Fuck in snow

[Knuckledragger]

Sup Head-Case, remember me? As of 8:15 this evening, I have been without power for a week now. That means no running water (I have a well and an electric pump) and I have been reliant on two wood stoves for heat and candles for light. It's like living in the 19th century. I finally got cell phone coverage back on Thursday (lots of towers are out) but it's been going down periodically since then. Of course I have no internets. I have a UPS for my cable modem and wireless because of the frequent brownouts I get. I've checked it a few times and the cable modem has said "HAHAHAHA. Stop kidding yourself."

I was out last Saturday. In the same space I'm sitting now, in fact (my friend's DVD rental store.) It's normally a 15 minute drive home from there. I left at 10:45 and did not get home until 3AM. It was like playing some sadistic video game. All the roads, which I know like the back of my hand, were nearly unrecognizable from the whiteout condition. Also, most of them were blocked by fallen trees, which KEPT falling as I made my way. I was also STARVING. I drove all the way to Whately (not close, on the other side of the Connecticut River) to find food. No dice, the power was out everywhere.

I finally got home by sneaking past some cops who were stopping traffic because of a downed tree, going AROUND the tree and then following the tracks of a big 4x4 truck that had been there before me. I got within 3/4 of a mile of home, by stopping and pulling a few branches out of the road and keeping going. The final obstacle for me was a huge downed tree. The 4x4 drove into the snowbank and kept going. There I got my trusty Subaru stuck, so I abandoned it (after promising to come back for it) and trudged the rest of the way on foot.

That was one of the scariest walks of my life. I had walk under downed telephone poles only supported by their remaining wires, trees suspended by the same wires, and probably lots of downed electric wires that I couldn't see. My light source was an LED headlamp, which was a terrible option. It was snowing sideways, and all the light did was illuminate the snow directly in front of my face.

As of this writing, I still lack power. There was the first sign of workers on my street today. No less than three tree crews removing downed limbs and such. Still no electric workers. I got a robocall from the B'town police dept tonight, "80% of the homes now have power back." That's up from 38% last night, guess who's in the remaining 20%?

I have both of my wood stoves going, in order to keep the pipes from freezing (it's been in the 20s both last night and tonight). I'm here to order food, check some email (holy shit, inbox) and then go back to babysit the stoves.

[ujamerstand]

Damn man, be safe.

[Fitz]

Holy carp.

[swt61]

Damn! Here's hoping you're back on the grid very soon!

[crappyjones123]

Stay safe knuckles

And everyone else

Edited November 6, 2011 by crappyjones123

[shellylh]

Jeez, that really sucks. I cannot imagine being without water and power in the winter. It is bad enough being without power in the summer.

[Pars]

Holy shit! Stay safe and hope you get your power back soon.

[bhjazz]

Wow, Knucks. Yeah, be safe. Glad you made it home safe. Sounds like a pretty serious adventure. A week is such a serious long time without power. I know there are other 'casers doing the same thing.

[skullguise]

All the best Dan, hope that 20% is 0% ASAP!

[Salt Peanuts]

Stay safe, Dan. I hope you get the power back soon!

[Voltron]

I knew something was up when the JPEG flow slowed down in the Slower Forum. Glad you are ok and hope the power, food and mobility problems are all resolved shortly. Keep warm.

[n_maher]

Knuckles, keep warm and hopefully the power will be back on soon.

[Tyll Hertsens]

Stay warm, Knucks. Been trying extra hard to put stuff in Slower Forum .... but lack your mad chops.

[Torpedo]

Glad you're fine Knucks, stay safe, that must have been a nightmare.

[acidbasement]

Wow, that's a story, Knucks. Keep feeding those wood stoves! We've got ~6 cords of wood piled outside our house, and will probably need another 3 before the end of winter. We just got our first snow today.

[mikeymad]

wow glad the weather in NYC is great - hope it holds this week...

[manaox2]

Please stay safe and warm Knuckles! Hope to hear good news soon.

[Knuckledragger]

Thanks for the kid thoughts, folks. Things are mostly back to normal here. I'll be cleaning up brush and limbs for all eternity, I think. I should have a contractor with a chainsaw here sometime this week. As one might imagine, it's more or less impossible to hire any tree services right now.

A lady of my acquaintance likes to tease me about 'internet addiction' and sent me a number of texts during my Week of Darkness asking how I was doing without it. The truth is that without running water, refrigeration or an easy way to cook food, the internets lose their shine pretty quickly. I did miss my music collection, though. I made do with my iPod and KS-75s. I had to charge the 'Pod, my laptop and cell phone at my friend's business (once HE got power back, that is.)

I'm seriously considering buying a generator. It's still pretty much impossible to find one locally. Stores were getting them in batches of 30-50 and they'd sell out in 15 minutes. One place had a waiting list, but the buyer had no say in what model they ended up with. It might be a 2000W 'suitcase' model, or a 6000W monster. Once the dust has settled a bit more, I'm going to research some different models. I don't want a cheap piece of crap that lasts one year, but I also want a generator that I can move by mysself.

[bozebuttons]

Check out Harbor Frieght catalog for generators.

[Voltron]

Nate just bought one that seems to fit your criteria, as mentioned above in this thread.

[n_maher]

Knuckles,

If you're going to buy one you should also have a transfer switch put in. I've heard horror stories about back feeding gone bad and one from this storm where a guy got a gennie only to nuke his well pump, furnace, fridge and a few others when things didn't go as expected...

[acidbasement]

Not sure if it meets your needs better or worse than a generator, but you can also consider backup battery inverter systems. We get fairly frequent power outages here, and I've got an 1800W battery/inverter to back up my sump pump and deep freeze. It's got 5 AC outlets, and I just plug it in every few months to make sure the battery remains charged. Then, if I go out of town, I plug it into the wall and the sump pump and deep freeze into it, just in case.

The one I have is similar to this: http://www.xantrex.com/power-products/backup-power/xpower-powersource-1800.aspx

[bhjazz]

It's been snowing in the Seattle area for five days now. Haven't been to work in two days (w00t!). Would've been fun yesterday, but a tree went down a block away due to the melting/refreezing. Took out a few hundred homes; Power was out for seven hours which made it a bit cold, but we had a gas fireplace on so temps on the main floor were 66. Not bad, eh?

Now the rest of the area from Seattle all the way down to Olympia is getting more snow and power outages. Ha. Supposed to rain like a mofo tomorrow so all of this stuff will melt and the news people will bring "Floods of Death 2012" to the airwaves.

I know, I know, not a big deal to many of you. I saw Nate post the other day that it was 5 one morning. Good lord.

[MoonShine]

We gots flooding in Salem:

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/

[Tyll Hertsens]

Weird. We haven't had hardly any snow. Mountains are still brown in some places. Missoula got dumped on, but it went right around us. Friggen weird winter this year.