Wind Storm

NH got hit hard on Sunday night with heavy rain and wind. Howling, screeching scary winds that even unsettled the dogs.
Who woke me up at midnight seeking comfort and reassurance. The house was dark. Power was out. I did a cursory check and our house was fine.

I woke up at 5. I lit a fire in the woodstove. I went out with a flashlight (Brian's super bright one). Things did not look good. A tree was down at the end of the drive. I could see house electrical wires in the drive. As it was dark I proceeded no farther deciding I needed daylight to be safe.

I lit some oil lamps. This Alladin puts out the light of a 60 watt bulb.



ML and I hauled the generator from the garage, attached it to the receptacle coupled to the transfer switch and we were partially back into the 21st century. I only keep crucial circuits powered - well pump, furnace (which supplies hot water), refrigerator and a kitchen outlet for the microwave and coffee pot. ML needs her coffee.  



I do not have lights on the generator. We use the oil lanterns. I shaved by oil lamp light


After showers we went to survey the damage.

This tree fell from accross the street into our drive. It damaged the electric lines on the street and completely knocked ours down, Along with landline phone and cable


This is on the street as ML touches base with a first responder. Our entire street was not passible.


Since we could not get out of the drive we were stranded. ML's school was closed for two days.
Monday I wrote letters by candle light. I also had a wind up radio for news of the situation.


On Tuesday at 10 AM a tree service cut the tree off the wires. We have the tools and skillset to do this. But as electrical power lines were involved we elected to not touch the tree.

At noon a power company  stopped by and we had power early afternoon.

Internet service followed this evening. We still do not have a land line phone.

All in all an interesting experience. We are pretty well prepared for such events. Though I was caught with only 10 gallons of gasoline on hand. In a bit of foreshadowing I had mentioned to Brian (Shadowsdad) that our winter prep was complete I just needed more gas. The storm hit that evening.

Our daughter stopped at the barricades and picked up ML and our gas cans. After a short search they returned with 15 more gallons of gasoline and a pizza!! What a great wife and kid.

So anybody else hit with this storm?

Phil

Just glad that all of you are safe, Phil.

Just glad that all of you are safe, Phil.

Thanks Freddy. We are all good. The winds were harrowing but no damage to us or house other than the downed lines.

I like how your posts are always a cool little story and the fact that you shaved by oil lamp light. That sounds like fun! I'm glad everything's okay and nobody was hurt.

We had similar here in Maine Phil. At the peak of the outage Maine had >400k folks w/o utility supplied power.

But Maine had an ice storm in '98 and I vowed that we'd never be w/o power for 5.5 days again. So I installed a solar PV system with battery backup and an 8k welder/generator. We did OK in this latest and were only out until I got out of the sack to flip us over to "alternate power". I ran the genny 2-3 times to recharge the batteries since the sun wasn't shining on Monday. This time we got our utility power back after 2 days. The biggest loss was in missing TV stations that had no power. I spent time with the tablet watching movies that I downloaded from Amazon. When the genny ran I recharged the tablet and cells... "Don't run the washer for one pair of socks, but for a whole load of wash.". When I ran the genny it did as much as possible (for efficiency) is my point. That's only common sense.

FWIW, my previous idea in '98 was to revert back to pre-REA days with lanterns and such during the ice storm. That works in the short term. But after a few days of that during the ice storm the water from combustion began saturating our home. That gave me the impetus to explore other solutions. It worked fine decades ago before homes were as tight as they are today. We still have the gear for a return to pre-REA just in case. Redundancy works, "one is none and two is one.".

Glad to read that the C8 is working for you folks. We got fantastic use of our LED lights as well, mostly to save the genny from burning gas. On the PV system we need to be cautious of consumption esp' if the sun isn't shining.

I went through 6 gallons of gas and I need to replenish that and get more gas on hand just in case of another brutal winter like last year. I don't want to be forced to take my (probably illegal) aggressive tire chains off just to drive a few miles on the public way to fill the tank of the plow truck.

Good to hear you guys are well, Phil.

I like how your posts are always a cool little story and the fact that you shaved by oil lamp light. That sounds like fun! I'm glad everything's okay and nobody was hurt.

Thanks.

Good to hear you guys are well, Phil.

Thanks. Looks like the region is back to normal. I have been detouring around a local road during my daily commute. It is the last of the closed roads in our area.
This morning it was open. I am such a creature of habit I was halfway down the road before I realized the detour barricades had been removed

 When I ran the genny it did as much as possible (for efficiency) is my point. That's only common sense.

FWIW, my previous idea in '98 was to revert back to pre-REA days with lanterns and such during the ice storm. That works in the short term. But after a few days of that during the ice storm the water from combustion began saturating our home. That gave me the impetus to explore other solutions. It worked fine decades ago before homes were as tight as they are today.  We still have the gear for a return to pre-REA just in case. Redundancy works, "one is none and two is one.".

Our generator is 8KW. I use the transfer switch to control what gets power. Well pumps are a significant drain when they start up.
We don't run the generator constantly. Only as needed to for heat, hot water, water and refrigerator. When it is running I optimize which appliances are running to max out the watts. Not gonna have it run to charge just a cell phone.

I haven't heard the acronym REA since middle school in history class. Though my father lived through it.

We live in a log cabin. Miles and miles of joints between the logs. Despite the claims of log home manufactures there IS lots of air infiltration. So we do not get condensation issues.

Our big ice storm was 2008. We lost power for 6 days. Had 6 extra people and two dogs move in as we became a defacto shelter. Since we have the generator, woodstoves, firewood, oil lamps, etc. During those 6 days we did not have any moisture issues. I figured it was because of the log cabin joints.

Wood itself soaks up a great deal of moisture as well.

FWIW, as of last night there were still over 100k folks w/o power in Maine.