We’d spent the night in Tucson, AZ. On the morning of October 6, I went to the bathroom around 6 am and noticed I had a text from our next door neighbor asking us to call when we could. I didn’t want to wake Randy that early but I had a feeling there wasn’t good news coming. There was no going back to sleep for me and it was really hard to wait to call Lena back. I couldn’t think of one good reason for her to call unless something was wrong. When I did get her on the phone, the first thing she said was, it’s all going to be ok….BUT.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but these pictures did nothing but trigger a whole lot of questions.
Century Link is installing fiber optic cable in our community, and apparently the contractor installing the cable broke a water main. And of course, out of all the 8,000 lots in Rotonda, the break happened to be right next to our house (yes, that’s our house, our electric pole, and our mailbox, in all the photos). Lena said she didn’t think the water level would actually reach the house, but she wanted us to be aware of what was going on. We explained how to get into the house if necessary, and thanked her for letting us know. There wasn’t a darn thing we could do. I didn’t think there was any danger to the house itself, so we just followed the problem on Facebook throughout the day and, frankly, didn’t worry about it at all. The news could have been worse that morning.
The effort to repair the water main, stand the pole back upright and repair all the associated utility problems was massive. When we arrived home on Monday afternoon, the water was gone, we had electric and internet service and it seemed as if nothing had been amiss. But there was a hell of a sandy mess in our yard and in the green space to the south (right) of us, evidence of a huge, recent problem. None of the neighbors knew what the plan for clean-up was so I began calling around and asking questions. I discovered that apparently they were waiting for the ground to settle before starting the fill in and clean-up, but my call to the county triggered a little more urgency. Yesterday a landscaping contractor spent all day contouring the area and today they’re laying sod over the ugliness left behind.
Just another day in the life.
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