Business As Usual

It's Friday morning and something has been bugging me all week. It started on Monday. I had been sitting at my desk, hard at work. Every few minutes a nice breeze would come through the window bringing with it the smell of burnt wood. As it is still summer I didn't think to much about it, I just figured someone was about to fire up their grill. Thirty minutes later I still smelled the same burning wood smell, so I took a look around and seeing nothing on fire I decided that it was nothing to worry about.

I went back to work and ignored the smell. Lunchtime came and it was time for me to go to a doctor's appointment. Upon arrival I was treated to business as usual, sign in and then wait. Then it was the same old why are you here routine that we go through every time. Four years I have been back in St Louis, going to the same Medical Facility and after four years I am still just a number without a face when I walk through those doors.

After being thoroughly frustrated and wasting half of my day I returned home determined to get some work done. While sitting at my desk working I was continually distracted by the smell of smoke. About an hour later my wife was sitting across from me talking on the phone and I noticed a look of surprise on her face. As she hung up the phone she asked me to go outside with her.

On our way outside she told me that while she was talking on the phone, out of the corner of her eye, she saw something really big fall in our backyard. We made into the backyard and sure enough there was a large branch laying in my yard. We both began to look to see where the branch came from because we didn't have any trees in that particular spot of our yard. We both looked up and discovered where the branch came from and the source of the smoke smell.

We discovered that one of our neighbors trees had split and fallen over, and had came to rest on the overhead power lines. Apparently while it was resting on the line a piece of the branch had been smoldering, hence the smell of burning wood. We weren't sure how long it had been like that, but it was long enough for that branch to be burnt all the way through causing it to break off and drop into my yard.

While I was out there looking at the branch the wind picked up a little and the power line began sparking and popping. I immediately went inside and called the power company. Within an hour someone from the power company arrived, but he was by himself and said that he didn't have the right equipment to remove the branch. He said that the tree cutters would be there later that evening to remove the tree. By the time I went to bed no tree cutters had arrived.

Fast forward to Wednesday, still no tree cutters and I was back at the doctor's office, and back to playing the whole why are you here routine (which I didn't find funny and led me to making some complaints and making a change to a different care provider.) After a long day of dealing with their usual process which makes less work for them, but more inconvenience for the patients, I was thoroughly exhausted and didn't get much work done at all.

Thursday came and I was feeling somewhat better, and decided to get some work done. I had a fairly productive day, I ran a few errands and spent some time with the family. We were sitting down to watch a movie together that evening when it began to rain. The winds were picking up and it was getting pretty nasty out. I sent my son to close some of the windows in the back of the house, as he was closing them he said he saw flames coming from one of the trees in the back yard.

I thought that he was exaggerating, but when I went to look, sure enough the branch that still resting on the power lines was blazing, I ended up calling the fire department, who arrived within minutes. Because of the live power lines they were unable to approach the branch and as the winds died down, the flames subsided into a small smolder. While they were there they put in another emergency call to the Power Company. The fire department instructed me to stay out of the back yard, just in case the power lines snapped...and so I have.

Which brings me to today, it's Friday morning, and still the same large tree is resting on the power lines, still sparking occasionally, and apparently not enough of an emergency for the power company to send someone out to remove it. Just another Friday morning of business as usual.

So it looks like I wont be getting too much done today either because the firemen explained to me that if the line does end up snapping it could arc and cause electrical damage. So until the problem is resolved I am going to keep everything powered down.