{"id":1267,"date":"2012-04-28T10:56:12","date_gmt":"2012-04-28T15:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ziegelbaur\/?p=1267"},"modified":"2012-04-28T11:16:44","modified_gmt":"2012-04-28T16:16:44","slug":"if-a-power-pole-falls-in-yaounde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ziegelbaur\/?p=1267","title":{"rendered":"If a Power Pole Falls in Yaounde…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Power poles down across the road in front of our house<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0If a power pole falls in Yaounde and only a dozen residences are affected, how long will it take to get your power back?\u00a0\u00a0 Probably longer than you hope for.<\/div>\n
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Monday morning at 11:30 AM the lights in the house flickered and went out.\u00a0 I heard a thud, went outside the gate to investigate and the above picture is the scene I saw.\u00a0 A power pole and a telephone wire pole across the road and wires stretched and broken.\u00a0 Thankfully none were “hot”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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I was assured by neighbors that the power company had been called.\u00a0 Guys from various cable companies (including the one who provides our internet and television) came to gather up their cables before thieves could get them.\u00a0 This was my first clue that repairs may take awhile.\u00a0\u00a0 By afternoon I was told that power company workers had been there in the afternoon to assess needed equipment but it was too late in the day to begin work.<\/p>\n

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That night and every night until the power was back, we enjoyed dinner by candle light.\u00a0 The trick was getting food out of the fridge without letting the coldness escape.\u00a0 Thankfully I was able to use a neighbor’s freezer and fridge to keep from losing perishables.\u00a0 A bit less enjoyable\u00a0for the kids was trying to do homework to candle light.\u00a0 And with no good light for reading nor\u00a0screens to look at (TV, computer or even ipods) everyone went to bed much earlier than usual.<\/p>\n

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So all day Tuesday I was expecting to see workers come do repairs and turn on the power.\u00a0 But they never came.\u00a0 So Wednesday became my lesson in “If you want something done at all, do it yourself.”\u00a0 I called the phone number on our electric bill and was told that there’s a process.\u00a0 Any of you living in Yaounde, if power outage affects just a few homes, here’s what you do – oh, even if a power pole is blocking a street, and there are wires down on the ground,\u00a0this is the process:<\/div>\n
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1.\u00a0 Photocopy your most recently paid\u00a0Sonel (electric company) bill.
\n2.\u00a0 Draw a map on the back of the photocopied bill, showing\u00a0where in the city your house is. (We don’t have street names or addresses on our houses)\u00a0 Also write your phone number.
\n3.\u00a0 \u00a0Take this photocopy and map to the Sonel Central\u00a0office downtown (on Furniture Row before you get to the Score Circle, across from the park) and give it to the man in the “Depannage” office.\u00a0 You’ll have to have someone show you as it’s around the side of the building.
\n4.\u00a0 In the Depannage office you’ll find a man at a computer.\u00a0 He will register your complaint in the computer and assign a work team to it.\u00a0 He told me that the\u00a0downed pole\u00a0was not in their computer; they had no knowledge of our crisis!
\n5.\u00a0 Wait for the work team to visit the site and\u00a0requisition needed supplies.
\n6.\u00a0 It helps if you know someone who knows someone in high places… which I discovered I do, so that helped.<\/div>\n
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And finally,\u00a0Thursday afternoon a work team arrived in a pick-up with 2 new poles.\u00a0 One to replace the one that had already fallen, and one to replace the one across from\u00a0the end of our driveway.\u00a0<\/div>\n
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Work team arrives and sets to work digging a new hole for a new pole<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Here’s what it looked like from our yard when they replaced the pole across from our driveway.\u00a0 There is quite a mess of wires to sort through.<\/div>\n
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By 6pm on Thursday the power was restored to our home!\u00a0 And by then I learned how much we appreciate electricity in our home, I learned the process of reporting a power problem that affects few residences, and I learned that if you want to be sure something’s done, do it yourself.\u00a0 Oh and many thanks to those who allowed me use of a fridge\/freezer for the week, to those in the SIL office\u00a0who helped make things happen quickly, and big thanks to the work team who replaced 2 power poles and plugged us back in!<\/div>\n
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Work team who fixed our power problems<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Report This Post<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Power poles down across the road in front of our house \u00a0\u00a0If a power pole falls in Yaounde and only a dozen residences are affected, how long will it take to get your power back?\u00a0\u00a0 Probably longer than you hope for. \u00a0 Monday morning at 11:30 AM the lights in the house flickered and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-updates"],"yoast_head":"\nIf a Power Pole Falls in Yaounde... - The Ziegelbaurs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ziegelbaur\/?p=1267\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"If a Power Pole Falls in Yaounde... - 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