Ready for a power outage?

[velvetfoot]

The weather from the west is coming this way. 1/2 million out in Midwest.

I might fill up the bathtub again. Last time I did that we didn't lose power.

 

[hardwood715]

Ahead of the front south to southeast winds
will increase to 15 to 30 mph with gusts over 60 mph possible in
north south oriented valleys and across higher terrain. Behind the
front... winds will shift to the west and increase to 20 to 45 mph
with gusts 60 to 80 mph...

:gulp:

 

[velvetfoot]

Yes, wind will be the issue. At least no freezing rain for us.

 

[wg_bent]

I think as soon as I get home from work I'm gonna bring in a 3-4 days worth of wood.

 

[begreen]

Good plan. I filled the big box on the porch right before the storm and it was empty 4 days later.

 

[BrotherBart]

The generator is gassed up and was test fired a few weeks ago. The 6,000 VA and 9,000 VA UPSs are humming and the four deep cycle battary lash-up is on the trickle charger.

And we broke an all time record with a high of 74 today. But the wind has been fierce.

 

[iceman]

Finally winter is coming ... yeah 50-60 mph gust in mass tonight yeah! maybe snow on monday gosh i am praying for snow

 

[Mo Heat]

My power was knocked out today. I'm one of the lucky ones. It was only off for a couple hours. I was starting to panic, though. Mother Mo Heat was packing for a trip to nearby relatives. I was wondering how my insert would work without the blower. Just as I was firing it up, the power came back on. Whew!

500,000 of my neighbors are without power and the wind that's coming is expected to blow down a bunch of the trees around here that are covered with, and bending under the weight of, hours of freezing rain we had yesterday. They are predicting a lot more customers will be affected in the next couple days. So it's going to get worse before it gets better.

I was out last night driving around and flipping idiots off on an errand of mercy. It was sleeting, then raining, then snowing, then lightening. Weird. At least the really heavy rain started melting the snow as the temp dipped up around 32*F for a couple hours.

I've been shoveling ice and snow from my steep, 3-wide driveway like there was no tomorrow. Yesterday it was coming down so fast I could only do one lane before I had to start over again. Today I freed up a second lane. The third car can stay put. Danged snow plow keeps pushing my neighbor's snow into my driveway! I say snow, but it's really ice by the time I get to it. Good workout, though.

I brought in a couple weeks worth of wood before yesterday. It was around 74*F outside. Tonight it will be near 4*F. That's a big drop! I was mowing the grass and raking leaves in my T-shirt on Tuesday. Man, the mid-west has some weird weather shifts.

BB, can you tell me more about your UPS setup? How long, and how much, can you run on it? I was thinking of buying a comptuer type portable one just for the insert fans. I probably should buy a generator but all the fuel and tying it into the house wiring is putting me off. I don't want to just have extension cords running everywhere.

 

[Mike Wilson]

Boat is hauled out of the water and on the hard... house has the stove going, enough wood for a week downstairs, and the generator fueled and ready to go. We already have some major branches down in town, nothing big falling around my area because this close to the water most everything has already fallen down over the years, trees don't tend to get much taller than 20 feet, its like natural selection. I'll be watching the anemometer to see what we peak out at this evening... meanwhile, the forecast is:

TONIGHT
W WINDS 30 TO 40 KT. GUSTS UP TO 50 KT. SEAS 7 TO 9 FT.
SHOWERS WITH ISOLATED TSTMS THIS EVENING. VSBY 1 TO 3 NM THIS
EVENING.


-- Mike

 

[iceman]

My power was knocked out today. I'm one of the lucky ones. It was only off for a couple hours. I was starting to panic, though. Mother Mo Heat was packing for a trip to nearby relatives. I was wondering how my insert would work without the blower. Just as I was firing it up, the power came back on. Whew!

500,000 of my neighbors are without power and the wind that's coming is expected to blow down a bunch of the trees around here that are covered with, and bending under the weight of, hours of freezing rain we had yesterday. They are predicting a lot more customers will be affected in the next couple days. So it's going to get worse before it gets better.

I was out last night driving around and flipping idiots off on an errand of mercy. It was sleeting, then raining, then snowing, then lightening. Weird. At least the really heavy rain started melting the snow as the temp dipped up around 32*F for a couple hours.

I've been shoveling ice and snow from my steep, 3-wide driveway like there was no tomorrow. Yesterday it was coming down so fast I could only do one lane before I had to start over again. Today I freed up a second lane. The third car can stay put. Danged snow plow keeps pushing my neighbor's snow into my driveway! I say snow, but it's really ice by the time I get to it. Good workout, though.

