tractor
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Post by tractor on Aug 12, 2021 18:43:08 GMT -5
We had a big storm on Tuesday and we lost our power. Its hot and humid and I'm tired of sitting on the front porch listening to the hum of the generator. The line to our house snapped in half and is laying on the ground buried by a pile of trees. It will not be easy to get to to be repaired or replaced.
We are out along with 200,000 other people, and it will be a long time before things get fixed. I get it, it sucks, but life goes on. I suspect we will be out for at least 10-day to two weeks.
In my boredom I'm wondering, what was your longest power outage, and what did you do to keep sane?
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swamp
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Post by swamp on Aug 12, 2021 18:57:14 GMT -5
Not me but my in laws. 3 weeks. Ice storm. “
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billisonboard
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Post by billisonboard on Aug 12, 2021 19:01:12 GMT -5
About a month. Typhoon when stationed on Guam.
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busymom
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Post by busymom on Aug 12, 2021 19:30:31 GMT -5
About a month. Typhoon when stationed on Guam. Sounds like you win. Didn't happen to us, but someone we know in our community lost power for a week after a bad storm. Which stinks, because here, if you have no power, you have no heat. Fortunately, this family had a working fireplace, because the cold weather forced them to need it.
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Aug 12, 2021 20:03:37 GMT -5
Not me personally (a couple days each time) but a February 1994 ice storm had a few areas of the city without electricity for five weeks.
And then a July 2003 derecho (nicknamed Hurricane Elvis) had parts of the city with no power for four weeks.
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stillmovingforward
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Post by stillmovingforward on Aug 12, 2021 20:49:48 GMT -5
Four weeks due to a massive ice storm back in the'70s. Grew up in the local mountains WAY back in the woods. But we were used to it and only really noticed because the pump wouldn't work to get water. We used wood to heat and could cook with it when we needed to.
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countrygirl2
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Post by countrygirl2 on Aug 12, 2021 20:53:17 GMT -5
Houston area, out for over 3 weeks. They brought Canadians in to rebuild it, they lost a ton of line, poles and everything near Conroe in the river bottoms. I can't remember which hurricane it was but it was bad. We had a generator for water and power, gas for the water heater and stove, no AC though. But we could run fans so not bad. Also my neighbor rigged up a telly for us and we never lost phone service so that was good. I could wash clothes but not dry them, but I had a small line so that worked.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2021 21:10:06 GMT -5
Hurricane Elvis that Tennesseer mentioned, left me without power for about a week. We had a big storm, maybe 4 years ago, Mister and I both lost power and our homes were almost 30 minutes apart. His was out for close to a week, mine was out for over a week. The first day I declared we were on an an adventure, and we cooked breakfast on my charcoal grill. That evening we barbecued. The next day, it wasn’t fun anymore and we went to his apartment and ran the last of the hot water out of the tank taking showers. There was a gas tank at my house. Another day we went to his parents house to shower. They had power. So much of the city was without power that the first couple of days it was hard to find restaurants that were open. I’ll be happy if I never have to do that again in my life.
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Aug 12, 2021 21:53:50 GMT -5
Hurricane Elvis that Tennesseer mentioned, left me without power for about a week. We had a big storm, maybe 4 years ago, Mister and I both lost power and our homes were almost 30 minutes apart. His was out for close to a week, mine was out for over a week. The first day I declared we were on an an adventure, and we cooked breakfast on my charcoal grill. That evening we barbecued. The next day, it wasn’t fun anymore and we went to his apartment and ran the last of the hot water out of the tank taking showers. There was a gas tank at my house. Another day we went to his parents house to shower. They had power. So much of the city was without power that the first couple of days it was hard to find restaurants that were open. I’ll be happy if I never have to do that again in my life. The day 'Hurricane Elvis' stuck I was up in Washington D.C. conducting a company EEO investigation. As Washington is one hour ahead of us here in Memphis, I was watching The Weather Channel and they were showing the derecho as it was approaching Memphis. Watching radar I thought "That's not good. It's going to be bad." And it was. Summer outages aren't too bad for me as long as it's no longer than like 48 hours. I don't mind the cold showers.
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taz157
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Post by taz157 on Aug 13, 2021 5:32:20 GMT -5
Lost for a week due to rain that we received ultimately from Hurricane Isabel in 2003. We lived in an area with a bunch of trees. I was studying for the CPA exam then so we had found different places each night so I could study. At bedtime, we’d come back to our house.
