Neighbor Reports Curious Power Failure Last Month

We received this email:

About 2 weeks ago, we had a failure in the main City Light cable which runs from the street to our house. We had about $2000 – $3000 in damage to our electric panel and various items in the house including the thermostat, the oven controls, the sprinkler system controls, several fluorescent and incandescent light bulbs, a sound system & a DVD/VCR machine and four surge suppressors. We were without power for several hours and have a huge overhead cable servicing our home until the permanent replacement can take place underground.

In speaking with a representative of City Light to find when they would be scheduling the permanent “fix”, we were told that there had been several similar failures in the neighborhood. Further, if another failure occurred in this line, we would be charged for complete replacement of the line including placing the power line in underground conduit (the current line is simply buried in the ground).

Has anyone else encountered this problem and has anyone else been charged for the undergrounding/conduit replacement?

Just a suggestion for everyone – be sure to use surge suppressors wherever you can or GFCI outlets – these prevented a lot of other damage including our computers and television.