6 days without electricity here so far..

[Jstpssng]

I have lived here 10 years and our longest outage has been four days.

I can say the same and have lived here twice as long. Before this winter I could have said that my longest outage was 4 hours.

 

[tacticalturnip]

Generators are an absolute blessing if you can get one; our little Honda has saved our bacon so often. We lose power for a few days at a time at least once a winter, generally more. I've never been impressed with our utility service.

Glad you and the wife are alright!

 

[tacticalturnip]

In the military I would take the pack of instant coffee, open it and pour the contents in my mouth and drink just enough water to swallow everything...those days are over thank goodness.

I will waste the fuel to power the coffee pot...

Used to open it up and pour it into my bottom lip. It worked, but it was so awful, and turned into a sludge.

 

[cqaigy2]

That's a long time to be out of power. It really makes you appreciate it when it comes back on though.


15 days is the longest for us. Same thing, ice storm then heavy wet snow took a lot of trees down on power lines. Just on our main road, there were multiple 100+ foot trees down in between each power pole. Took me a couple days of sawing to get my driveway open, then a couple more on the dirt road down to the main road. The main road took a couple more to clear the trees off. Nobody had power, they were moving in large generators, by truck just to get power for gas stations and grocery stores. Cell towers went off air because they ran out of fuel. But one good thing came out of it, we got a rebate from PSE because we were without for over 2 weeks. Not going to say, it was worth it though.

 

[redman135]

2 weeks ago cyclone Gabrielle hit new zealand. Some places got 3 months rain in 24 hours. The roads and bridges have been destroyed and the wind has blown whole sections (10+ poles in a row) of power line down. Due to the road/bridge damage they are not likely to get power back soon either. The biggest problem is the sheer scale of the damaged regions. On top of that there have been 2 multi inch rainfalls since.

 

[Oaktree]

We never lost power. But we are serviced bu Great Lakes Energy and not one of the “big boys”.

I have lived here 10 years and our longest outage has been four days.

GLE does a good job.

I've been here going on 18, and the longest outage we've had has been maybe 4 hours (and only a couple of those). Our utility is one of the "big boys" (Eversource), and while I'm not a fan of everything they do, they do a good job keeping the lights on.

Generators are an absolute blessing if you can get one; our little Honda has saved our bacon so often. We lose power for a few days at a time at least once a winter, generally more. I've never been impressed with our utility service.

I picked up a 4000W Champion at TS when we first bought the place, other than semi-annual maintenance runs I've never used it. Mostly got it to keep the refrigerator and freezer cold during an extended outage (running it a couple times a day), but have never needed to. We have a gravity-fed well, woodstove for heat and propane cooking and hot water, can live without internet, tv or phone service for a while if need be.

 

[LouNY]

Just to satisfy myself when I'm on the generator I plug my little Kill A Watt meter into one of my kitchen outlets. Makes for easy monitoring of the frequency and volts.

 

[RSKY]

We were without power for nearly a month in 2009 after the "Ice Storm". SIL had a 2k generator that we alternated the freezers and fridges on. Had two light bulbs on it at night. Wife cooked bacon and eggs on a natural gas stove we had for heating the sunroom. Heated water on that stove for bathing. Since we had the gas logs in the fireplace and the gas logs in the little sunroom stove we had heat and about a dozen people staying with us. Three or four days after the storm I waited in line and bought a 4k generator an hour drive from the house and used the two generators for everything except the clothes dryer and stove. Had to drive into Tennessee for 45 minutes to get gas. There were extension cords strung out everywhere in the house. According to a guy at church who worked for WKRECC about a quarter of the poles in the county were broke off. We decided that this was a once in a lifetime event and didn't replace the generator a few years later after it quit when I got it out to service. Had a few short one day outages so I bought a larger 7.5k on sale at Sam's Club. Main reason was that it had electric start because my wife couldn't pull start even the little one. We got to use it after the 2021 tornado. Once again power cords all over the house.

So last year we bit the bullet and had a whole house generator installed. Natural gas powered, 22k, everything automatic. So even if something happens to me my wife will be safe AND kids and grands will have a place to come to if power is ever out for a month or so.

RSKY

 

[Tinhack]

I was going to say that if you wanted it badly enough you would drink it. Then realized that I never have been able to drink bad coffee.

You certainly have to strain it through your teeth, that's for sure.

 

[RSKY]

A story from the 2009 episode I mentioned above.

