Where There's Smoke ...

The power went out about 1 pm, so I opened the house (it's in the 80s today) until power was restored. A strong smell of smoke permeated the house, almost enough to close the windows. A few minutes later, my next-door neighbor came over to ask me if my power was off, which I told her it was. She was talking to an Edison Co rep on her phone -- and the service rep claimed that no one else had reported a power outage in our area. I told her to tell him that I smelled a really strong odor of something burning about the same time as the power went out, and they could be related.

Or not, the service rep assured us, because he would have a notification on his computer if that were the case.

An hour later, after I finished prepping my taxes for the tax man, I came online to see what's been happening since early this morning and discovered that a power pole a couple of blocks west of me, in the same block, split in two, fell onto a wooden fence, and began a fairly significant blaze, as well as created a power outage in the neighborhood.

Vindication: not only was the power out and I'm SURE someone reported it to the power company, but the smoke was a result of the fire caused by the power pole problem. Occam's Razor rules: sometimes, the simplest answer is also the right answer. Where there was smoke this afternoon, there was also a fire!!