road, and I have reported it multiple times.  Two and a half years later they still have never fixed it.  Might as well bang your head against a wall as report an issue that they consider unimportant.

We shall see how this progresses.  I'm still holding out hopes that the Canadians will save the day and get their power back on quickly.