Posted on 09/20/2003 4:48:19 AM PDT by Molly Pitcher
We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail!
We have secured the generator, and will be going through the refrigerator and freezer a second time to see what we lost (the first time was early this morning after the dry ice we picked up yesterday had time to work in both containers). I don't think we really will have lost much: about 1 quart of milk, some cream cheese, some blue cheese dressing, a couple of almost finished anyway ice cream containers were what we found this morning; I think the count this afternoon will be nothing additional. All of the garage doors are back on their automatic trolleys. All alarm clocks have been reset (we found there's a limit to their battery backup capability). We will leave water in the bathtubs for another 24 hours just to be sure power has really been restored (we've been warned lights might go out again as they work the lines).
We haven't heard from daughter-child yet ..... :-(
She sent an email Thursday night around 10-11:00 saying that it hadn't been too bad yet and that, obviously, she still had power but the phones weren't working. We haven't heard anything from her since. We assume that she lost power soon afterwards and that the phones still aren't working.
When I've tried to call, I've usually gotten just strange noises. Yesterday evening I finally got their voice mail and got excited about that. But they use the voice mail through the phone company (rather than having their own answering machine) and apparently it's back in service but not their phone. I'm not sure but I think they maybe have only portable phones, which don't work when the power is out ..... :-(
Now it just slips by without notice. I might watch if they ever came out with a series that was patriotic. Fat chance.
About 9:45 PM ET last Thursday the lights went out here. We'll call that BOUT+0.
BOUT+0:15 - Lights are out, it's 10 PM, so we turn in. We put the kids in the basement as the strongest winds could be coming later that night from their side of the house.
BOUT+4 hours - Wind starts to howl and the rain is banging against the glass to our (Mrs. Chairman and mine) bedroom. This is loud enough to wake me up. There are flashes of lightning intersperced with other blue flashes, which I (correctly it turns out) surmize are electric transformers popping.
BOUT+6 hours - Wind dies down, only to pick up again a while later. Rain continues to come in sheets.
BOUT+7 - Wind dies off, and so does the rain.
BOUT+9 - After what sort of passed for a night's sleep (HA!), we get up. We observe the only tree we lost was the fir that got crowned early in the storm. We have a "normal" breakfast, but decide to use plastic utensils and paper bowls and plates to keep clean up simple. The last of the rain stops.
BOUT+10 - Decide to check and see if there's a newspaper. This is to be my guage to see whether roads are passable. There's no paper. So I stroll down the street to the main road. Wires are down, a large tree is down (two others in our neighbor's yard), one neighbor had a statue blown off it's pedestal and ruined. Walk down the main road a bit; there's a crew working on a large tree down across the road. Go back and tell everyone that it'll be a while before we see power.
BOUT+14 - Water in the well reserve tank runs dry. Hook up the generator. This is the first test of the generator's ability to supply water since we've moved in. Fortunately, it is successful. We decide to leave the water in the tubs in the event it rains and we cannot use the generator.
BOUT+17 - Mrs. Chairman suggests we try going to the store and see if they have ice. I point out that (1) the road has to be open to the store; (2) the store had to have power; (3) the store then actually had to have ice; and (4) we had to be the first to think of the idea. I said the odds of all four things working in our favor were not good. We went anyway. On our way out we saw our newspaper, so we deduced the road must be open somewhere from our house to "civilization." The main road was closed heading toward Great Falls Park, but it was open in the direction of the store. The store had power, was open, and had no ice. But it let us get out.
BOUT+19 - Prior to supper, I set out the hurricane latterns as it looks like they will be needed. My son remarks that we "will be watching TV by candlelight."
BOUT+21 - Light up the hurricane latterns. Girl child says she has a band fund raiser to go to in the morning. Mrs. Chairman and I say it is likely cancelled, but not having any way to verify, I tell girl child we'll go if (1) we're up, and (2) the roads from here to her school are open.
BOUT+23 - All having been through a whole lot, we all pack it in for the day.
BOUT+31:30 - Set out to girl child's school. Road is open, but it is a mess. Spend a fair amount of time watching out for trees in the road as well as oncoming traffic. Wires ripped from telephone polls everywhere. No sign of power crews. No one is at the school, so we presume the event is cancelled. We go back home. On the way home we hear Dominion Power will begin handing out dry ice in the evening. BOUT+34 - Breakfast on the second day. Check milk, it's still good. We assume, based on the milk, that eggs are still good, so we have a decent breakfast.
BOUT+38 - Lunch time. We decide the milk is still good based on smell, though it is now warm. The blue cheese dressing, being mayonaise-based, is now in the trash. We serve up milk with lunch and make tomato soup, but after that the milk goes in the trash. Only about 1 quart, so we didn't feel too bad (BTW - we did darn good in eating food in the correct order of potential spoilage, so we lost very little, I am proud to say!). After lunch, we go to Sterling to get girl child some hiking shoes for girl scouts (we figure Sterling had electricity since our local supermarket did - we were right). On the way home, we notice Dominion Power trucks on the road to Great Falls Park stringing lines - we think we might get power tonight (we're wrong).
