The cat was rescued! Xcel refused to help. Someone in the community finally found a big enough ladder, climbed up to live wires and rescued the cat. Thankfully everyone is safe.
Has anyone considered that turning off the power might not even be possible without turning it off at hospitals and other critical locations…?
all critical locations have huge DC batteries specifically design to take over during a short outage. Then generators.
There would always be a risk any backup systems fail. As another commenter pointed out, in other countries it would be illegal to cut power like that for that kind of reason. And that’s a good thing. Power is literally keeping people alive and shouldn’t be turned off because it seems mean to leave it on.
But a better point is, no one discussing this knows what downstream effects could happen if they killed the power. Seems kind of crazy to me to pretend we do.
If their back up system fails then it’s their fault for not keeping it up to date. Seriously, my husband is an engineer who designs these battery systems. They do not “fail” if they are maintained and replaced properly.
Critical locations like hospitals have backup generators.
Omg wasn’t this story on reddit a few days ago? Something is off here. Why would the cat simply stay there for 5 days? No cat would just sit there for that long - hunger usually gets the better of them and they risk jumping even if afraid at first. Also why haven’t people done anything about that cat in the days since this was posted on reddit? If that cat really is stuck don’t wait for the fkn electric company, get a fkn ladder and get the cat. Or get a blanket under the pole and prod the cat until it jumps. No one has been doing anything about that cat for 5 days, wtf?? None of this makes any sense
Have you not read the article? People tried, ladders don’t reach, firefighters need Xcel to turn off power.
Edit: Kitty was saved!
Maybe it’s weird that the cat didn’t try jumping down but this situation is not that rare. I’ve seen a workplace where a cat was stuck in one of those semi-floors between windows and when asked the employees were like, oh yeah, she’s been there a few days.
Aww would be a shame if a pole a few blocks up just ‘failed’ for some reason. :/ The cat could co-incidentally be free to climb down or be rescued during the totally unexpected outage!
If the newspaper article doesn’t get them to do it, then this is the way.
Most cats can survive terminal velocity. That cat isn’t stuck.
Most cats don’t know that though
It wouldn’t have been up there for 5 days if it wasn’t
“Leave me alone!”- le cat.
(Don’t think xcell actually needs to turn the power off, but they do need to send a technician in a bucket.)
Fuck Xcel Energy.
Then again, if they can get the cat out whithout cutting off power, it might save a whole district from power loss. And depending on the duration/location, your neighbouring industries like steel mills would be very much unhappy to have theire steel go solid inside their pipes and have to replace all of them…
Looking at the power line on the picture: HAHA no.
As much as I like cats. I can also see/share your point. Here in NL a company is legally not allowed to cut power for ‘saving a cat’ reason, and will be heavily fined for it.
