106 Hours Without Power

[superme80]

I am in Northern California, and the snow storm hit us bad. Our power came back on Saturday. I went shopping on Saturday to stock up. My town is a complete mess. Many people in my area do not have power and will not for another week or so. PG&E line workers are working so hard. I want to salute them. Round the clock and coming in from everywhere. We just got internet back a half hour ago. Power sometimes goes off so they can restring power lines. Over the summer we indulged and put a generator on our well. I am so grateful. I understand how many were unable to do so. My community has come together in such a beautiful way.

 

[evilmommie]

What a fantastic attitude in a really challenging situation. Hang in there! Sending your community good wishes.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

This happens in our area a lot. Line workers do work really hard to get things restored. I hope things get better soon!

 

[Dan Murphy]

Sorry to hear that, 80. We too know what it is like without power, sometimes dats at a time. Hoping restoration is not far off.

 

[superme80]

Thank you everyone.

 

[marthachick]

We live in NC. We had some areas with power outages. DS is a lineman and had to travel about 90 minutes east of us today. They’re staying overnight and hopefully will finish up tomorrow. Damage wasn’t as bad as a lot of areas. First time he travelled, his boss told him to enjoy the thanks from people the first couple of days in an outage. After that, people get antsy and want their power on now! Hope your area’s power is restored soon.

 

[disykat]

Wow. We were very lucky further north towards Seattle, though we did have a brief outage in our area connected to the snow, ice, and wind. (fortunately not wide spread so it only lasted a few hours) We still have school closures. We spent the week between Christmas and New Year's moving my mom up here from Southern Oregon and fortunately she was north of the I-5 closure. It made for an interesting trip with a U-Haul etc.

It is always interesting to see all the semis lined up because they can't get over the Siskiyous. Yesterday I did my grocery shopping and the shelves here were still pretty bare - especially in the produce department! I assume worker shortages are making things even worse. Our road usually gets plowed eventually, but this storm only main artilleries have been plowed even many days later.

 

[tvguy]

I am in Northern California, and the snow storm hit us bad. Our power came back on Saturday. I went shopping on Saturday to stock up. My town is a complete mess. Many people in my area do not have power and will not for another week or so. PG&E line workers are working so hard. I want to salute them. Round the clock and coming in from everywhere. We just got internet back a half hour ago. Power sometimes goes off so they can restring power lines. Over the summer we indulged and put a generator on our well. I am so grateful. I understand how many were unable to do so. My community has come together in such a beautiful way.

Seems like some of the downed power lines are in areas that may not even be accessible until Spring. Apparently this will try and route around those areas to get people back on line.

 

[superme80]

Seems like some of the downed power lines are in areas that may not even be accessible until Spring. Apparently this will try and route around those areas to get people back on line.

I think that might be El Dorado County. In Placer County they are estimating by the 20th for my friends in bit more north than me. Their homes are difficult to get to on a good day. The down trees and the snow makes it really bad. It took one of my friends 3 days to dig her family out. Thankfully someone started a fundraiser to help people pay for gas, firewood, and propane. It cost us about $40 a day to run our generators.

 

[Communicore1991]

Does anyone have a Tesla Powerwall? I'm curious how well it works in situations like this where power is out for a period of time. I'm wondering if I should invest in a whole home generator that runs on natural gas from somewhere like Generac or get something more quiet like a PowerWall

 

[jo-jo]

Does anyone have a Tesla Powerwall? I'm curious how well it works in situations like this where power is out for a period of time. I'm wondering if I should invest in a whole home generator that runs on natural gas from somewhere like Generac or get something more quiet like a PowerWall

Would mind starting a thread on that? I have questions about the power wall systems. More people may answer your questions in a separate thread.

To the OP, years ago we had an ice storm in PA and lost power for most of time over several days. Every so often, electricity would come on for maybe 10-20 mins and go out again. I'd use those times to boil water on the stove and fill up thermoses. Then used the water for hot chocolate, raman noodle soup. Kids wore hats and coats inside the house. Used those open and shake handwarmers.

 

[barkley]

Does anyone have a Tesla Powerwall? I'm curious how well it works in situations like this where power is out for a period of time. I'm wondering if I should invest in a whole home generator that runs on natural gas from somewhere like Generac or get something more quiet like a PowerWall

we had a generac installed about 12 years ago and it was the BEST home improvement we've ever done. ours is plumbed to our propane tank which i get topped off every year around thanksgiving so we are good through the end of spring despite as much as week and a half long power outages. other than the propane to operate it the only ongoing costs have been a service call every other year to do an inspection (nothing more than an oil change has ever been needed). we have plenty of neighbors who do just fine for a couple of days without power but since we are all reliant on it to run our wells that's where it gets to be the breaking point for many. in the snowy winter months an extended outage can mean if you're not home when power kicks back on having pipes burst (very costly repair to a well), and in the event of wildfires not being able to make an attempt at defending your home.


unless i go outside i don't hear my generac running during it's weekly test run or when it's in use. it sits on a slab outside adjacent to the exterior garage wall that it's power panel is on.

