NYSEG: Please Help Out My Neighbors

Seems that the electricity around here-- not mine-- has been off for a day or so and that NYSEG doesn't know when it's going to come back on. If my neighbors dial NYSEG's wonderful 800 outage number, something of a ritual in these parts, they can get only a recording. It says (paraphrasing), "Yes, your power is out. Neighbors' too. No, we don't know how long it will be."

Hard to believe it's 2010 when this is going on. The backroads look like something out of Little House on the Prairie.