We Can Only Depend On Ourselves

Typical Flood From Hurricane
Photo Source: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Author: Martin Taylor

Okay so we had everything thrown at us in one week. First we had an earthquake, but thank goodness it wasn't very serious where I am located, but then we had the hurricane. The hurricane did a lot more damage. I don't live near the shore, but some of those that do lost homes. Others shore dwellers had tons of structural damage and flood damage and some even have the ocean on their doorstep now. The beach is gone, the walkways down to the beach are gone and you can forget about front yards. With the water now so close, they better hope that we don't get another storm until something is done like rebuilding the shoreline, which isn't apt to happen for quite a while, or in some cases at all. All this is bad enough, but the area I live in is full of trees and they were down everywhere, blocking many different streets.

It is bad enough when a tree falls, but it is a lot worse when it is in an area that has overhead power lines. One home that I know of has a tree from their neighbor's property laying across their driveway and it has been laying there for days now, but the most dangerous part of this is that it has a power line wrapped around it. True there is no electricity in that area yet, but the people are afraid that when it comes on, there will be a fire and burn down their home. There is power out in a couple of hundred thousand homes in this area and it is 5 days after the storm when I am writing this. My area is the worst for power restoration. Somehow I luckily avoided any real damage and no power outage and the family has been staying with me off and on. It has been very hectic here, but it is a good feeling to be able to help.

Power Lines
Photo Source: Stock.xching

So why is it that everywhere else power restoration is proceeding much faster? That is a question that should really be looked into. I do know that since there is a couple of million people in my area and all power lines are above ground that makes things very dicey in a powerful storm. We have lost power may times since I have lived here and the worst was for three days. I have never seen it taking this long to restore power. Signs have appeared on people's laws deriding the electric company, another thing that I have never seen before. For many people out here, this area has become a third world country. We were told that the electric company got a couple of thousand more people from other states to help with restoring power, but I have yet to see one of their vehicles. Could this have been just a story meant to appease the people of this area?

Protest Against The Electric Company Taking So Long To Restore Power
Photo Source: Ken, About Facts Net

Some people are now saying that power was intentionally turned off in some areas to save others and that this put a strain on some of the equipment which then blew out. I have no way to verify this, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me. This is the same electric company that had been charging me commercial rates and when I found out, refused to refund the entire amount, only the last 3 years. This is also the same company that was not only charging for electric being used, but a delivery charge that sometimes was far in excess of the amount charged for that used electricity. This is also the same company that built a nuclear reactor that had to be shut down because of shoddy construction and never saw the light of day after billions were poured into it. It is also the same electric company that gave out emergency telephone numbers for the storm that were wrong, can you believe that? Is it no wonder that everyone around here hates the electric company?

The electric company likes to say things like this percentage and that percentage of outages will be restored shortly. What they really should be saying is the amount of people that will still be without power. They avoid this number like the plague. Another point is their percentages that they cite are gravely in doubt. They don't want to say that after a week there could still be tens of thousands of people without electric.

Beach Erosion
Photo Source: Stock.xcvhing

There are companies that are no better. Try and get something fixed that just happened to break even before the storm, like a fence that had a warranty on it from a place like Lowes. I tried and was told to go to FEMA. This is for a fence that was installed 4 months ago and is leaning, the only one in the entire area. Obviously it was not installed correctly. I will never deal with Lowes again. Rather than come out and look at the fence they just blow you off. I insisted that look at it and they said a particular person would call, who never did. I called his cell phone the next day and he was not answering. He hadn't called back when they said he would. The problem today is that many of the companies that we are forced to depend on, are not reliable Other companies that we employ do everything to get out of backing up their warranties It reminds me of an incident from many years ago when a friend had a Chrysler product that had 6 weeks left on the warranty. He brought it to the dealer because his transmission was slipping and the dealer kept the car for 6 weeks and then told him the warranty ran out.

No we can't depend on many of the companies we use and that is a shame.