In the past few days, with my husband out of state, the electricity in our house has been really scaring me. The fans go from normal to super-high-speed,then very slow, the lights dim, brighten, flicker, at odd times. Sometimes at 2AM, with nothing else on but the A/C, the fans would roar loud enough to wake me and the dogs (in different rooms). Walking down the hall,with flickerining lights, brought all those horror movies I've seen into my mind.

We have no new appliances, are running nothing out of the ordinary.

I called FPL, they said they would be out within 12 hours.

No calls, no FPL, but I was at work yesterday and today.

I called again this afternoon, when I thought a lightbulb was going to explode from the power surge.. They said someone came out at 10:20 last night, but there was a dog in the yard. Not true, all dogs sleep indoors, but there is a Beware of Dog sign.. They didn't call, or at least did not leave a message, so I had no idea they were there.

The fellow that showed up today was great, though.. He found the problem in about 10 minutes. A neutral/ground wire had been broken, probably since the hurricanes, on the overhead lines leading to the street. The neutral has a back-up, via a buried pipe right by the house, as a ground. But, it only works when the ground is moist. With the drought, the high house pad, the pipe-ground was not able to compensate for the broken wire. Thus the power surges/brown-outs.

So, he fixed the broken wire. I wonder if that will lower our summer bills?(G) Not likely...

I just wanted to tell this story so you all will be sure sure your electric wiring is okay before the hurricanes hit us. If it hadn't been so dry, we would not have known the wire was broken.

Lisa