POWER OUTAGE

[~TG~]

Need some advice here....

Last Tuesday at 9am CPS cut the power out at my house BY MISTAKE and NO ONE notified me.... i didnt find out till 8:30 pm when i got home to a MESS.. I got the through to the emergency line and explained i needed the light back on pronto!! it was their mistake and someone needed to come out ASAP i even offered to pay any after hours fees explaining to them that:
1. I had SW Tanks worth lots of $$ that had probably OVERFLOWED inside my house and
2. I couldnt get IN my HOUSE cause its an electric Garage DOOR!!

He basically told me "I'm sorry Ma'am they dont do reconnects after 5pm....there are no other options, i can give you the claims dept # for you to call" WHAT THE %@*#?!?!?! I just about went thru the phone.....
I had to wait until the next day and they promised my light would be back on by 7:30am.... I leave at 7am SOOO when i got home at 8pm again, NO LIGHT I was FURIOUS...i called again and to add insult to injury, he said.."Ma'am, for safety reasons if no one is home they leave the breakers off so that you can turn it on when you get there " there are NO words to describe the feeling at that moment....

Well now the tragedy.....
2 of my tanks overflowed and major damages to my new floors,
ALL ALL ALL of my corals died :cry every single one..
and about half of my fish.... there i was taking as many fish as i could FIND in the DARK into 6 buckets and 1 blower to share between them with no place to go!! THANKFULLY.. Chris over at Alamo was a life saver for housing what was left of my fishies ...

I called the claims dept over at CPS and im expecting an adjuster to call me tomorrow....
I wanted to know if anyone here has ever had any expierence with CPS and anything like this before? I dont know what to expect from this adjuster or if CPS will actually pay for any damages??
Any advice would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks
Thelma G.

[Beverly]

OMG! :o
I sent you a PM. Thelma, let me know if there is ANYTHING I can do for you! I feel your pain....oooh and it HURTS!

[caferacermike]

I'd bet they will try to not pay any claims for livestock.

Best of luck and do keep us posted.

I had a similar deal happen with my gas once. I came home one night late from work and wanted to take a hot shower and go to bed. Instead I found a tag on the door saying my gas had been shutoff due to non payment. I got inside found my reciept and called them. They told me it would be at least 4 days until they came out to turn it back on unless I wanted to pay $200 for an emergency service. It was their fault. They even admitted it. Guess what? 2 days later they turned it back on and apologized. All is well? Nope. I see a $300 extra on my next bill. I was beyond furious. Let's just say I made a visit to the offices here in Austin and it wasn't nice. Oh and if you ever find yourself in a situation where you beat a gas meter to pieces with a 6 lb sledgehammer, when they come to replace it tell them you ran into it with the lawnmower.

[technomex]

I hope you rebound from your disaster and get some cash out of CPS. The power in my area also kept going out due to all of the construction. The best investment I have ever made was a battery backup for my tunzes. All of the countless times the power went off, the tunzes kept churning.

Fidel

[ratboy]

Oh and if you ever find yourself in a situation where you beat a gas meter to pieces with a 6 lb sledgehammer, when they come to replace it tell them you ran into it with the lawnmower.

Dang you're brave to beat on a gas meter. I hope it was a copper hammer!! +1 that they wont pay for any livestock or damages...

[jc]

That sucks. I am replacing floors in my house from a flood also. Why did your tanks overflow?

[Ram_Puppy]

depending on the value of what was lost I would be thinking about lawyering up... just the act of doing so can force a settlement in your favor because they don't want to go to court.

I am the type of person that doesn't get mad, I get furious, I would want the head of whoever made the mistake.

[Ram_Puppy]

maybe the woai troubleshooters?

[hobogato]

maybe the woai troubleshooters?

that would probably get even more attention than a lawyer

[~TG~]

The IRONIC thing about all of this is that I DO RISK MANAGEMENT for a local hospital here... I deal with lawsuits, claims, Quality, etc.... so that may be a + on my side... It kinda kicked in naturally when i kept telling the guy...."OK in need for you to type in your notes what im telling you ~ i have over $4000 + invested in my tanks inside loaded with fish and corals, that i am 100% sure there is a flood inside and I cannot get into my house because of the electric garage door PLUS it is COLD outside and i have my 10yr old son who is a severe asthmatic out in this weather ~ so this is a very big liability on CPS " when he was done i had him read it back to me and sure enough when i spoke to the adjuster today...he read the notes and said "ohhh my..."
HOPEFULLY something good will come out of all this....

Fingers crossed.....

[jroescher]

What caused the tanks to overflow? They shouldn't do that when the power is off.

[~TG~]

im not sure what caused it but there was water everywhere..... gallons of it that we had to use a shopvac.. Does any one know what would have made that happen? it had happened to me before BUT it was only when the siphon was lost, not the power...

[matt]

I am so sorry to hear about this disaster. Please keep us informed. If you find out what caused the flood I'd be interested in hearing about it.

[Ram_Puppy]

~TG~ were you running your sumps high so when the power went off and the tanks drained they overflowed? maybe reduce the operating level of your sumps.

I really am sorry about your loss.

[LoneStar]

I am interested on how CPS fixes their screw up.

And one question. You do not have a keyed door entry (front door) to your house? Seems like a big liability if you are inside and cannot exit due to a power failure or fire...

[~TG~]

~TG~ were you running your sumps high so when the power went off and the tanks drained they overflowed? maybe reduce the operating level of your sumps.

That was what i was thinking....looking back the water level in my sumps are kinda high and i can see how that would overflow.....

could it be that when the light was shut off ~ i know they were doing some work in the back and it kept going off and on (thats what my neighbor told me) and finally there was something with a broken line?? or busted line.... Anyhow could the fact that the power turning off and on cause this as well??

As for the keyed front door ~ yes i have one but we have a glass storm door that was locked from the inside and we enter through the garage.

we did manage to get in.. thats when i took out what i could find in the dark with a flashlight and called Chirs over at Alamo Aquatics for help.. :cry :cry

[jroescher]

Maybe the power was turned off long enough for the water level to go down and break the siphon, then turned back on again long enough to to empty the sump. That assumes that when you found the flood your sumps were empty.

You really need to figure out was caused the floods for future reference. The power will go out again someday.

I want to know what caused the floods. I have a LOT of salt water in the middle of my living room just waiting for something to go wrong.

I imagine the power company will be asking also. Surely they're going to take a hard look at things before they pay out that kind of money.