Author Topic: North Eastern USA hit with massive power outages due to ice-storm  (Read 4766 times)

rcavictim

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Saw on the 6 o'clock alleged news tonight that the North Eastern US got really clobbered with an ice storm and many will be without power due mostly to downed trees taking down the distribution lines for several days.  Pretty serious emergency I heard. 

Anyone here living in the affected region and enjoying the comfort of forethought and preparedness?
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Geno

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Re: North Eastern USA hit with massive power outages due to ice-storm
« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2008, 10:41:06 AM »
Yeah, It's pretty bad. 1.25 million homes with no electricity. State of emergency's all over the place. The northern edge of the ice was about 40 minutes south of me. I got 6-8" of heavy snow and a tiny bit of ice. It's still nothing like the big one 10 years ago that hit just north of me.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_ice_storm_of_1998  From what I've been told there are still 1000's of band aid repairs from the 98 storm which are still in place.

Thanks, Geno

Curtis Shipp

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Re: North Eastern USA hit with massive power outages due to ice-storm
« Reply #2 on: December 13, 2008, 03:01:49 PM »
Why is this not on the news like Katrina was? I know it is all Bush's fault. I have heard the Demo's say so.
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Jim Mc

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Re: North Eastern USA hit with massive power outages due to ice-storm
« Reply #3 on: December 13, 2008, 11:17:59 PM »
Of course it Bush's fault.  If he hadn't allowed global warming to occur, all that precipitation would have just been harmless light snow ;)



EdK

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Re: North Eastern USA hit with massive power outages due to ice-storm
« Reply #4 on: December 14, 2008, 01:00:18 PM »
How about my first post coming from ground zero? We lost power about 10:00PM Thursday evening. During the night and into Friday morning I could hear branches and whole trees giving way to the weight of the ice accumulation. It mades me a bit sad to see the destruction. I'm fairly isolated in the midst of 48 mostly wooded acres via 1/2 mile drive. When I built I clear-cut 3 acres around the house. A few people had asked me why I did that. At least one of those has a tree through his roof and vehicle windshied as I write. I had to hack my way out Friday with my trusty 1977 vintage Stihl saw. Left a couple on the wires that I'm still able to drive under - most notably a 40' section of 6-7" diameter pine that is balanced perfectly horizonal on the wire. The broken butt end is rubbing on another tree providing just enough friction to keep it balanced 20' off the ground. A bit spooky to drive under but it seems stable enough.

Out on the road the utility lines are lying on the ground in places (amazing my DSL is still working/TelCo runs on battery). I traveled to Home Depot yesterday for a couple of items. I mention it because while in electrical a bunch of long-faced guys staring at empty shelves offered me $100 for a 30-amp plug if I had one. Clerk said they sold out of all gensets within a few minutes of opening on Friday. Roadside gypsy genset sellers from out of the area have come in to peddle the Chinese copy B&S-style aircooled gensets for $2-3K.

With temporary power (a cup of hot coffee, computer to play with), a wood stove and enough wood to last to spring I'm in good shape. This is the third day with no power, temp is barely above zero and the utility is making no promises with respect to restoration date. As of this morning our utility still reports 194,000 households without power. I enjoyed writing this first post but I'll sign off for now as I travel out to help a few I know who have not planned so well.

Ed

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Update 12-16-08: Will be entering our 5th day without power. Getting along just fine. Adding a few pictures I snapped yesterday.

Driveway


Within 1 mile of home


Within 1 mile of home

« Last Edit: December 16, 2008, 02:57:23 AM by EdK »

t19

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Re: North Eastern USA hit with massive power outages due to ice-storm
« Reply #5 on: December 14, 2008, 03:19:58 PM »
Well we got another dumping of snow last night, and now they are calling for rain... we have gone from 0 C to -21C and now up to 3C... I suspect we are in for more outages.

Frankly there are cheap Generators for sale at Walmart for under $500 that would at least help.. and people still have not bought.  I no longer feel sorry for them.

I have fuel and a Listeroid... everyone loves to see it work, everyone loves to talk about it when the lights are out, then they forget about protecting themselves.  Hell I even own firearms and have ammo to hunt with if it got really bad

Glad to see you have taken the steps to protect yourself, all the best
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ZackaryMac

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Re: North Eastern USA hit with massive power outages due to ice-storm
« Reply #6 on: December 15, 2008, 01:39:39 AM »
I'm north-east of Maine (in Nova Scotia), and didn't get any freezing rain, though they warned about it for a day or two. Power went off for about a minute at home. I was expecting nasty weather, and they canceled school anyway, so the kids had another day off. The news showed that nasty stuff you folks ended up with. It's funny, but my power hardly ever goes off, and when it does, it isn't for long. I have a 7kw Kohler generator from a RV as my main back-up, and I used it once in 2 years. If it's not heating season I use my ancient 300w Honda generator for a few lights.

Sad as it seems, sometimes I hope for a storm to knock the power out a couple of days. Good way to stir things up, sell a couple of old generators, and keep me busy at work.  ;)
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NoSpark

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Re: North Eastern USA hit with massive power outages due to ice-storm
« Reply #7 on: December 15, 2008, 03:18:31 AM »
We ended up with a nice layer of ice, but no loss of power. I still had my roid cooling system apart redoing some fittings but I could have gotten it together in a pinch. It would have sucked to have to use the Coleman generator after all the work I've put into the new generator, but at least I was prepared either way. My father-in-law who has helped me on my gen project wasn't so lucky, over 20 hours without power. He was able to get 120v from his welder/generator but that didn't run his well pump or wood boiler circulators. Sad thing is that he had his whole house running on that welder during the '98 ice storm for 4 days, and had since used the wire and plugs for other projects. He told me yesterday that he wouldn't be unprepared next time and asked me what I had invested in my generator. I'm hoping to sell him on and help him build either a listeroid or changfa gen set(rubbing my hands together ;D)
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RJ

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Re: North Eastern USA hit with massive power outages due to ice-storm
« Reply #8 on: December 15, 2008, 04:53:28 PM »
My parents and two brothers of mine south of me are still without power. One brother in NH and the other with my folks in MA. My brother in MA won't see power till the end of the week. At least 6 poles snapped in half on his road in less then a mile and half. Couple with that and the power lines to his barn which feed his house have been ripped from the pole and are all on the ground. I wheeled my diesel generator down there on Saturday morning from VT so he could bring the house back up to temp. This is a 8.5kw kubota powered ST generator that I built this past spring.

It's bad down there, I did feel ground zero from the 98 ice storm up here in VT we had houses without power for over 3 weeks. This storm wasn't as wide spread as the 98 storm but some locations the icing was just as bad IMO.

-RJ