Arcs and Sparks

I was saying to Jon just yesterday that arson seems to be on the rise in the neighbourhood despite increased police presence. Aside from the seven or so fire trucks screaming down the street each evening, the burning van Jon saw on the street next to ours on Friday was Not a Good Sign.

THIS morning, I awoke about eight minutes before my alarm was to go off. I lay there, trying to enjoy those last few minutes of warm and dark, but an odd sound kept penetrating through my catnapping. It sounded to me like water, and I kept running through watery possibilities-- Jon taking a way-early shower, Jon doing an inexplicable load of laundry, a burst pipe, rain coming through an open window...

The sound was only coming through the window at the back of the house, though.

The fire engines didn't alarm me at first-- as I said, they've become commonplace-- until they stopped in front of our house, flooding red lights through the window.

The picture began to clear for me. I climbed out of bed, and stepped from the bedroom into the main section of the upper story. It was all aglow with orange. I couldn't smell any smoke, and as I walked forward to the window I held out my hands to gauge the heat. I felt no approaching inferno, and when I reached the rear window I looked down into the garden and saw the source of the trouble.

The next-door neighhbour's shoulda-been-condemned mess of a garage was ablaze. Garages in our area are outbuildings facing an alleyway; so the houses themselves looked safe. I couldn't tell if our own garage had caught fire yet, but the one on the other side of the inferno was already licked with flames along its roof.

Things were alarming, but not yet catastrophic.

Jon started running around screaming about the gas lines and the need to save all Grandma's photo albums. I put on my shoes and contemplated Bandit the cat, who was now awake and seemed awfully phlegmatic for a creature that's supposed to sense danger. The lights we had turned on had flickered repeatedly, and given that the power lines go over the garages, it was reasonable to fear that they'd go out. I powered down and unplugged my computer (my version of Jon's "Save the Photos!" urge) and hoped that no arcs really would set the house alight.

I also hoped that Grandma wouldn't have a heart attack.

I saw the blue-white flash of the arc that took out our neighbour's electricity while I was standing on the back porch watching fire fighters tramp through the vegetable patch. Our own power stayed on, no smoke was in the house, and Grandma took the whole thing pretty well.

I washed the dishes while I waited to see how our power situation was. By this time, I felt that short of the electrical problem, things were in good hands. The fire brigades were at work, my immediate family and possessions were safe, and there wasn't much left in the garden to be stepped on. I would probably be late for work, so I called up Mac to try to arrange for an apprentice to watch the phones until I got there.

When the DECO guys showed up to fix the distribution lines, I took my shower. Jon was outside talking to the fire fighters and the burnt garage's owner. Our phone lines were also down, and the company had been called to fix that.

All in all, I was ten minutes late for work, apparently missed no calls (the requested apprentice was late himself), nothin' of ours was damaged, and DECO and SBC fixed everything up that morning. It was a terrible way to wake up, but ultimately wasn't so bad. One morning like that is enough for a lifetime, even so. I am ticked at myself for not investigating the "water" sound when I sensed something was funny as soon as I awoke, but my consolation is that the fire brigade wouldn't have arrived any earlier for it-- clearly, they must have been told even before I awoke at 4:53.

It was arson, of course. This be Detroit and all.