Chondrosarcoma – ah shit, bob's sick

The winter storms have brought us what we considered, a nightmare of a situation. On Wednesday afternoon somewhere around 2pm., I was working from home because the main route north (I-91), was a treacherous drive because of the snow. The power at our house started to flicker. No big surprise considering the winter storm we were having. Now usually, we’d lose power for a anywhere between a few minutes, and a few hours … a few hours being pretty rare.

The power came back on in a few minutes and everything seemed to be back to normal … well, except for a few lights that were burning at what appeared to be low voltage. The odd thing is, they seemed to stay that way for awhile. Then, half the house seemed to dim, as the other half got extra bright … and then suddenly “pop, pop, pop” … but the lights were still on.

For some reason my son’s door was shut and Sher walked over and opened the door … and started to scream that there was smoke coming out of his TV … the weird thing was, that wasn’t turned on – simply plugged.

I moved as quickly as I could and made my way to the room and unplugged the smoldering TV, which by the way, really stunk … and grabbed it best I could and dragged it outside and placed it on the barbecue.

By the time I got back in (which was only about a minute, there was smoke pouring out of our electric stove! Yikes … also off, but way to heavy for me to move. Basically, the house was smelling like it was on fire at this point and starting to fill with smoke. We made our way to the basement and started throwing switches at the circuit breaker, flipping them all off as quickly as possible, but I could smell the smoke really starting to build.

I yelled out to Sher to call 911, grab the animals (cats aren’t easy to pack up quickly)and get out. I grabbed a few things and out we went. I called my friend Harry and told him we might be coming down to his house and that I was simply waiting for the local fire department to show up. Our car was running. The house was still smoky, but didn’t seem to be getting any worse, but you could smell that familiar scent of electrical fire.

The fire department showed up at that moment and we quickly took them through the house … unplugging the electric stove and a few other items that drew heavy electrical current. After a thorough inspection, it was decided that the house was safe to stay in, but of course there was no power, no heat, no water, no nothing except one old telephone that was still working.

The fire department said they thought it was some kind of short circuit and that we should call the power company and see if they could check it out … but not to turn anything on until. So, that’s what we did. We called and they told us because of the storm that would be as long as two days before they have the chance to check our house.

Well, to shorten the story a bit, we ended up staying and preparing to get through the night basically without heat. We have a fireplace in the basement, which was the least of the smoky places and we started to get ready.

I said to Sher we should get some food before it starts to get totally dark, so around 5:30 we decided we’d go to the closest place to eat and just grab something and get some warm coffee … off we went to Friendly’s!

We hopped in the car and as I took off down the road, one of the windshield wipers went flying off the car. Driving conditions were poor, the roads were covered in snow and it was snowing about as hard as it can. Great I thought … what the hell kind of days is this!

We get to Friendly’s, order some food and coffee and before we get anything … bam! the power goes out, then back on, then out, on, out … yikes … we’re ready to run out the door!

I laughing now as I write this, but at the time, it wasn’t really funny … scary is more like it.

To shorten the story again … we get back to the house, light some candles and settle in for the evening. Neither of us want to sleep because we’re having a hard time trusting the house. But I can barely keep my eyes open, I hadn’t eaten all day, forgot to take my meds, and just generally stressed to the point of exhaustion.

Around midnight the power company showed up … great we thought! Sher ran out to talk to the guys and explain what happened, they immediately recognized the condition and started their work … about two hours later they knocked on the door and gave us the OK to start flipping the switches back on. Ahhhh … at least we had power again and mainly heat.
The power company explained that we had the “neutral” at the pole, basically meaning that our house had lost it’s ground. So a lot of stuff, took a huge surge of electric power … basically, things just melted in place. The smell was horrendous.

Today we spent our entire time taking stock of what was damaged. Of course our stove ( a beautiful old, double oven, Hot Point stove with every gadget you can think of . A bunch of computers and electronics, and a few other items. We’re lucky, really lucky, this could’ve been so much worse. You could’ve been reading about in the papers had it been two in the morning instead of the afternoon … it would’ve been so much worse.

Shorten version: We called our insurance company, an electrician, ran down to the local Radio Shack and grabbed a new modem and router, surge protectors etc etc. and here we are back on the net again. But at the same time, … I look out my window and see that’s snowing heavy again.

Things are calm again:
Go away winter, go away!

Forcast: High winds, and snow, another foot!