Random observations about power outages in sunny California

Required reading. THEY WILL not BE A QUIZ ON THIS MATERIAL.

We rarely have power outages here in the flatlands barring a major earthquake. At most, the outages are very localized. At worst, they take a couple of hours to fix.

Apartment complexes

• The electric gates keep the riff-raff out. They keep the tenants IN. They also keep emergency vehicles out (except huge battering rams like fire engines)
  
• The noise level in an apartment complex does not abate. All the gardeners' tools are gasoline powered!
• When they manually open the gates, the dance of the tutu'd trash trucks begins (1).
  

Traffic

• With the signal lights out, there can be traffic jams as bad as freeway jams, probably worse. I was trying to get to my diner for breakfast and couldn't get onto the 6 lane "surface" street going north (El Camino Real). I went south instead. I measured a two mile back-up and it probably was much longer.
• You might not hear the sirens on emergency vehicles. I almost t-boned an ambulance with siren blaring and lights ablaze if it weren't for ABS brakes and good treads.(2) I suppose I heard the siren at some level, but I did not HEAR the siren. I live at the confluence of 3 major major routes for emergency vehicles. We hear them 24 hours a day. But the only way you can keep your sanity is to learn to ignore the sirens. So, in a real sense, I did not hear the ambulance coming because it was only background noise to me.
  

Communications

• Unless its really catastrophic, like an earthquake(3), your cell phone can be a life saver - if you keep it charged (you can't recharge it).
• Portable radios are only one way, you can hear, but you can't send
• Your computer won't work because it needs a powered modem. Your WI-FI won't work because it needs the modem.
• If your phone line goes through an answering machine, your phone is dead. You need a line directly to the phone (phone power is separate)
• If you don't have batteries in all your digital clocks, you will be greeted by flashing displays.
• Your TV telecasts are improved - you can't turn it on (smirk). It has replaced religion as the
  

TV is useless in an emergency

• TV reports that you have a power outage. Duh, if I can't turn the TV or lights on, don't you think that I already know about it!
  
• If I can't turn it on, what good is the report to me anyway?
• "Scientific" TV weather forecasting depends on butterflies in Siberia. You get better odds on Blackjack in Vegas than you do on weather reports. (51% for the house, 49% for the punter)
  
• The TV reports power outages of 100 people on a square block, out of 6,000,000 people in 4,000 square miles just as breathlessly and with the same level of controlled panic as they do the tsunami in Japan (and, as with all news, after the fact)
  
• TV NEVER,NEVER, NEVER gives an estimate when power will be restored. Kinda of irrelevant anyway (see above). They report, as if it were news, the usual "not my fault" and whine about why they can't report because they couldn't talk to anybody. How about this for a thought? Maybe people are too busy to talk to reporters. In my book, fixing the problem is more important than reporting it to Great Aunt Sue in Kalamazoo.
  
• TV never reports major backups on "surface" streets. The TV reports all about slow traffic on the freeways. I've never understood this. Since accidents are random occurrences and you could be in a jam within minutes, what good is the report? If you're in your car, hopefully you are not watching TV (or is it your accident that is causing the jam?). Every day, at 7:00 a.m., they report a traffic jam on the Waldo grade. Why is that news? . Every day, at 7:00 a.m., there is the same traffic jam on the Waldo grade.(As the editor said, I get a zillion "dog bites man" stories a day, get me a "man-bites dog" story).
• Or do you really miss losing 1/3 of your life watching commercials.
  

Have you ever noticed the sardonic confusion between the meanings of "laconic" and "loquacious" or that "blither" is just a variation of "blather".

P.S. If you haven't guessed it, the power is back on
P.P.S. The quiz has been postponed to St. Swithin's day next.

TTFN
“Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight"
(Bright)

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(1) in an apartment complex, the dance is almost continual because of the large number of people that need to be serviced; the noise level is not at trash can level, but huge trash bins
(2) good tires are still the most important safety feature on your car. ABS breaks mean diddly if the tires don't grip
(3) the idiotic news reports every earthquake 2.0 we get the bay area. The quakes don't even have a rating on the Fujitsu scale. On the Richter scale, under 4.0, they are "Often felt, but rarely cause damage". There are over 1,100 2.0 worldwide a day. There is only about 1 8.0 Great earthquake yearly worldwide (Indonesia, Japan). The one in Haiti was only about 7.0, but the damage was wide spread because of the extremely poor infrastructure).