LIGHTS OUT??? What were you doing and where?

5030 · Aug 18, 2003

I was sitting with Henro and his wife in Pittsburgh, PA., when the lights went out all over the eastern half of the United States. Pittsburgh wasn't affected, so we got to see the multitudes of people in New York City milling about on the streets like ants in a large cookie jar.
We also got to hear the stupid and desperate remarks made by politicians and the media adding sensationalism with the implication of possible terrorist association.

I was wondering what my fellow TBYN'ers were doing when the "Lights went out"

Inspector507 · Aug 18, 2003

Lights only went out for 10 seconds here........ /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

5030 · Aug 18, 2003

I called my wife from Pittsburgh, or at least I tried to. The phone's were out too.

When I got home Sunday, all was normal. My wife said the power was off for 29 hours. We lost all the contents of the fridge and freezer. 600 pounds of meat down the tubes.

Bird · Aug 18, 2003

( power was off for 29 hours. We lost all the contents of the fridge and freezer. 600 pounds of meat down the tubes )

That's tough; makes me not feel so bad about our power outage today. We've had 4 or 5 instances of the power off and back on within a few seconds to 10 minutes in the last two weeks, but this morning, the power went off just after 7 a.m. and by noon it was hot enough (98 degrees F) that we went to an air-conditioned restaurant and took our time. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif When we got back just before 2 p.m., they had just restored the power a few minutes earlier.

hayden · Aug 18, 2003

I was at our solar powered house in VT and was clueless until I turned on NPR in the evening and heard all about it. Sounded like '68 (I think it was then). I remember the lights being out for a long tim eand the tirals and tribulations of my father finding his way home from NYC.

rancar · Aug 19, 2003

"..was wondering what my fellow TBN'ers were doing when the "Lights went out" 

I was cutting the lawn with my JD 425 lawn tractor. When I finshed up around 8:15PM and came indoors the power was restored. JD tractors work wonders....don't they? /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

..Bob

TimSullivan · Aug 19, 2003

My wife and I had just greeted the last of our ten guests for dinner when the lights went out. The roast was done on the gas grill and propane gas cooked the rest of the meal. The only problem we had was no power to pump water from the well. Last winter we had a storage tank installed in the basement and there were a lot of trips with buckets to keep the bathrooms working.

A generator is now on our want list.

One thing about my wife she never lets a little adversity get her down. The house got a little warm but we all had a wonderful time.

knucklehead · Aug 19, 2003

Ate supper listening to the radio, then drove to work and helped put them back on. Thought the last night shift was going to be quiet, so I skipped the afternoon nap and stacked firewood. Duh!

5030 · Aug 19, 2003

I have to relate this to everyone.

When I got home from Pennsylvania, the first thing on my wife's agenda was for me to go online and order a standby generator.

Last winter we had an ice storm and we were going to get one then but somehow it got shoved under the carpet. I did buy a Yamaha 2800 I (inverter) generator for the camper and it will run the fridge and a few light, but that's all.

Anyway, we have livestock (horses) and a well so we need 220 power for that, besides the furnace and the sump pump. I fired up the wonderful internet and went right to a site I had bookmarked last year. I purchased a 15 KW propane fired standby unit with automatic switching. I contacted my propane dealer and I am having another tank installed to run in series with my present 500. That will take me to 1000 gallons.

The unit I got has 125 amps of 110 volts and 61.5 amps 220 volts on each leg. That should run our entire house with the exception of my machine shop which is on 3 phase anyway.

My wife is extremely happy now. I am sure she will be even more happy when the unit arrives and gets wired in.

I don't want to be an optimist, but I have a feeling that the power outage scenario is going to happen again, even though I hope in my heart it dosen't.

knucklehead · Aug 20, 2003

What's neat is there's a lot of Y2K stuff hanging around people's cellars and attics. I took the opportunity of the ice storm to make reasonable storm prep; and got a nice file going on several subjects. It's kind of fun, the study & practice of self reliance. Anyone familiar with Backwoods Home Magazine? Very nice, not wacko, and a different flavor than Mother Earth. Very down to Earth, actually. I was kind of wondering if there might be interest in the subject, maybe over on CBN.

Briefly, what we found was that you could head in two directions: looking for high tech solutions and sometimes very odd ones, or try to look for solutions similar to our grandparents'. That was very easy, and we found that it was more quickly accomplished and required more changes in attitude than equipment. We did add another wood stove (the wood boiler needs electron flow) and made sure we had various non electric things - like good hand tools and one of those lovely Aladdin lamps. We did buy a generator to run the water pump and washing machine, because we want to live our lives, not become re-enactors. But instead of that constant small engine drone, we now can fire up the beast, shower, wash, and cook, watch TV, surf, then shut it down and enjoy peace and quiet. And we don't wake up to a freezing house. What I'd take for a next step is a battery bank/inverter for low amperage consumption, like the circ pumps for the boiler, and some convenient lighting. That's not a cheap step, and so far the outages have been short. But we do keep the gasoline cans full, and the cars and trucks.