We have all been there one time or another. It’s not until you don’t have power that you go into a crazed state of mind wondering what to do. On an every day basis you don’t consider that power is a luxury that you take for granted until you no longer have it. When you can’t do something as simple as watching TV, you could find yourself going stir crazy with the silence the darkness makes.
What just happened?
When the power goes out we tend to go into a panic. We cannot turn on any lights or even use the microwave. Our brain starts racing like did we forget to pay the power bill? Did we have too many electronics on at one time and trip a breaker? Did a storm just roll through and knock out the grid? Like what just happened? Do we need to call for electrical services?
Crazy strikes
When the electricity goes out, the environment within the home goes chaotic. Husbands can’t watch their sports channel, kids can’t play their games or watch cartoons, and wives/mothers can’t cook or sit by their favorite lamp to read a good book. When these people get out of their designated areas, the complaining, the whining, and the anger all show up for a visit. So what do we do now? Well, we can either fight about not having power, or we can stumble through the darkness pick up our cell phone and call someone.
Who do we call?
I know when my power goes out, the first people I call is my neighbors to see if they are without power or if they know of a downed powerline. If that’s not the case, then I would call family to let them know what is happening and see if they have any ideas as to what might be going on, all while checking the breakers to see if those are the cause of the power going out. If I can’t figure out what it is on my own, then I would have no choice but to call for electrical services to figure out the problem.
Calling an electrical service company
For most power outages, the electrical service company will ask a series of questions to help walk you through all the possibilities to come up with a conclusion as to why the power is out. Once they have cleared the fuses and breakers of being the cause they then will work through all other possibilities, including main lines or those big electrical boxes that send the electricity out to everyone. Those are call substations, by the way.
Steps the electric company takes to restore order
Electricians know that being without power is frustrating and causes a lot of emotions to run within homes that do not have power. They work really hard to restore power so that everyone can go back to their normal routines.
Here is their check-off list to find the source of the power outage.
- Substations
- Main lines
- Spurs
- Individual lines
- Special lines
We only need to call an electric services company when the problem is bigger than just a fuse. If it’s just a fuse or tripped breaker, we don’t need to waste an electricians time over it. We can just turn those back on ourselves by flipping them to the on position. And if that doesn’t work, then we need to replace the fuses. However, a down power line is a bigger problem. That downed power line could still be live and cause serious injury or death to anyone who touches it or anything it is touching.
The bottom line is having no power is no fun. We have come accustom to having power. We tend to go a little crazy without it. We are fortunate enough to have power that we take for granted every day. It is a luxury we no longer pay any mind to until we don’t have it.