I brought in a couple weeks worth of wood before yesterday. It was around 74*F outside. Tonight it will be near 4*F. That's a big drop! I was mowing the grass and raking leaves in my T-shirt on Tuesday. Man, the mid-west has some weird weather shifts.

BB, can you tell me more about your UPS setup? How long, and how much, can you run on it? I was thinking of buying a comptuer type portable one just for the insert fans. I probably should buy a generator but all the fuel and tying it into the house wiring is putting me off. I don't want to just have extension cords running everywhere.

AL GORE----GLOBAL WARMING its here and we need to survive pretty soon (5-10yrs) it will be snowing in the summer .... one will be 80 and 24hrs later will be light snow in mid july

 

[suematteva]

It is doing just about everything nasty up here....Freezing rain at the top of the hill...thunder & lightning...wind...going to change over to snow shortly...the thunder is shaking the house...half a cord dry in the garage, stove is running like a champ and the grape juice is flowing....

 

[richg]

I have a generator hard wired into the house (professionally done)....yeah, bring it on

 

[Mo Heat]

Just watched the local news.

Power lines down all over the place. One dead when power line ripped from house by falling tree started a fire, burning her house down with her in it.

Lots of marina and boat damage at recreational lakes, especially Lake of the Oazarks. People clearing out of the St. Louis area. Old folks homes being evacuated. Red cross centers being set up. Governor has declared [a state of emergency] in Missouri. National Guard called out. Humvees and trucks delivering cots, medicine, generators, etc. Boots on the ground. Portions of highway 70 (main hwy) closed. Abandoned cars everywhere. Stranded motorists. Stranded airline passengers. Light rail shutdown in St. Louis.

Pretty spooky. I have power again and the WWL is cooking as is the gas furnace. Hopefully things will continue smoothly for me and other's will get their power back soon. Last time this happened was last July during two back to back wind storms with similarly downed trees taking out power lines. Some folks were without power for weeks. I hope it goes better this winter for those poor bas^h^h^h folks. Most of the same people are being affected again. Dang.

 

[velvetfoot]

Here in NY State as of 9:00 the numbers look like this (still growing I believe):

Central Hudson 26,000
Con Edison 3,700
ORU 8,200
NYSEG 17,600
RG&E 4,100
NGrid 40,000
LIPA 8,800
TOTAL 108,400

 

[begreen]

What kind of winds are you getting in NY?

 

[velvetfoot]

It looks like Rochester was the winner at 10:00 PM per NWS with, like, 40 mph sustained and 50 gusts.
(broken link removed)

 

[begreen]

Impressive. Don't go under any big trees until this blows by.

 

[BrotherBart]

We had sixty mile an hour wind gusts today. Heard up in Maryland they recorded an eighty mile an hour gust.

 

[hardwood715]

One person was killed and up to 25,000 families were without power Friday as high winds and storms rolled through the mid-Hudson Valley.

The person died after a tree fell onto a house in Ellenville, according to state police. No further details were available Friday. High winds ripped out a locust tree by its roots Friday, causing it to topple in his yard, Hyde Park resident Henry Bingell said.

After his power went out, Bingell lit candles. He said he went outside to find both his vehicles, a car and a truck, and his neighbor’s truck, crushed by the fallen tree.
‘‘It’s a mess. I’m stuck with nothing,’’ Bingell said. ‘‘I don’t know how I’m going to get to work.’’

All else is well here, at the home front, Oddly enough, my cheapo blue tarps remain on the wood, a black plasic cover my neighbor gave me from his pallet of pellets disappeared, however, the 2 huge rounds that I had holding it down were 7 feet from the pile! Holy Crap! We were under tornado watch and I retreated to the basement after I heard all the loose stuff hitting the side of the house. Hope Warren and Kevin from my town faired well also.

 

[Mike Wilson]

Well, did the "post storm" property survey this morning... lost a tree in our wooded lot out back, its lying against another tree on a 45. Pity its just a 25' red cedar... but she'll burn well next year. Also found a Linden tree that's about 15 degrees off kilter, with some of the roots above ground.. but that one should hold up well. Whenever it does fall there's probably a cord or more in it. Anyone ever burn Linden? Power flickered once or twice, but no outage. Anemometer recorded a top gust of 48 knots last night, nothing earth shattering, but a great breeze this morning. The water is all blowing whitecaps, foam all over the beach, etc.

-- Mike