Atlanta drivers didn’t take too long to get back to their pushy, aggravating, I’m-in-a-hurry selves on Thursday.
A trip down 400 found me behind a slow-moving BMW. My first impulse was to call the driver an idiot clogging the only open lane. In other words, to be pushy and aggravating and in a hurry.
Then it occurred to me that maybe he was just being cautious, and perhaps not idiotic, so I slowed down and followed at a safe distance.
Soon a big white SUV filled my rear-view mirror. She was in my trunk, and no doubt was calling me an idiot.
The SUV put two tires in the slushy mush and the other ones on asphalt and sped around both of us in a Buckhead minute.
Atlanta is back on the road.
But I didn't come here to tell you about road rage on 400. I was, in fact, en route to Clayton County.
***
Looking for power outages in the bright afternoon sun? Head south of Atlanta, where Georgia Power's outage map suddenly turns into a Christmas tree of colored triangles.
Just a few yards into the Heatherwood subdivision on Riverdale Road is a mature pine tree that suddenly went from vertical to horizontal Wednesday, bringing down power lines and darkening most of the neighborhood. Fittingly, the street is Pineglen Drive.
Gloria Gibson, who lives across the street from the tree, heard a loud crash about 9 a.m. Wednesday. She looked out and saw "the power line and the tree and it was all blazing up there by the pole.”
Folks here on Pineglen Drive, who are now on 29 hours without power, feels as if Georgia Power must be teasing them.
Neighbors say the utility’s trucks have come by three times, raising their hopes, then quickly turned around and driven away. Two trucks with a crew of tree-removal guys arrived after 1 p.m, raising hopes again. But the crew stood around with hands in pockets, the foreman saying, “We’re waiting for Georgia Power.”
Leo Arichabala, a construction worker from Ecuador who lives in Heatherwood, was pleased to get a free day on Wednesday. That changed when the tree came down, the power went out and the house got cold. A huge leaning pine tree in his front yard caused him to hustle his family of six out of his home Wednesday to stay with his neighbor.
The tree would have squashed his house, he figured. And, he got to know his neighbors better, sleeping in their basement.
On Thursday, Arichabala was burning branches in his yard and carrying pieces of the flaming wood into the house for heat. Yes, he conceded, there was a fair amount of smoke.
“Are you guys ready?” he said, mistaking me for a Georgia Power worker. Given the bad news, and told the tree cutters’ dilemma, he sagged.
Then he rubbed his hands together and said, “It’s hotter out here than in there.”
Right then a Georgia Power truck rolled down the street, and he brightened. Then it stopped, U-turned and drove off. He sagged again.
“They just come and go. Three times they do that. They don’t do anything. Maybe one time they’ll stop.”
***
Charles Haley, a retired sergeant first class dressed in a very colorful Jeff Gordon NASCAR coat, is on a reconnaissance misson; what’s up in Heatherwood? Basically, he’s bored, so he’s walking around. He knows who is out of power and when it happened, reciting them by street and time.
Told about a neighbor's recent burglary, he shrugs. Clayton County, he acknowledges. He points out vacant houses up and down the streets, the for-rent signs. Recently he called in a break-in at an empty house on his block. They were stealing copper, he figures.
But times like this enable neighbors who are stuck in place to venture out and meet one another. That’s good, he figures. Last night he insisted on taking in an 80-year-old neighbor whose house was getting cold.
“Just being a neighbor,” he said with a smile.
But Haley has his priorities. “They better get the power on by Saturday. They’re starting the Sprint Unlimited down in Daytona.”
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