Longest power outage?

[Will_C]

Five days after the flooding of Sept. 2011. Only had a 2000 watt Honda generator, but it was enough to power the freezer, the refrigerator, a few lights, and the TV. No need for the computer, as both cell and landlines were out for most of that time. We were able to get water, as areas 6-10 miles west never lost power.

Will

 

[s219]

4-5 days after Hurricane Isabel (2003 I believe). Was fairly hot and humid weather, and tough to be without AC.

 

[tomd999]

Hiya,

13 days after the great ice storm of 12/12/08 in New Hampshire.

I had to drive my wife to work in the ER, all medical personal were on call as they issued a state of emergency. When I came back down our road, there was a moron out of his car, dragging wires off the road out of the way. I was sure he was going to grab a live one before I could stop him and I would have seen him fry.....

Tom

 

[KTurner]

4-5 days after Hurricane Isabel (2003 I believe). Was fairly hot and humid weather, and tough to be without AC.

We were without power for, if I remember right, 8-10 days after Isabel. Isabel was barely a hurricane when it arrived here with 74 mph winds. We lived in Newport News, VA at the time, in a well established neighborhood (20-30 years) with all underground utilities and across the street from one of three local hospitals. Newport News currently has 180,000+ people with a density of 2,600+ per sq mile, so we were not 'out in the boonies' by any stretch of the imagination. My father in law was in the next county ~5 miles away and I think he was a full two weeks without power.

"More than 15 million people lost electricity services in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, the area hardest hit, and 3 million were still without power Wednesday, September 24, a full week after the storm." - US: Millions still without power a week after Hurricane Isabel - World Socialist Web Site

Keith

 

[Ken]

We were without power for a week and my brothers over two weeks, some even longer. We ran our 5000kw to power our heater, lights submersed water pump etc. This spring we put in a 20kw propane unit that runs automatic checks, also is serviced if needed. We are just too old to be dragging generators and cords around in the middle of a storm.

Triple R
What brand of 5000kw gen set was it.

My longest period of time of being with out power was in the Service on Okinawa .At White Beach are there were 4 100 KW cat generators all tied to main line and one was smoking like train engine. The crew unloaded a newly repaired unit and connected the ground and Phase wiring and Hand cranked the pony motor then the main engine allowed to warm up then checked the frequency to make sure all was good and when the breaker was closed there was none running.
a phase to ground fault and all units had stopped instantly.

So hand starting the pony motors getting the main units running again and then tied to main took maybe 15 minutes With every Officer on the base tripping over every other officer to ask what happened.

Rechecking the newly unloaded unit the ground and one of the 3 phase wiring had been interchanged.

Learned never to trust others work and to be sure proper connections made before closing a breaker.

Only teasing you about the 5000kw unit .

ken

 

[Tollster]

11 days, fall hurricane of 2011, if I had known how long it would have been, I would have saved the generator fuel money, and the hassle, packed up and left on vacation..

I think we spent about 200 dollars to save 60 dollars of food in the fridge and freezer..

 

[s219]

We were without power for, if I remember right, 8-10 days after Isabel. Isabel was barely a hurricane when it arrived here with 74 mph winds. We lived in Newport News, VA at the time, in a well established neighborhood (20-30 years) with all underground utilities and across the street from one of three local hospitals. Newport News currently has 180,000+ people with a density of 2,600+ per sq mile, so we were not 'out in the boonies' by any stretch of the imagination. My father in law was in the next county ~5 miles away and I think he was a full two weeks without power.

"More than 15 million people lost electricity services in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, the area hardest hit, and 3 million were still without power Wednesday, September 24, a full week after the storm." - US: Millions still without power a week after Hurricane Isabel - World Socialist Web Site

Keith

At the time we were living in Williamsburg, just up the road. I remember a huge disparity in outages, going from neighborhood to neighborhood. Some were out for hours, some days, some weeks. All depended on where trees fell I suppose. If I remember right, the storm was preceded by several rainy weeks, so the ground was soft and trees blew over easily. The forests looked like battle zones for several years after that.

My mother in law, across the James River in Surrey county, was without power for weeks, and the 6-7 foot tidal surge on her side of the river all but wiped out one waterfront community. She knew several people who lost their homes. Her neighbor was living in a mobile home at the time, and it got torn apart by the tidal surge and the pieces washed up about 300 feet inland. What a site to see.

Took us weeks to clean up all the debris that washed in with the tidal surge:



That's the high water mark, about 300 feet inland. Back then nobody in the family owned a tractor. Now a couple of us have them, and it has made subsequent storm cleanup manageable. Though none was this bad.

 

[MossRoad]

Since we bought the generator about 18 years ago.... 4 hours! :laughing:

Hey, for you folks with larger generators... any of you figure out how much those multi-day outages cost you in fuel? Just curious. Thanks. :thumbsup:

 

[5030]

Triple R
What brand of 5000kw gen set was it.

My longest period of time of being with out power was in the Service on Okinawa .At White Beach are there were 4 100 KW cat generators all tied to main line and one was smoking like train engine. The crew unloaded a newly repaired unit and connected the ground and Phase wiring and Hand cranked the pony motor then the main engine allowed to warm up then checked the frequency to make sure all was good and when the breaker was closed there was none running.
a phase to ground fault and all units had stopped instantly.

So hand starting the pony motors getting the main units running again and then tied to main took maybe 15 minutes With every Officer on the base tripping over every other officer to ask what happened.

Rechecking the newly unloaded unit the ground and one of the 3 phase wiring had been interchanged.

Learned never to trust others work and to be sure proper connections made before closing a breaker.

Only teasing you about the 5000kw unit .

ken

I think he meant 5000 watt. 5000KW is a helluva big standby.

5000KW is 5 MILLION watts.

 

[boggen]

it pays to go on camping trips... err have stuff to go camping with, but for when power goes out. living rural. having stuff run on LP or natural gas. can go a long ways, (more so heat) in winter.

winter power outage = nice vs summer.... you can toss your fridge items outside in a laundry basket, and possibly freezer stuff as well. *been there done that*

i think only a day here. maybe only a few hours.. but really can't remember, have lugged out generator so many times in preparation for power outages. and then power comes back on with in a couple hours normally.