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tractor
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Post by tractor on Aug 13, 2021 6:27:28 GMT -5
Fortunately, there are large sections of town that still have power so I can go out to eat and take showers elsewhere, so it could be worse.
My wife loved to camp as a kid and considered this just another big camping trip. She's been heating up water from the creek to wash her hair and clean up and thinks the dark, quiet time is wonderful. If I couldn't head to the office I would go stir crazy.
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NoNamePerson
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Post by NoNamePerson on Aug 13, 2021 7:08:30 GMT -5
30 days after Hurricane Frederick in 79. 3 weeks after Ivan! My son put in whole house generator around 2010. Me: you know where we will all be if get hit? You are the only one who will have A/C, TV, power, etc. Son: I’ve considered that. There will be a cover charge! I hope all without power get it back soon. It is a PITA especially since we are so electronically dependent
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daisylu
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Post by daisylu on Aug 13, 2021 7:29:23 GMT -5
2 weeks. Derecho of 2012, during heat wave - temps over 100 degrees.
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Aug 13, 2021 8:30:54 GMT -5
2 weeks. Derecho of 2012, during heat wave - temps over 100 degrees. Derechos are a whole different beast.
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alabamagal
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Post by alabamagal on Aug 13, 2021 8:45:51 GMT -5
4 hours. Guess I’ve been lucky😀
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2021 11:48:15 GMT -5
Hurricane Elvis that Tennesseer mentioned, left me without power for about a week. We had a big storm, maybe 4 years ago, Mister and I both lost power and our homes were almost 30 minutes apart. His was out for close to a week, mine was out for over a week. The first day I declared we were on an an adventure, and we cooked breakfast on my charcoal grill. That evening we barbecued. The next day, it wasn’t fun anymore and we went to his apartment and ran the last of the hot water out of the tank taking showers. There was a gas tank at my house. Another day we went to his parents house to shower. They had power. So much of the city was without power that the first couple of days it was hard to find restaurants that were open. I’ll be happy if I never have to do that again in my life. The day 'Hurricane Elvis' stuck I was up in Washington D.C. conducting a company EEO investigation. As Washington is one hour ahead of us here in Memphis, I was watching The Weather Channel and they were showing the derecho as it was approaching Memphis. Watching radar I thought "That's not good. It's going to be bad." And it was. Summer outages aren't too bad for me as long as it's no longer than like 48 hours. I don't mind the cold showers. I was on vacation on the Gulf when Hurricane Elvis came through. It tore off part of the back of my Aunt’s house, who was with us on vacation, her husband was home. My cousin and I didn’t know if our houses were damaged. We cut our trip short and came home that day. I’ll never forget how scary it was driving back home through the remnants of that storm. It was daytime, but dark as hell and raining so hard you could barely see. We contemplated stopping several times, but we had to drive through Mississippi to get home and you gotta be careful with those small towns in Mississippi, so we kept driving. We were 3 women and 3 children in 2 cars. When we got to Jackson, MS, we stopped to eat and talked again about getting hotel rooms there since it’s a city, but we still decided to keep going. My house and my cousin’s house had no damage, but I had no power. The only “good” thing was I have a gas water heater at that house, so we could at least take normal showers.
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kadee79
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Post by kadee79 on Aug 13, 2021 12:09:15 GMT -5
We have a coop, they are great. Our longest so far has been about 8-10 hrs. while those in town (6 mi. away) who are on Ga. Power were out for 3 days after that same storm...hurricane Michael. Even the day that DH hit the big transformer that sits in our yard (hit it with his truck bumper) & disconnected HUGE wires (as big around as my thigh), we were only out for about 3 hrs. while the guys went back to the office/shop and got a new one to put in place.
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justme
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Post by justme on Aug 13, 2021 18:53:09 GMT -5
Two days when the university kicked us off campus and I stupidly went to my friend's (without my car so I had to wait a day until someone took me back) instead of my parents that only lost for a few hours.
Though places not too far from me were weeks.
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billisonboard
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Post by billisonboard on Aug 13, 2021 19:15:15 GMT -5
What was interesting on Guam was that as residential lights came back on after the typhoon, it was a street here and a street there. You obviously had to be connected to be connected.
