OT and hard to belive but true

[dtel]

Last night we had some bad weather come through.

At about 2:30 am the electricity goes out, I light a couple of candles so if anyone gets up they can see a little.

I go back to sleep thinking it will be back on in a hour or two I get back up at 7:30 and still no power. We never called because all the phones are cordless and don't work without power to the base, and the cell phones don't work unless you drive a couple miles at least. I figured someone on our street would call and report it.

Wrong guess, we were the only ones without power.

The power company comes out and there is a fuse blown on the transformer at the top of the pole.

A 4' snake climbed up the pole and shorted it out and blew the fuse. I thought the man was BS'ing me but when I walked out to the pole there was a snake, somewhat crispy in spots at the bottom of the pole.

I guess the snake thought it was a tree ? We had that happen about 20 years ago with a squirrel, now with a snake.

I guess it's not that unusual, I thought it was !

[colterphoto1]

Moral of the story:

1. Always have a non A/C powered, hard-wired phone for such emergencies and the power company number nearby. Plus they just sound better.

2. Always call on an outage- you never know how many homes were affected or if it's been reported.

Glad everything worked out okay for everyone (but the snake) mmm snake fritters! [+o(]

Some squirrels built a next in a telephone switch box in our neighborhood. Took the crew a full day to track it down and figure out which pole it was on.

Michael

[Daddy Dee]

wow. I've seen and heard the same thing with a squirrel. Not much left of those critters. Odd that a snake would climb that high on a pole.

[oldtimer]

Squirrels fry on power lines all the time. That was one motivated snake. It must have been looking for a nest of some kind to raid but it is late in the year for that kind of score.

[boom3]

Our power was out for about 2 hours Monday afternoon, right after work. I stopped and got take-out. After supper, I pulled out my youngest Trans-Oceanic and began to listen to shortwave, the lack of interference was wonderful. With two aquariums, X10, three air cleaners, five computers, about 8 UPSs, plus all the usual appliances, we have RFI de luxe. I had been listening to the radio for no more than 10 minutes when FZZZRRRP! the power came back on, all the compressors, pumps, fans etc kicked in. Oh well...put the radio away, back to the 21st century.

[PhilMays]

I had a hotel once where a snake slid across the contactors and fried. We had to help people off the elevator and the elevator service found the culprit...it was a copperhead...I hate copperheads!

[dtel's wife]

I hate snakes.

[Tom Adams]

Ha! A few years back the A/C went out on my house and after checking everything I could I called the A/C people. The tech checks the compressor outside and everything is fine. Goes into the attic to check the air handler and says, "Found the problem. You have a bad circuit board and I'm sure I have one on the truck. It'll be $150."

I ask him if he knows why the circuit board went bad and he shows me. It appears mister big as* roach got across two traces on the CB and slooooooooowly fried. HA!! [Y]

Unfortunately it also fried my CB!! [:@]

Tom

[Marvel]

Working as a news photg in the '70s (darn, showing my age again!), living in Memphis, they had a firemen's strike. Police were on alert for whatever. Had a major outage from a substation going down, and it turned out to be a squirel that blew out the system. Also had a security guard at a substation drinking on the job and just went down a row of huge breakers and turned off the power to a whole neighborhood.

Bruce