 

[QueenIsabella]

We lost power for 4 days during/after Hurricane Florence, three years ago. TBH, we were mostly bored and sweaty. We had a generator that kept the fridge/freezer going, but not much else. Power came back ~12 hours before internet came back--right around the time my kids were losing their gratitude at power and getting antsy about internet. And DH was locked in at work for 5 days.

I think DH felt really guilty after that, because last spring, we got a whole-house generator. Now, every time we get a good storm and the lights flicker, I say, "Come on, Daddy needs a good power outage!", because we've never had to use the generator yet. We have a Generac. The guy next door has a whole house generator, too. We let our neighbors know--we're the "young" kids on the block, everyone else is retired. No huge health issues that I know of, but of course they're welcome here if we lose power.

 

[barkley]

We lost power for 4 days during/after Hurricane Florence, three years ago. TBH, we were mostly bored and sweaty. We had a generator that kept the fridge/freezer going, but not much else. Power came back ~12 hours before internet came back--right around the time my kids were losing their gratitude at power and getting antsy about internet. And DH was locked in at work for 5 days.

I think DH felt really guilty after that, because last spring, we got a whole-house generator. Now, every time we get a good storm and the lights flicker, I say, "Come on, Daddy needs a good power outage!", because we've never had to use the generator yet. We have a Generac. The guy next door has a whole house generator, too. We let our neighbors know--we're the "young" kids on the block, everyone else is retired. No huge health issues that I know of, but of course they're welcome here if we lose power.

we recently made an addition to our 'backup power' situation-very minimal cost but we finally saw the benefits a couple days ago during a power outage. we've always had backup batteries for our computers so there's never an interruption of power before the generac turns on (30 seconds from outage) but it's always been annoying that our dvr has to do an entire reset SO............we hooked up an inexpensive battery back up to the dish hopper and the tv it's attached to. when the power went out the backup kept the connection so no prolonged wait while it restores and rebuilds the scheduler (esp. nice when you are trying to catch a news report on what is going on).

 

[jo-jo]

we recently made an addition to our 'backup power' situation-very minimal cost but we finally saw the benefits a couple days ago during a power outage. we've always had backup batteries for our computers so there's never an interruption of power before the generac turns on (30 seconds from outage) but it's always been annoying that our dvr has to do an entire reset SO............we hooked up an inexpensive battery back up to the dish hopper and the tv it's attached to. when the power went out the backup kept the connection so no prolonged wait while it restores and rebuilds the scheduler (esp. nice when you are trying to catch a news report on what is going on).

I read that people have the battery backup hooked into chairs /sofas that had an electric foot rest. Enough power to lower foot rest.

 

[barkley]

I read that people have the battery backup hooked into chairs /sofas that had an electric foot rest. Enough power to lower foot rest.

that is brilliant! if my mom were still around i'd get one for her lift chair!

 

[tvguy]

I think that might be El Dorado County. In Placer County they are estimating by the 20th for my friends in bit more north than me. Their homes are difficult to get to on a good day. The down trees and the snow makes it really bad. It took one of my friends 3 days to dig her family out. Thankfully someone started a fundraiser to help people pay for gas, firewood, and propane. It cost us about $40 a day to run our generators.

Nevada County, Grass Valley. Still no power today, but they do have a generator, it just isn't wired up to run their furnace, something they say will be their project for the summer! Friend was able to make it to work today, where they have heat and power and showers. She does work in Placer County though.

 

[fla4fun]

I read that people have the battery backup hooked into chairs /sofas that had an electric foot rest. Enough power to lower foot rest.

I am one. We had bought the chair for my mom when she was ill before she passed and it was the most comfortable chair to work in during the early days of the pandemic. Until the day the power went out for a couple hours and I was stuck in the chair. I tried climbing out over the arm, but was afraid I would damage the chair. The backup battery was a great solution.

 

[superme80]

Thank you for all the responses. I will look into the Tesla Powerwall. We wanted to get a house generator, but our power is "technically on our neighbors". It was a large piece of property split and sold years ago and power was never properly distributed. We want to get all the proper things on our property, but is about another $20,000 we just don't have.
Nevada County has been hit hard. I have a lot of friends over there still without power. I think they were told the 11th. Nevada City has a lot of place way back in there. I always forget about them.

 

[MICKIMINI]

We have had a generator for at least twenty years in two homes. We had an electrician hardwire both boxes and have heat, hot water, refrigeration and lights. Out longest outage was nine days! Thankfully we also had a wood stove which kept the house warm and we ran the generator for a few hours and did everything we needed to (eat, shower, etc) and shut it off.

You can buy electric space heaters to plug into your generator if you don't want to have it hard wired. It might be enough heat to hold out for a few days and you can also plug it into the microwave to cook.

Lowes has GE lightbulbs that charge when you use the light and you just switch it on in a power outage. It lasts quite a few hours and is immediate light.

Hang in there and do support your line workers! If you can supply treats they do appreciate it!