Apparently I've gotten so accustomed to our calamity corner, as it were, that I was completely oblivious to the act when a random motorist clipped a telephone pole across the way from our lot.
I woke up around 5 AM this past Saturday morning needing to take a leak (I realize I may not have necessarily needed to include that bit of information but chose to do so anyway in attempting to recreate the scenario) and when I opened my eyes much to my surprise I was greeted with the sight of flashing emergency lights of the red and white variety penetrating one of our bedroom windows. This was in contrast to the occasion a few weeks back when I had been roused from my slumber (again, needing to relieve myself) and been treated to a light show thanks to the South Carolina state trooper who left his blue and white lights running whilst he was involved in administering a field sobriety test to some random drunkard stupid enough to think they'd be able to make it home from a night of revelry without repercussions. (Like I said, it's a busy area.) After having lightened the load, so to speak, I realized that the lights weren't coming through the windows at the rear of the house but rather those of the front and side. Curious, I looked out our side-facing bedroom window and saw a Public Safety cruiser parked beside the house. I then went to the front of the house to peer out the windows there and saw several more Public Safety cruisers.
They had us surrounded...
I was still bleary-eyed from being kind of awake but mostly asleep; add to this the fact that the sun wasn't yet over the horizon and you understand why I couldn't tell exactly what the situation was. However, I did notice that there seemed to be a sagging power line across the street from our house. We've had some fairly rough storms and significant winds here lately so I assumed that the officers were using their cruisers to form a perimeter around a downed line so as to protect any oncoming traffic or random passersby. The hole in this theory was that we hadn't lost power in our house - not so much as a flutter in service. Regardless, I went back to bed as I was content with the scenario as it appeared that the proper authorities were in control.
My wife and I were going to take part in the March of Dimes March for Babies event in Orangeburg Saturday morning. We got up at 7 AM and my first inclination was to see if there was still any commotion outside our house. I checked the side windows and all appeared to be well, but then I went to the front windows and saw this.
Flying telephone pole? Flying telephone pole.
I spoke to the officer who was posted in the intersection by our home and he filled me in on the details. According to him, the pole was struck during the night by a car driven by someone who felt the right thing to do would be to drive away from the scene. The officer told me that they'd been able to track the vehicle for several blocks because of it having left a trail of fluids but that they couldn't actually find the vehicle as the driver had been able to drive it, disabled as it were, to an unknown location. How a car that had inflicted - and taken - that much damage could still be running is beyond me. Before I walked off, the officer concluded by saying that the vehicle would probably wind up being reported stolen (the implication being that the owner might try to put off the damage via a fraudulent claim or that the vehicle was actually stolen and taken for one final joyride). I was just happy that the driver hadn't lost absolute control of their vehicle and wound up slamming it into one of our cars or, God forbid, our house.
I didn't have the slightest notion that something had happened during the night, which is somewhat disturbing since I'm sure it made quite the ruckus. Then again, I slept through the entire event when hurricane Hugo came through my hometown of Lancaster, SC back in 1989, so I guess it's not surprising something as pedestrian as a telephone pole shattering less than 50 feet from where I'd been laying didn't give me cause to wake up. I didn't hear a crash, screeching tires, shouts of obscenities or other random vulgarities, nothing. My wife, on the other hand, told me the morning after that she felt the house move at some point (she didn't pay any mind to it initially as she thought the sensation might have been from me moving or plopping down into bed forcefully enough to make her bounce). I doubt the house moved, or at least I hope it didn't. She probably did sense the impact, though, as I wish I had. Then if I'd looked outside after the fact I might have had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the car as it fled.
The pole itself snapped at two points; once at the base buried in the ground and again near the top where the wires are connected. This leads me to believe it was an older, possibly rotting pole - else it wouldn't have splintered so easily - which probably was in need of replacement anyway. Regardless, the notion of the wires being strong enough to support the weight of the pole's remnant without popping loose blew my mind. It's a wonder that they all didn't just snap under the tension and take out power to Lord only knows how many locations. We never lost power until just before 8 AM when a maintenance crew from the Department of Public Utilities showed up to replace the pole and disabled the line feeding our home. Fortunately we were leaving not long thereafter to take part in the March of Dimes event, and power had been restored by the time we got back.
Maybe I'm weird (I know I am but I'm giving myself the benefit of a doubt here), but I've grown to appreciate odd little occurrences like this. Things you don't see every day, or ever again as is the case a lot of the time. Life is a series of events strung together by our emotional connections to them, after all. The truly unique events are the ones we remember most vividly, and sometimes most fondly. Indeed, things would be mighty boring without the occasional flying telephone pole.
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