Community Update

    It can't happen here!


 This afternoon at 4:32 PM the unthinkable happened. The electric power went out in tony, western Edina, MN. AND IT STAYED OUT FOR 38 MINUTES !! For those of you children of a lesser God, Edina is a first ring suburb west of Minneapolis. All 49,000 people who live here are above average (just like Lake Woebegone, only urban). Our children never get SAT section scores of less than 1,000 (out of maximum of 800) and our carefully controlled sewage doesn't stink. We get our potable water from our own private system of seven artisan (not artesian mind you) wells. But we don't drink it. We use it to water our hobby farm sized lawns 24 hours a day including during heavy rain storms, because we can! Our drinking water comes in bottles with European labels like Perrier, San Pellegrino, and Buhl, MN. We don't eat scrambled eggs, we brunch on quiche made with Serrano ham (chemically smoked in Austin, MN). Our noses are so high in the air that we view everything thru the lowest/third level of our lineless bifocals.
        Given all the above, its absolutely impossible that our lights and appliances would go out. Richfield, maybe. Minneapolis, for sure. But NOT Edina!. We have a lifestyle to maintain here. SO at 4:33 PM the switchboard at Excel Energy (which is now located in Denver, Colorado) lit up with 18,000 incoming phone calls (phones are not on the utility power grid, plus everyone in Edina has at least two smart/cell phones) demanding to know "what gives? I'm an Edinaiac and I pay my taxes, utility bills, and credit card balances by direct bank debit. This isn't supposed to be happening to ME!"
        The weary Excel CSR on the other end of the phone explained that "my computer shows there is a power outage in your area and our repair crews have already been dispatched to the site. The power should be restored within 90 minutes". Then he mumbled something about 'force majeure' and the fact that if wind and solar energy both fail at the same time, it takes a while to realign the distribution grid and call in standby power from Canadian Hydro in Winnipeg.
I was inhaling to unleash one of my best rants about private monopolies, but he hung up.
         On Monday morning I'm calling Gov. Dayton's office to get the claim forms to file for some that unspent propane emergency fund money. My afternoon, and thus my life, is ruined!