A few years later my wife was teaching a writing class at the local university. One of her students (a teacher) told this story. At the time of the storm she was the secretary to the general commanding the Kentucky National Guard. As such she was taking all the phone calls to his office and screening them. Few were serious enough to warrant the generals attention but some were. She got a call from a frantic sounding man saying that it was imperative that he talk to the general right now. She put him off knowing that the general was running around dealing with critical issues. The man finally told her that he was the warden at the Eddyville State Prison (were the worst prisoners serve life sentences), said they didn't have half the guards there, said prisoners hadn't been fed, said that the generators had four hours of diesel left and then would shut down. When the generators shut down all the cell doors would open and ALL the prisoners could walk out. The lady telling the story said she immediately contacted the general and he dropped everything else and started making calls. In less than two hours she got another phone call from the warden telling that a helicopter arrived at the prison with a huge fuel cell full of diesel hanging under it. Another helicopter landed with soldiers taking care of the generator and assorted equipment. She didn't know where the general got the helicopters from but thought it was from the 101st stationed about forty miles away at Fort Campbell.

RSKY

 

[sea2summit]

I could have went that route myself but I needed something my wife could deal with. Heck, she don't even know how to start the tractors, let alone hook one up to a PTO genny. I asked her and her answer was an adamant no.

What happened to her? Thought she ran them better than you did and worked on them?

Yep, found it.

Gee, I'm 72 and a cancer survivor. I didn't 'lay in bed, I kept going though it was difficult at times, especially doing chemo and wearing a chemo pump while doing my chores. My wife runs all the equipment and helps with repairs as well. Being a female isn't a disadvantage far as I'm concerned. I used to run around shirtless, not any more. I look like a field dressed deer. but It hasn't stopped me. It has slowed me down a bit but that is it.

Laying in bed is the worst thing you can do with cancer. You need to keep on keeping on or it will kill you.

Something is blocking the fuel flow, probably debris in the fuel tank and the only way to remove it is either drain the fuel tank and clean it out or have a dealer do it if you feel you are not able to do it.

 

[5030]

What happened to her? Thought she ran them better than you did and worked on them?

Yep, found it.

She prefers not to if possible and I've installed battery disconnects on the tractors and she has no idea how to energize them. In fact, I just hired a hand to help me this year with haying. Paying him 15 bucks an hour to help out and I'll use him here as well around the farm. Getting too old for the heavy stuff. She don't 'work on' squat. That is my wheelhouse. Tough getting old and at 73, things I used to do and not even thought about have become much harder to to. Besides, I'm having health issues again, the old engine is getting tired.

females are as a rule, much more attentive to what is happening than males are. She's real good with ag stuff but prefers not to if possible.

Besides a 'hired hand' is a tax write off.

 

[Grumpycat]

I was without electricity for a couple hours short of 7 days in April 2011 when tornadoes ravaged the south. Fortunately that week after the tornadoes the weather was wonderful, low humidity (unusual) and about 70°F.

I got by with an EU2000 to power the TV and refrigerator.

Had to drive 20 miles to get gasoline. No nearby gas station had emergency power. They had utility power 20 miles away. Heck everybody had utility power before I did, the local TV stations were pronouncing, "Everybody is back on line!" and I was for 4 more hours.

 

[Oaktree]

Had to drive 20 miles to get gasoline. No nearby gas station had emergency power. They had utility power 20 miles away. Heck everybody had utility power before I did, the local TV stations were pronouncing, "Everybody is back on line!" and I was for 4 more hours.

Ran into that maybe 35 years ago at my previous house. Several day long power outage, and of course the CS reps at the power company were overwhelmed. One night noticed that everyone else on my road had power except me. Flagged down a PSNH truck and told them I was still out. Turns out that there was 3 phase power running past my house (neighbor had had a sawmill at one time), and I was the only customer on one phase. They moved me to another line.

 

[RalphVa]

We got slammed with an ice storm last Wednesday and the power is out (and still is). Glad we have the diesel powered standby genset to run the farm but lots of folks aren't that lucky. I've burned through about 100 gallons of di9esel so far, it's the longest single run I've had on this genset since I bought it 15 years ago.

No utility power and interestingly, none up town either and north of us, Ann Arbor is still basically in the4 dark.

My wife said looking at Farcebook (I don't) that a number of people with electric cars (ev's) are dead (literally) in the water, just another reason I'd never have one.

Hopefully, power is restored soon. Running on diesel is pretty expensive

On top of all that we just got an inch of rain, everything is flooded here.

I have 3 large trees that succumbed to the ice. A large maple and 2 oaks. Bee doing some serious chainsawing in the upcoming days.

Heating the house with biomass presently.

We got that about the same time last year in central Va. This year, it's more like spring.

Ran out of diesel in the Isuzu's belly tank. Had to run out twice to get diesel: once to fill and a 2nd time for backup.