When there’s a falling dead tree behind your house, threatening both a power line and a small creek, what do you do?
You have three options.
One: do nothing. Easiest option. Feel vaguely guilty about it for a few weeks, maybe deal with a short power outage or a little flooding.
Two: the traditional route.
- Figure out where the tree fell: near the creek in San Jose, CA, United States.
- Figure out which authority level to call: HOA? San Jose? Santa Clara County? California?
- Navigate to the San Jose City website, see a number under Report Issues! Hooray, we must be nearly there!
- Call them, wait on hold, then finally tell them where the tree is located: near the creek in San Jose, CA, United States, close to a power line.
- Get told that San Jose doesn’t have jurisdiction over this issue. When you press, learn you should call either AT&T (for the power line) or the Santa Clara Water District (for the creek). Is there anything else we can help with, no, have a nice day.
- Try AT&T. Surely they have an interest in preventing power outages, you think. Get told no, this is emphatically a water district problem.
- Call the Santa Clara water district instead, and at last hear the words “thank you for reporting this issue” from a rep who assures you the issue will be resolved in the next week.
Three: use Safety Cone.
- Take a picture of the tree.
- Click and drag to mark the location.
- Hit submit.
Do you have a municipal issues horror story? Let us know in the comments or by emailing at founders@getsafetycone.com! And try submitting your reports at getsafetycone.com – it’s quick, easy, and totally free.
