Ice Storm TREV

[Anonymous Poster]

For those of you in the Northeast, currently undergoing power outages, and falling trees and limbs, let me state clearly, It's all Trev's doing.
Since I connected up his monster oversized PTO driven generator for him a couple months ago, Trev has been rubbing his hands together, burning strange canldles, and uttering incantations to some strange mythological being, so that he would get an opportunity to run his generator, and show RG&E he didn't need them.
He has stored hundreds of gallons of Diesel fuel, installed fuel pumps, and stocked up on oil and replacement oil filters just waiting for the ice to hit the fan. Those who only thought of Trev as a slightly warped survivalist, have no idea the extent he will go to, and the depths he will plumb to get his way.
He's the kind of man who lives within sight of the Big Nuke Plant, just so he can conjure up an ice storm to show the giant megalopolus utility, as well as poke his thumb in their eye.
Of course, he was aided in this demonstration of power by the Inept Inferior Nitwits currently running Rochester Gas and Electric division of Eastern, people who are absolutely certain they know everything, people who are absolutely certain it is far more important to know within a yard where every truck in the fleet is than it is to maintain a local work force and listen to linemen with 20 years of experience. These are people who are sure it's far more cost effective to have a megacomputer to take reports of power failure, and confirm them with the other mega computer in their operation center, and then, send out a small truck with 2 men to verify what the customer and their 2 computers told them, withut any capacity to repair the problem.
They're the BIG utility, and Trev is the David that slew the RG&E Goliath this time.
I'm sure Trev will be over here this weekend, removing limbs and trees from my land, and dragging them to the road for disposal, cause even though he has demonstrated his conjuring, he's also gonna get tired of emailing everybody just to prove his supergenerator is keeping him on line.

 

[Egon]

Franz:

Despite Your aid and Trev's good intentions he's surely gona go out to pull a stuck neighbour out of the ditch and find his green machine sliding over the ice covered road to join his friend in need of a tow.

AND IT"S ALL BECAUSE HE DIDN'T BUY CHAINS!!!

The whole community will suffer for this commision of ommission.

Put a log on the fire, heat a poker, insert into a large lemon/honey flavoed RUM filled water diluted flagon filled to overflowing and enjoy the storm TREV.

Egon

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Egon, your suggestion sounds almost too good to pass up, unfortunatley, there are a couple problems. First being no fireplace, second being no rum, and the third being I'd enjoy it too much and forget to refuel my generator.
1 1/2 to 2" of accumulated ice with a nice glare finish,
90,000 homes without power here,
Trees are all thoroughly iced up, and started breaking and falling hours ago.
My dalin wiff helps out by conserving generator power by having candles all over the house. Then, she uses the microwave and plugs in the deep fat fryer to make supper, what can I say, she's a city girl I transplanted, and man is hse mad about her flower gardens being covered in ice.
Yup, Trev shoulda bought chains, but he's got the Green Monster tucked inside the garage turnin his PTO generator, so he won't likely disconnect to go pull anything.
He's probably set a couple 5 gallon plastic pails out so the neighbors who didn't bother to buy extension cords can carry a bucket of electrons home.
If those 90,000 houses full of irate people find Trev he's gonna need all his survival supplies.

 

[ronjhall]

TFranz
I would like to believe that TREV is responsible for this Ice Storm. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif I live Northwest of Detroit. Yesterday afternoon there were over 100,000 people without power. Another storm hit around 10:00 pm. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif I’m sure that there are more people without power after that storm.
I’ve been without power since 6:00 am yesterday morning. Last call to Detroit Edison says they may be able to restore power by April 9th. My place runs very well on my Honda generator. But I cannot work on my projects in the shop without power for the welder. I should have leaned how to gas weld. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
The cable is out and will have to go out and rent some DVD's.
I have had to resort to using dial up for internet access.
I do have the Gas log on in the wood stove.
I don’t have any beer and the cars are locked in the garage that does not have any power to open the doors. May have to put the forks on the tractor to raise the doors and make a beer run around noon. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
Hope you Easterners get you power back soon. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif It doesn’t look good here. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

 

[Egon]

Franz:
Just an old tarp for cover and a wood fire outside would be perfect. Cast iron skillet for cooking, no generator to worry about and the delighful commune with nature.

