[Chosen One]

Never started any type of thread here but thought an odd incident in Tucson, AZ this afternoon - a power outage that TEP could not explain - might warrant a discussion.

Today was a beautiful sunny day in Tucson, not a cloud in the sky, no humidity, reasonable temps.I live in an area known as The Foothills in an apartment at a 600-unit complex at the base of the Catalina Mountains. The area, as a whole, is very affluent and upscale with a population of about 50,000. Today, just before 5:00pm, the power goes out. Now, I've lived up here about 20 years and in this particular apt complex for the last eleven years and my electricity is included in the rent. During the 20 years I've lived here and even during the heavy monsoon season,maybe we've had an outage six or seven times - so it's highly unusual. And, when it has gone out, it goes out just for a few minutes and for the entire area and this includes traffic lights. During those times, the sheriffs have been on the scene instantly to direct traffic because there's a busy four corner traffic light just outside my complex.

So, power goes out and the first thing I do is check the cell phones to make sure they work - and they do, thank God. (You know what I was thinking.) But a half hour goes by and nothing. I decide to drive to CVS which is right next to a huge Safeway market. First thing I notice as I pull out of the complex is that all the traffic lights are working. Weird. Then, at the CVS, it appears that the power had just gone back on but not, as I find out minutes later, at the Safeway which is just 50 feet away next door in the same parking lot. I then find out that Safeway kicked everyone out as soon as the power went down and locked the doors because registers were down (not a good sign of what's to come, know what I mean?). And the girl at CVS had told me that the traffic lights at the four corners had never gone out and it was rush hour as usual the whole time. No cops come. No nothing. I also hear from two people who live in the complex across the street from me that as soon as the power went out, their smoke alarms went off for no reason and they had to smash them with hammers to shut them off!! WTF????

But what I DO notice as I'm standing in the parking lot chatting with strangers is that every single person is commenting and agreeing (without elaborating) on the "wierdness" of it all and how suspicious the whole thing seemed. Nobody was being casual about it at all which I took to mean that, well, everyone was thinking what I was thinking which means maybe everyone is waking up.

Anyway, here's the kicker....about ten minutes after I get back, the power goes back on. I get on the internet to look at the City of Tucson site that usually puts up outage info/emergency stuff instantly and nothing there. So, I call Tucson Electric Power. TEP has always been helpful in giving information/answers in the past. When someone finally picks up, she asks if I'm calling about the outage on the south side of town (about 20 miles from me) and, if I am, she says she has no answer as to why it happened. She's very friendly and helpful but is surprised at where I tell her my outage was because she sees nothing on her end for my area at all - like it didn't even happen. Then, right before we hang up, she sees something come up on her screen that shows my outage (802 customers, she said) restored but that it oddly gives no explanation again (same as the other area) and she's never seen that before. Moreover, she can't get into other areas of her program where she could possibly access more information which she finds strange as well. She's very apologetic that she can't even tell me why it happened.

Sorry for the long-winded story but, I don't know....things are becoming so bizarre and threatening and with what we all know to be true, I have no choice but to question the whole damn thing. Am I making a big deal out of nothing? Somehow I just don't think so.

In my mind, I'm thinking...a glitch in the Matrix? OR, even worse, a fucking DRILL? No explanation at all? TEP Customer Service barely knew it happened and couldn't access the information!

Opinions, anyone? What do you think?wtf