"Who's the electrician in this house?"

An interesting event that I forgot to post about until Craig reminded me yesterday (I was trying to convince him to write the post this week - to no avail).

A few weeks ago, Craig was 'rearranging' our circuit box in order to add additional circuits for the addition and the kitchen. While tinkering around, Craig noticed that the one of the two large power feeds (from the street) was slightly coming out of the box. I was standing nearby reading (we had electricity to the rest of the house turned off at this point so my options were limited). The feed began to spark (arch is the technical term, I later learned). I didn't think too much of it -- electricity sparks, right? After staring at the circuit box for a few minutes, Craig calmly turned to me and asked me to find the emergency number for the electric company. Here's how the conversation proceeded:

Craig: Uh, can you please find the emergency number for Seattle City Light?

Me: Sure....why?

Craig: Well, we may need someone to come out here (totally calmly)

Me: OK...

Craig called the emergency line and explained that our feed seemed to be loose and was sparking every few minutes. Long story short - they sent a crew...immediately.

While I'm pondering what valuables I want to collect and take to the pub down the road, I can sense that Craig is a tad more concerned about the situation then he's letting on. About 15 minutes later, we hear this pull up outside, flashing a HUGE spotlight (oh I forgot to mention that this took place around 8pm on a Tuesday night)...
















These two nice gentleman came, begrudgingly, inside to check out the situation. Come to find out they usually don't handle indoor issues but spend most of their time repairing fallen power lines, etc (hence the truck). These guys were awesome. They walked right over to the circuit box and noticed right away what the issue was. The dialogue that ensued was amazing (names are not confirmed but you get the idea):

John: Yeah, we can take care of this. Bob, hold my toolbox

Bob: I don't know John, that wire's hot...

John: Stop being such a nancy, Bob (OK, a little poetic license here)














John grabs the LIVE wire with his gloved hands and proceeds to re-secure it into place. The entire encounter lasted about 5 minutes. Craig offered the men a beer, which they sadly had to refuse.

Then John commented "Geez, who's the electrician in this house...." To which Craig quickly explained that he found the circuit box in this condition.

I give amazing props to Seattle City Light for their customer service and response time. Hopefully, we won't have to be utilizing that perk again any time in the near future.