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My Night of Florida Fun

© Vickie Ferguson

I'm sitting in my house on Saturday night, June 26th, writing this article using the beam from my ever ready, handy dandy flashlight. Thank goodness I had a set of new size C batteries or else I'd be using my pen light flashlight (very small beam) to write this article and share with you my special night of Florida Fun!

For those who don't know this tidbit about the Sunshine state, while it's full of white sandy beaches, has spectacular sunsets, balmy evenings and a tropical climate, Florida is also notorious for having some of the worse lightning storms in the U.S. Yes ladies and gentlemen, the Sunshine state has a dark side.

We are entering into our every afternoon summer shower/thunderstorm time of year. This will go on for a good 2 or 3 months. We just had our "what to do if you're outside and it's lightning" safety meeting at work. That's how serious we take lightning here in Florida.

Today was one of those days where it was sunshine one minute and then humongous thunderclouds with sheets of rain the next. I'm telling you they just "blow in" in a matter of a few minutes. It can be sunny on one side of the street and raining on the other side. No kidding!

Anyway, when I got home at 5:30 after traveling through a torrential downpour, I had no electricity. My neighbors were all sitting outside on their front porches with doors and windows thrown wide open to get some relief and fresh air. At least it was cooler because of the overcast conditions.

I looked at my electric clock and it had stopped at 1:10 p.m. Next was a quick check of the food in the fridge. Still cool. My next job was to call in the outage to the local electric company. Finding a pay phone in Tampa is next to impossible and my cell phone wasn't charged up. Make a note, when visiting Tampa; U-Save grocery stores and Walgreen's both have pay phones. After talking to the emergency answering machine, yes, it's an answering machine as there are no real people answering the emergency line, I headed back home to ponder TECO's (Tampa Electric Company) voice automated system since I had nothing else I could do. Does it make sense to have the automated system for the outage line tell you to go online and visit their website if you're experiencing difficulties?

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