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NoNamePerson
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Post by NoNamePerson on Aug 13, 2021 19:37:06 GMT -5
What was interesting on Guam was that as residential lights came back on after the typhoon, it was a street here and a street there. You obviously had to be connected to be connected. We lost power during hurricane Camille (no I don’t live on Mississippi coast but close enough to Gulf that anything in the Gulf can cause problems). We had it back the on the next day. We joked it was because the big wig with power company lived in the subdivision! So there may be some truth to your statement
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billisonboard
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Post by billisonboard on Aug 13, 2021 20:00:00 GMT -5
What was interesting on Guam was that as residential lights came back on after the typhoon, it was a street here and a street there. You obviously had to be connected to be connected. We lost power during hurricane Camille (no I don’t live on Mississippi coast but close enough to Gulf that anything in the Gulf can cause problems). We had it back the on the next day. We joked it was because the big wig with power company lived in the subdivision! So there may be some truth to your statement At least back in the 1970's, Guamanian politicians made Chicago's look like boy scouts.
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Knee Deep in Water Chloe
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Post by Knee Deep in Water Chloe on Aug 14, 2021 10:58:18 GMT -5
Ugh! I'd struggle mightly with that. Because I'm a prissy, prissy, pansy princess.
We would have heat though. Our region's infrastructure is not fantastic. There are few homes that do not have a wood burning heating system. For some it's a fireplace, for others and us it's wood stove, some have pellet stoves. Others have huge propane tanks installed at their property.
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billisonboard
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Post by billisonboard on Aug 14, 2021 12:13:18 GMT -5
Ugh! I'd struggle mightly with that. Because I'm a prissy, prissy, pansy princess.
We would have heat though. Our region's infrastructure is not fantastic. There are few homes that do not have a wood burning heating system. For some it's a fireplace, for others and us it's wood stove, some have pellet stoves. Others have huge propane tanks installed at their property. After the typhoon, we were also without running water for a week. No auto-fill toilets.
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NoNamePerson
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Post by NoNamePerson on Aug 14, 2021 13:42:54 GMT -5
Ugh! I'd struggle mightly with that. Because I'm a prissy, prissy, pansy princess.
We would have heat though. Our region's infrastructure is not fantastic. There are few homes that do not have a wood burning heating system. For some it's a fireplace, for others and us it's wood stove, some have pellet stoves. Others have huge propane tanks installed at their property. After the typhoon, we were also without running water for a week. No auto-fill toilets. We had water only because “city water” finally made it to street about a month before we started to build our house. But neighbor was on well! Lots were acre each so not built on top of each other. We hooked 4 hoses together and ran thru window of neighbor house. They had 4 kids so losing prime on well was not good. Neighbors just pulled together and did what was needed. This was time power out for 30 days. SAHM fed the power co workers every day! Thank goodness for Ohio and Texas power company
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Malarky
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Post by Malarky on Aug 14, 2021 16:57:30 GMT -5
Twenty seven years ago, when we first owned this house, we lost power for about 36 hours.
It turns out that we're on the same line? grid? whatever it is-as the elderly housing a few blocks away and someone died because their oxygen wasn't functioning.
Since then we've never lost power for more than a couple of hours at most. Even though some places in town have been out a week or more after an ice storm.
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sesfw
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Post by sesfw on Aug 14, 2021 17:04:26 GMT -5
Lost power around summer 2002-3 when someone in Ohio ( somewhere in that area) goofed and left the whole NE quadrant of the US without electricity. Forgot how long it was but it was a mess. Fortunately we had a generator that ran with natural gas so most of the kitchen and master suite were OK.
Ran a very long extension cord to the neighbors so their sump pump in basement would continue working. Also kept their microwave going.
Interesting time.
Then over Thanksgiving around 1975 we lived in the forest outside of Flagstaff and an ice storm hit. Wood burning steel stove for cooking and heat, and oil lamps for light. Power came back on Sunday afternoon about the same time the snow plow got to our area. Still remember.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Aug 14, 2021 19:00:12 GMT -5
My biggest tragedy was not quite 24 hours. It was 110 degrees. I went to a hotel. I am weak.
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gambler
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Post by gambler on Aug 14, 2021 20:06:19 GMT -5
At least a month, thus my infatuation with generators
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daisylu
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Post by daisylu on Aug 14, 2021 20:22:49 GMT -5
My biggest tragedy was not quite 24 hours. It was 110 degrees. I went to a hotel. I am weak. We have backup heat in the winter so I don't mind, but being without electricity in the summer when it is 100 degrees is a no go for me.
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NoNamePerson
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Post by NoNamePerson on Aug 15, 2021 7:59:20 GMT -5
Had to laugh! All this talk about power outage and my power went off at 3:30am this morning! Just came back on almost 8. I think it’s a test I will not, repeat NOT be reading or posting on power outage threads from this point forward. I will admit that I was close to texting son as standby housing as it is already 80 degrees but cooler than normal and “they” say rain on way!
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