Replies

A friend in Atlanta said the light snow that brought that city to a standstill years ago - to the mocking delight of us folks from snowy climates - was a mask for the REAL problem: black ice. Basically, he said they had rain, a massive temperature drop which primed a sheet of black ice along all the roads, then 2-3" of snow. The snarl of traffic wasn't just southerners who know not about driving in snow (thought my friend acknowledged that was a contributing factor) but icy slipping and sliding and wipeouts.

The cracking branches is indeed a bad omen. I'll never forget that sound. My family (who were prepping for a Halloween party that night) was initially saying "what's wrong with you?" as I was scrambling to acquire gas and candles and set up the tarp under which I set up my generation outdoors etc. We tried canceling the party but people traveling from South Jersey kept coming. Then the ice on the roads became a problem, and then we lost power. As the Boy Scout motto says, Be Prepared. Parenthetically, the party was pretty cool with candles, and the generator meant we could go in and out of the fridge to serve the guests. Fun fact: coffee makers draw incredible amounts of power such that the generator chugs audibly when the coffee maker kicks on.

As a small side-note, nothing made my heart race like a power failure during a downpour when the sump pump was going off every minute. Backup and preparation and readiness are good skills to be developed and refined...a big storm every now and then is like spring training.

Coffee makers do draw a surprising amount of power. I work for a company that sells and services office equipment. Whenever we get a service call for "erratic operation", my techs will check the circuit the equipment is plugged into. Oftentimes there will be a coffee maker plugged into the same circuit.

Soda vending machines are another big culprit of suddenly drawing a lot of power, causing power drops in whatever else is plugged in on the same circuit.

My first house had a sump pump that ran continuously from about October to April. So always had to be prepared with a generator or my entire basement would get flooded within minutes. Eventually I put in a backup system that involved a marine battery and a backup pump. That did the trick.