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Late yesterday evening, I started to hear a faint and intermittent humming noise. It sounded mechanical/electrical, sort of like a motor or fan trying to rev up but cutting out after a few seconds, and it was perceptible as much in the back of my teeth as in my actual ears. I could not make out its source.
When I came home from work this evening, the humming noise was still going strong, though just as intermittently as before. I actually got up and walked around my apartment a few times to see if I could pinpoint its source, but no joy.
At this point I should mention that Friday and Saturday have been fairly windy here in Ithaca -- an irregular, gusty sort of wind, accompanied by buckets of rain until partway through Saturday afternoon, after which things slowly began to dry.
Anyway, after being vaguely annoyed by this untraceable humming noise for several hours, it occurred to me that if I did some obligatory grocery shopping (*cough* Halloween candy *cough*) tonight rather than putting it off until I had more items on my list, I could probably wrangle a ten-cent per gallon gas discount via my store loyalty card. So at approximately 10pm, I stepped out the front door of my house with my car keys in hand.
There was a strong gust of wind. The humming noise came back, much louder than before.
This time it was accompanied by a sort of snapping hiss, and a small flare of light, and I looked up and realized that one of the power lines that run along my street had worn through its insulation and was making a valiant attempt to set my neighbors' tulip tree on fire every time the wind pushed it in the right direction.
...
I called 911, since I don't have the numbers for either the fire department or NYSEG. The 911 dispatcher sent the fire department out, their truck arrived just as the wire scraped the tree and sent up another flare of flame and sparks, and the firefighters kind of sighed and went, "Yeah, that's not good. But don't worry; we've got this."
I did not stick around to watch -- I had that grocery run to make, after all -- but when I came back about 25 minutes later, they had put a patch on the damaged wire, wrapped both it and another too-close-to-the-tree wire in those funny extra insulation sheaths you see sometimes, and were just packing up to leave. Presumably somebody (NYSEG, I'd assume) will have to do a more permanent fix at some point, but at least there is no immediate danger of either a massive tree bursting into flame or a live wire down in the street.
I think I have done my civic duty for the week and would like to ask the universe to not throw anything else at me for a while, please and thank you.
When I came home from work this evening, the humming noise was still going strong, though just as intermittently as before. I actually got up and walked around my apartment a few times to see if I could pinpoint its source, but no joy.
At this point I should mention that Friday and Saturday have been fairly windy here in Ithaca -- an irregular, gusty sort of wind, accompanied by buckets of rain until partway through Saturday afternoon, after which things slowly began to dry.
Anyway, after being vaguely annoyed by this untraceable humming noise for several hours, it occurred to me that if I did some obligatory grocery shopping (*cough* Halloween candy *cough*) tonight rather than putting it off until I had more items on my list, I could probably wrangle a ten-cent per gallon gas discount via my store loyalty card. So at approximately 10pm, I stepped out the front door of my house with my car keys in hand.
There was a strong gust of wind. The humming noise came back, much louder than before.
This time it was accompanied by a sort of snapping hiss, and a small flare of light, and I looked up and realized that one of the power lines that run along my street had worn through its insulation and was making a valiant attempt to set my neighbors' tulip tree on fire every time the wind pushed it in the right direction.
...
I called 911, since I don't have the numbers for either the fire department or NYSEG. The 911 dispatcher sent the fire department out, their truck arrived just as the wire scraped the tree and sent up another flare of flame and sparks, and the firefighters kind of sighed and went, "Yeah, that's not good. But don't worry; we've got this."
I did not stick around to watch -- I had that grocery run to make, after all -- but when I came back about 25 minutes later, they had put a patch on the damaged wire, wrapped both it and another too-close-to-the-tree wire in those funny extra insulation sheaths you see sometimes, and were just packing up to leave. Presumably somebody (NYSEG, I'd assume) will have to do a more permanent fix at some point, but at least there is no immediate danger of either a massive tree bursting into flame or a live wire down in the street.
I think I have done my civic duty for the week and would like to ask the universe to not throw anything else at me for a while, please and thank you.
