UPDATE: 9:03PM. FYI: My power is out again.

This time it's my fault. After voting, Mom and I went to Culver's to celebrate democracy in action. I decided to buy four pints of custard to take home and put in the freezer for later. Mom said, "Now I know the power is going to go out again." And it did! Mothers always know.

For the record, Georgia Power's estimated time until restoration to clear this latest downed pine tree is... about three hours.

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FYI: My power is out again.

The remnants of Hurricane Isaias rolled through town four days ago, and the power never flickered. But just now, at 2:45 in the morning, after days of nothing but cloudless sunshine, still air, and record heat, the power is out again for the same 69 customers in my neighborhood as always. (Do we have the most fragile trees, or the worst line placement? You decide!) The current estimate for restoration is at least three hours from now, which means I definitely won't be finishing the Google Sheet I was working on.

If you're keeping score at home, this is the fifth significant outage (three hours or more) in the past four months.

They say you shouldn't go to bed angry, but it seems I don't have much choice. Better that than stewing in the dark until dawn.

UPDATE: Dawn has come and gone, so I can now stew into the afternoon. Apparently some of my neighbors have been posting on Nextdoor.com that no one even came to look into it until after a school bus got stuck and the fire department had to be called to clear the road. (I assume all the linemen are still out on loan to clean up Florida /Alabama?) So these "estimated time of restoration" alerts from Georgia Power are starting to seem pretty suspect. It's now 9:30 and the current estimated time of restoration? Still at least three hours from now.

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FYI: My power is out again. Are we having fun yet?

UPDATE: Fixed. And in just under six hours this time!

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FYI: My power was out again yesterday.

Lights went out just after 5PM and came on again around 7PM, so it wasn't the longest outage, it just came at a bad time on one of the hottest days of the year. And, of course, it was the second outage in eight days.

What caused it? No idea. I drove around the neighborhood and saw no sign. Did someone cut down a tree? Georgia Power's notification said it was caused by "storm damage." On a cloudless, sunny day. With no wind. Sure, okay. Maybe lingering from last week, I guess.

It's hard to pretend we aren't living in end times when I'm starting to master the art of kerosene lamp maintenance.

UPDATE 4:40PM: My power is out again today!

Two days in a row, three outages in nine days. And counting. At least this time a thunderstorm really did pass through, so now's the time for yesterday's excuse, (increasingly misnamed) Georgia Power.

If the housing market wasn't so fucked up, we'd start looking for a new house. I'm so mad, I'm ready to start voting for some Democratic Socialists!

UPDATE 7:10PM: Estimated time of restoration is 9PM. I just took the boys for a walk around the neighborhood (better than sitting in my 80° house, I figured) and there are limbs down everywhere. So you get a pass this time, Georgia Power. There's nothing you can do against Mother Nature (except maybe proactively cut down more limbs or bury power lines or cut back on your fossil fuel plants). Nothing.

UPDATE 2:56AM: Power! (Just thought you'd like some closure.)

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FYI: My power is out again.

Some rough weather came through the neighborhood yesterday afternoon. About 15 miles up the road, several trees and some traffic lights were downed. We thought we got through unscathed,, but no sooner had the sun gone down then the power went out. As I type this on my phone at midnight, it's been out for three hours. Georgia Power tells me a tree fell on our lines. Current estimated time of restoration is four hours from now.

This is the second extended outage this summer. It happened back on June during the day. At least at night I don't miss the air conditioning.

What's so wrong with my neighborhood that this sort of extended blackout happens at least twice a year? Isn't there a long term solution to this? I bet data centers don't have this problem.

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FYI: My power is out. Again. Estimated time of restoration is 3 hours. No one can blame a tornado today. Apparently, the power can't even stay on through some light rain anymore.

UPDATE: It's back on! And in just a shade under two hours. They're getting faster.

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FYI: My power is out. Again.

There was thunder and lightning for six continuous hours overnight Sunday and several more hours of lightning last night. I expected power outages from those, but no. Today's multi-hour outage comes in the middle of the afternoon on a comparatively calmer rainstorm, electrically speaking. That's what I get for letting my guard down.

I live in a metro Atlanta county, and the power to my neighborhood keeps going out, multiple times a year. And it feels like the outages are getting longer. This one started at about 4PM. Initial estimate was that it would be restored by 6. Update just came in that revised the target to 7:30.* That's not surprising; a few weeks ago, the original four hour estimated job ended up taking thirteen.

For the last few months, all we've heard from local government and Georgia Power is how eager they are to invite new development, especially power-hungry data centers. Why in the world should I be supportive of that when they can't even keep the lights on in well-established neighborhoods?

So what do I do now? I was planning on going to the grocery store, but there doesn't seem much point in buying ice cream sandwiches just to bring them home to melt. I guess I'll do what I always do in these increasingly common situations: I'll wait for the power to come back on. And then I'll hustle to get what I need done before it goes out again.

*At 7:45, I got word that the newly estimated time of recovery was now 10:45PM. So I have started the gasoline generator for the refrigerator and made myself a hamburger on the propane grill. I'm getting quite good at camping at home.

At 8:23PM, the power came back on. The first thing my phone tells me after the router comes back online is that another round of thundershowers is due about midnight. I think I'll leave gas in the generator; that's the best way to be sure I won't need it.

Update 05/28: Per WSB TV, "The NWS confirmed an EF-1 tornado touched down in Coweta County on Tuesday afternoon." I had no idea, but as it happens, the start of that tornado track is very close to where the Georgia Power trucks spent several hours working to restore power yesterday evening. So i guess I should go easier on them; a surprise tornado is definitely harder to defend against than a thunderstorm. (That's the second tornado to hit my neighborhood since 2020. Maybe it's time to consider moving somewhere safer, like the side of a dormant volcano.)

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