Behind the Headlines

By Paula Wethington / paula@monroenews.com

Well, let’s see how long I can keep an Internet connection going this time. I did lose connection at one point. It’s really, really dark with just a camping light and a laptop computer on in the house. I will need to get some more D batteries when this is all done with (yes I’m going to look in the sales fliers and will post what I find at Monroe on a Budget)

A couple of my neighbors in Monroe have decided to start bailing out their sump pumps with buckets - great idea, but I couldn’t figure out how to take the lid off my pump. I did peek in the pump and see that while the water is high, it’s OK for now.

I imagine some of us neighbors will be going to the hardware store in the next few days for battery backups to the sumps. You see, I’m in a neighborhood that didn’t lose power during the August 2003 power outage; although the neighborhood my husband and I lived in at the time did lose power for several hours. So it’s just not something that is a common enough situation for our current neighbors to think about it.

I have, however, unplugged or turned off anything else I can think of. When there’s enough power to run the sump, I want it to run the sump.

And for whatever it’s worth, I did go through the power outage voice mail at DTE Energy to make the official report.

Some of what I’m hearing on the radio this hour:

• Transformer on fire on Bay View St. near Glenwood in Monroe.
• 2100 block of Sterns Rd., wires down.
• Tree on fire at Dunbar and Keegan.
• 1000 block of W. Front St. near Kaye Lani Dr., Monroe, wires down.
• Tree down in 4100 block of E. Dunbar Rd.
• 200 block of Rabbit Run, Ash Township, fire department called to check on that house.
• Wires down in 600 and 700 block of Kentucky Ave. in Monroe.

National Weather Service in Detroit also has posted on its site “multiple trees blown down” in Monroe; a truck that was blown off I-75 near Exit 16; and several trees down in “downtown” Petersburg.