Squeal, Crash, Thud, Thud, Pop, Bang, Crash

     At 3:00 AM when I was awakened by those sounds, I knew exactly what was taking place; someone had missed the big curve in front of my mom's place.  I turned on the light, pulled on some pants and a shirt, and headed outside, wondering what I would find.

     About 40 meters down the road I saw the lights of a pickup truck in the ditch.  I was relieved to see the driver standing in front of it.  I yelled out, "Are you alright?" And he answered that he was.  "Do you have a phone?  Have you called '911?", I asked.  He replied that he called his wife to come and pick him up.

    I got the feeling that he didn't want to call 911 and get the authorities involved, and I wasn't sure if they needed to be involved since no one was hurt.  I turned to walk back to the house and then noticed that a utility pole was down blocking half of the road, and there were wires lying on the road.  I told the driver about it and told him I was going to call 911, which I did as soon as I got in the house.  I reported the accident; no one was hurt, and a power line was strung across the road.  I grabbed a flashlight and went back out to warn any oncoming cars, approaching the curve.

    I soon realized that the electric lines were on the opposite side off the road and it was the telephone lines that were down. I was amazed that I had been able to use the phone, since the telephone line was laying on the road and the line into my mom's house was hanging just 3 feet (90cm) off the ground.

     Fortunately there wasn't but a few cars that came down the road at that early hour and they were able to slowly squeeze by on the opposite side of the road.  It took the Sherriff about 20 minutes to arrive on the scene, and I stayed out with my flashlight on the opposite approach to the curve for an hour, when another Sherriff's car arrived. 

    I was getting pretty cold, having not really dressed for a stay outside and when I got back inside it took a really long time to get warm and loose the excitement before I could get back to sleep.  The flashing lights and noise continued until morning.

   The driver had "taken out" out my mom's mailbox, some of the neighbors' boxes, the telephone pole, and the whole line of rail fencing in front of the defunct golf course.  The telephone lines are still hanging low, but have been secured away from the road.  

     I didn't really know what I was going to blog about last night when I first went to bed.