Our power epic

Well, we have just had a powerful reminder that Mexico can be different. We have been getting a good deal of rain; it has been raining almost every day, but not really extended downpours. We are certainly above average for June (average is 6.6 inches while we are probably going to be near 8 inches). At any rate there was a rain during the night early Monday morning. However, we did not lose power. About 10 a.m. I went out to pick up an external hard drive for backups that I had ordered on Friday and had arrived quickly. Everything was fine. A few minutes later, Barb was taking the dogs for their walk. As she went out, she heard snapping and popping overhead and the power line from across the street to our house and the one next door, suddenly fell down into the middle of the street! It had shorted and melted both the power lines and the cable holding up the wires. A few minutes later she saw some CFE (the government run power company) employees and told them about what happened. However, they shrugged and indicated that it wasn’t their problem. As we found out later, the wires were hot and energized the entire time over the next 2 plus days. When I came home not very long after, I called the La Floresta office to report as I was not sure that I could make myself understood to the CFE’s emergency line. They said that they would report it to CFE.

Over the next couple of hours, 3 times La Floresta employees came to examine. One of them even pulled the wires up out of the street and wrapped them around the tree out front. Because of the frequent rains, there have been many power outages. As we were to find out, CFE sets its own priorities in making repairs. Because we were the only ones out (the house next door on the other side from Steve and Heather’s doesn’t have anyone living there at the moment), we apparently have very low priority! At any rate, one of the La Floresta employees gave me an hint of what was likely to happen. He gave me a card with the name and number of a private electrician and urged me to call him. I tried, but the cell number on the card was not complete; it was missing one number (10 required). I then went to the La Floresta office to get a correct number. The manager said that I didn’t need to do that. The practice in Mexico is that CFE provides the lines to the nearest pole; then the property owner is responsible for the connection from there to the house. That is different from Canada. There, the power company does the connection to the meter and it is illegal for anyone to touch the lines up to the meter. However, the line was down before it got to the pole; thus, in theory it was CFE’s responsibility. I then went home and waited for CFE. Nobody came. Finally, when it got dark, we put on candles for some light, but went to bed a bit early with no lights or power. Of course, we did not have water either as the pump could not work. Fortunately, we can use a bucket to get water from the aljibe (cistern) so that we can flush the toilet manually.

Bright and early on Tuesday (after a poor night’s sleep), I went for my jog and then went to the La Floresta office as soon as it opened at 9 a.m. The manager said that he would contact CFE again, but if no one had showed up by 2 p.m. call him and he would contact someone to hook me up. Waiting for workmen to come in this situation is worse than watching paint dry. By 2 p.m., nada and I called. The manager said that he would contact someone. By 4:30 I was getting desperate and called Jose Luis, our trusted contractor. He said that he would try to get some help. He was not able to get through on the CFE’s 24 hour emergency number; however, he knew someone in CFE and called him. That guy told him that he would see if he could get a crew to come after their regular shift (of course paying them something to do so). Still nothing. About 8 p.m. an older man came saying that he had been called by La Floresta. He said that he could fix it, but not until the next day as he had to get wires and cables from a ‘friend’ in CFE! I said, “Wonderful", if he could do it.”

Late in the afternoon, I had finally wakened up. There is no one in Steve’s house next door (it had power all this time) and we have the keys. I took our long extension wire, plugged it in and threw it over the wall to our house. Using a total of 4 extension wires, we managed to connect up our refrigerator, although by that time, the frozen stuff had pretty well thawed out. Later, we connected our modem and internet to check our email and internet phone. Finally, we were again connected to the outside world. Again, we went to bed with only Steve’s wire for power. On Wednesday morning, I was still hoping that Jose’s friend would be able to get CFE to come. No such luck! However, about 10 a.m. the man from the night before arrived with his son and grandson. They had the wires and cable and set to work. To bring this long epic story to a close, just before noon, these men had again connected power to our house; we had no power for about 50 hours. The charge was 800 pesos (a little over $67) for wires and labour; at 600 pesos, the labour was probably a bit on the high side, but I was happy to pay, even twice as much! Later this afternoon, one of the employees from La Floresta came to check if we had power. He asked me if we had seen CFE. When I said, “Nada”, he shrugged and said, “Mexico”. I think that most Mexicans kind of expected that we were unlikely to get any action from CFE and that we would have to get someone privately to do the connection. Now, we know also. Everyone speaks disparagingly about CFE and I can begin to see why. In spite of many outages, the employees work until the end of their shift at 6 p.m. and then go home. There does not seem to be any working into the night to restore power. CFE’s union is one of the most powerful in Mexico, almost as powerful as the one at Pemex, the government controlled oil company. It was wonderful this afternoon when we were both able, finally, to take showers!

It was interesting with the people who reconnected us. It was the son who did all the work; however, the grandfather was kept very busy running after the grandson. The latter was a cute little guy, about a year and a half or so and just learning to talk. However, he was very mobile; he kept running out into the street. Thus, here we had 3 generations of males in the Mexican family. It is unusual that the men were taking care of the baby, not the mother or grandmother. However, I was very grateful for getting us reconnected. I must have said “Gracias” a dozen times.