Perhaps we could set up a business for these power outages. Stockpile Barrels of electons and then sell to the highest bidder when the major storms are forcast.

But I really do think Trev needs chains and maybe a good stock of full rum barrels.

Egon

 

[DocHeb]

We've still got power, but the trees cracking in the woods all night sounded like M-80s being blown off. I hope some of the ice melts before the wind starts up, or it will be chainsaw massacre time!

 

[Trev]

Okay, okay, I'll buy some chains! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif And some rum barrels..

In the meantime, yeah, I may have over-done the ice storm incantations. Live and learn. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif The tractor is powering the house, plus my neighbor's freezer, fridge and lights. If the power ever comes back on, I'll go out and start moving trees and branches into a future burn pile. Or maybe rent a chipper.

Standard Disclaimer: For the lawyers out there, this storm had nothing to do with me, who I am not! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[hwp]

We didn't lose power but we sure got a lot of ice. I woke up at 5 am this morning and didn't know why until I looked out the window and there was a car stuck in our driveway. I turned out to be the paper delivery person. There is a slight sideways slope on the curve coming into the driveway and her front wheels slid to the edge of the driveway. She tried to back up but the ice was too slippery. Anyway, I got dressed to go out to see what the problem was. I could hardly stand up on the driveway. So I got my truck, which was also covered in ice, thawed it out enough to get it in position to tow the car out of trouble. However, even in 4wd the truck wouldn't move the car. So I got some sand out of my sandbox and spread it behind her drive tires. That was enough to get her out and off she went.

So now that I was up, awake and outside, I decided to sand/salt the driveway. The only problem was that I had taken the spreader off the tractor a couple of weeks ago. So I put the spreader back on the tractor, drove over to the sand box and put some sand in the spreader. I ran out of sand/salt about a month ago so I bought a load of sand and filled the sand box. It was fairly damp when I bought it but I thought it would be drier by now. But that was not the case and the sand would not flow to the impeller in the spreader, so I got out the wheelbarrow and spread sand on the driveway the hard way. By mid morning the temperature had risen above the freezing point and the sand/salt had softened the ice so I could start scraping with my dozer blade. By then a light drizzle had started but I was able to get down to bare pavement for the full length of the driveway by noon. to amke matters worse, the drain on one of our flat roofs had iced up. The warmer weather was causing the ice to start melting, but freezing rain over the last couple of days had covered the roof with ice up to the flashing - so we had a small leak that had to be taken care of as well. Not the way I had intended to spend Saturday morning. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Egon]

Trev:

Thems full rum barrels; not empty ones.

Best of luck with the storm.

Egon

 

[Trev]

Egon,

Yeah, I kind of figured full rum barrels would beat empty rum barrels any day! And I need a couple right now! We're frantically trying to wire up my buddy's house to run off my generator.. don't know what we're doing, of course! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

He is in real trouble.. I have power to spare.. so we found ONE place that's still open.. unless their generator guits.. and they are selling us 300 feet of URD cable and hopefully some plugs that will fit on both ends. My buddy is out buying it now.. then we have to wire it up.

I've got my place wired on a 70-amp generator output, and there's a 50-amp output on the back that I've used for emergency backfeeding and plan to try that with his house just until we get past this emergency. His basement is flooding, he has hundreds of dollars worth of food in the freezer, etc.. and he ain't rich.. but he decided to try this as a desperate measure.

I wrote to Franz asking if it would work, but Franz wasn't on-line at the time so we'll have to wing it. The URD stuff is 3-conductor, and the guy at the store will have the plug that fits my generator and a picture of the plug we need to plug into at my bud's house. He said no problem.. sounds like it should work fine. Let's hope he's right.

Once this nightmare winter is over, we'll do a proper transfer box for his house.. but until then we are under official "State of Emergency" conditions and so we will be careful the mains are off and just backfeed his house to get things working.

I got a 17KW generator, and when Franz measured it I wasn't using a fraction of that.. so we should have plenty to feed both houses.. and if worse comes to worse he can just run things as he needs them. I doubt that will happen.. this generator picked up the FULL load of my house without even a twitch of the needles or a puff of smoke from the exhaust.. so I think we have plenty of power here. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Will let you guys know later if this works okay.. I don't see why it shouldn't.. but then I don't see many things until they bite me in the backside. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

See ya on the other side, gang!! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Bob