BOUT+40:30 - We decide we'll get the dry ice to protect the items still in the freezer but now just starting to thaw, and to maintain vegetables and unopened cold cuts.
BOUT+41 - I get the last shave out of my rechargable razor.
BOUT+42 - We set out to get dry ice. I want to get in line early in the hopes we'll get home quickly.
BOUT+43 - We arrive at Fair Oaks Mall, the line when we arrive is not too long. Large police presence and National Guard to maintain order, but crowd is quite pleasant, all things considered.
BOUT+43:30 - We get our dry ice, actually 30 minutes earlier than the time announced on the radio for distribution (another reason I was glad we got there early!). Because we have two adults in the household we are entitled to two 2x10x10 bricks. This will work out well - one in the top of the freezer, and one in the bottom of the fridge.
BOUT+44:15 - The dry ice is home, and into the freezer and fridge it goes. Girl child thinks the vapor condensation near the brick is neat.
BOUT+46 - We are cleaning dishes in the sink tonight by the light of the hurricane lattern, the meal being delayed by the trip to get the dry ice.
BOUT+48 - The end of the second full day w/o lights. Sleeping is getting a bit uncomfortable, as the temperature and humidity had been creeping upwards inside.
BOUT+57 - We awake to another day. We decide we'll have bagels and jelly. Oops, no jelly. Not that it had gone bad, we just didn't buy any the week before. We had margarine (Mrs. Chairman asked if it was still good - I said quite probably, yes).
BOUT+60 - I decide to take a walk to see if Dominion Power has come up the main road toward our house. No sign of Dominion Power anywhere. We're all starting to get a little testy with each other about this point in time also.
BOUT+63 - We set out to Sterling to exchange girl child's shoes (she bought them too large thinking they would be just right when she wore a couple of pairs of socks, which she didn't bring when she was originally trying them on--she was wrong). We also decide to pick up some canned goods and vegetables. Wife wants tomatoes - I reject that idea. We do go with lettuce and cucumbers, which have longer shelf lives. On the way to the store, however, we see three Dominion Power trucks and a supervisor's car heading up our road (yippee!!), and they stop at the first point they have to restring wires.
BOUT+64 - We get back from our shopping trip. Dominion Power is at the end of our street actually hooking up the downed lines there. We figure it can't be long.
BOUT+65 - We figure what is holding up getting the lights back on. We figured at the rate Dominion Power was working on our road, they were to the end by now.
BOUT+66 - Still no lights. Ugh.
BOUT+67 - Figure it's time to start another meal with paper and plastic. We're now fully into canned food, though we added the vegetables we bought earlier. The dry ice has evaporated.
BOUT+68 - We're finishing up the meal. I tell the kids I'll set up the generator again to cycle water for cleaning up.
BOUT+68:45 - The lights finally come back on, while the dishes are being cleaned.
/john
/john
I also made a modification to the truck so that I could get all of the gasoline out of the tank (safely) to run the generator. The truck has a 32 gallon tank, so in the event of a power hit, I knew I always had at least 15 gallons of fuel on hand, and probably more.
We also had (and Trill still has, until I move it, if I do) the solar power system with batteries more than 1000 amp hours at 12 volts to run the 1.5KVA inverter.
The panels are undersized, but I can run the generator to charge the batteries for a short amount of time, and still have long-term continuous power. The system cost me about $3.5K to put together.
I have an entire notebook of information that I put together in 1999 about each appliances current draw and power factor. I also had an energy budget worked out that we tested repeatedly in differing scenarios.
/john
On a Sunday??? Not a chance.:^)
KIDDIN, DIKKIN; NIKKED; ETC...
I love sports & esp football..... my "sorry humor".....
Hey, unbelievable..... the silly Browns actually W-O-N
It's the first acid test of our disaster preparedness plan since my wife and I have been together. I'm happy to say I think it went pretty darned well, all things considered!
[BTW - Interestingly, we never did reach into the supply of bottled water we had on hand!]
Being without power for so long usually makes a believer out of people but I have been amazed at some of the comments I have seen on FR by people in other parts of the country.
I did a lot of soul searching in 98-99 since I was writing a lot of the disaster recovery procedures for Y2K. I wasn't convinced Y2K would be a disaster, but I worried about a terrorist attack on the US that could shut us down, and then looked at the odds on everything and realized that a tornado is our most likely enemy.
So I prepared for the aftermath of a tornado, using the worst case scenario that I could find. Over the years, my focus has changed, but I insisted on 2 weeks of civilized survival and up to 2 years of lawless survival.
That worked well with Trill's LDS upbringing, and she supported me in preparing us. The LDS is really good at being prepared.
/john
/john
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