No electricity(subtitle:I never would have survived in "olden days") UPDATE:12/5 WE HAVE POWER!!

[yoopermom]

This is not a *true* vent or complaint, we aren't in the path of a hurricane, or typhoon, or wildfires, I get it.....

However, we did get the biggest one day storm we've had in the 25 years we've been living here: 22 inches of wet heavy snow in about 18 hours on Saturday into Sunday. No electricity since Sunday am, our road wasn't plowed until yesterday afternoon.

The good: we have alternative heat source (wood stove in front room with lots of wood and kindling cut, it keeps the house at 80, the dogs are actually too hot), gas stove for cooking (have to light pilot light manually but no big deal), water stocked up for a week, lots of headlamps/flashlights/etc. But, still....

It's dark from 4 pm to 7 am, wow! Okay, the first night was still and silent and kind of cool, but now it's getting old . I can't wait to take a shower (baby wipes and dry shampoo only last so long). I missed the fall finale of the Good Doctor. My parents keep calling to make sure we're still alive. I told them we are, but my DH would do much better on those Alaska Survival shows than I would. I should have known, since my idea of camping is a 30' RV with full hookup and his is a tent in the middle of nowhere....

So tell me your "no electricity" stories, make me laugh...or cry....please!

Terri

UPDATE: Drove in the yard at 9 pm after work last night to see the house ablaze with light, whew! Everything is up and working, and life is back to normal. Thanks to ALL of you for helping me through this!

 

[tlcdoula]

I am with you, I don't deal well with no power either...

About a week before Christmas last year we had a huge wind storm that knocked out power almost everywhere. We live just outside of city limits so we were towards the end of the list for our hydro company. We were 4 days I think with no power, the kicker was we have no other heat source so it was so flipping cold in our house. I had layers of cloths on gloves, socks, I even had those hot pockets in my socks, gloves and in my bra believe it or not haha.. We ended up losing all the food in our fridge and freezer but bright side was I needed to clean it out at some point so it just made me do it.

Now here is the funny part... I said to hubby I need to do some dishes so he boiled me some water... it was to hot so i was filling the rest of the sink up with cold water and low and behold there was hot water!!!! We were going to be going out for dinner and one of my friends told me to come to her house to shower because they have a big generator etc. As soon as I realized we still had hot water (day 4 lol) I ran into the bathroom washed my hair had a shower haha.. I couldn't believe that I had been feeling gross for a few days and could have had a dam shower.. I figured that it would have been used up already..

Lesson learned, try your hot water!!!!

 

[Hikergirl]

That's why we have a generator
Plus we have tons of camping gear so if we didn't have gas for it we'd still be OK.

My dh grew up in the boonies so when there was a bad storm he had no power for a week, and the plow didn't make it "out there" for days. The first winter storm we lost power, he went out and got a generator.
We've used in maybe 3 times, but I am so glad we have it.

 

[Welsh_Dragon]

This is not a *true* vent or complaint, we aren't in the path of a hurricane, or typhoon, or wildfires, I get it.....

However, we did get the biggest one day storm we've had in the 25 years we've been living here: 22 inches of wet heavy snow in about 18 hours on Saturday into Sunday. No electricity since Sunday am, our road wasn't plowed until yesterday afternoon.

The good: we have alternative heat source (wood stove in front room with lots of wood and kindling cut, it keeps the house at 80, the dogs are actually too hot), gas stove for cooking (have to light pilot light manually but no big deal), water stocked up for a week, lots of headlamps/flashlights/etc. But, still....

It's dark from 4 pm to 7 am, wow! Okay, the first night was still and silent and kind of cool, but now it's getting old . I can't wait to take a shower (baby wipes and dry shampoo only last so long). I missed the fall finale of the Good Doctor. My parents keep calling to make sure we're still alive. I told them we are, but my DH would do much better on those Alaska Survival shows than I would. I should have known, since my idea of camping is a 30' RV with full hookup and his is a tent in the middle of nowhere....

So tell me your "no electricity" stories, make me laugh...or cry....please!

Terri

But you have internet, so all is not lost! Don’t let your ‘phone run out of battery.

 

[yoopermom]

Hikergirl, we only have a work generator (from DHs masonry days) which is busy keeping our freezers/frig going. At least we aren't going to lose hundreds of dollars in meat. The retired millionaire couple that live a forty over from us have a HUGE whole house generator that auto runs when the power is down. Yes, I'm envious!

And I'm posting on my break here at work, trying to save my phone for "emergencies" at home. (And as much as I love the DIS, I don't think y'all qualify).

 

[Hikergirl]

Hikergirl, we only have a work generator (from DHs masonry days) which is busy keeping our freezers/frig going. At least we aren't going to lose hundreds of dollars in meat. The retired millionaire couple that live a forty over from us have a HUGE whole house generator that auto runs when the power is down. Yes, I'm envious!

And I'm posting on my break here at work, trying to save my phone for "emergencies" at home. (And as much as I love the DIS, I don't think y'all qualify).

We have a smaller one, not one of those whole house ones. We use it for the fridge, an outlet in the kitchen, the heat pump so we have heat, and of course the office where the router is so we have internet and have a place to charge our devices.

Hope you get your power back soon!

 

[RamblingMad]

I plan vacations to do what you’re experiencing for fun. Going to backpack Grand Canyon and Glacier next year.

 

[bjscheel]

On 12/23/09 we'd been snowed in for a couple of days already and were bored so DH decided to have the kids open their Christmas presents. Literally the moment they opened up the Wii they'd been asking for forever, the electricity went out! They did get to play for about 45 minutes that night and then it was lights out for a couple of days. That winter was the worst with snow, that's why I can tell you the exact date.

Another time it was ice and it lasted 4-5 days. Younger DD was getting kind of put out by the inconvenience. My kids were very good at pretend play & entertaining themselves but this was a bit much even for them. As I was putting her to bed in the living room by the kerosene heater I told her grumpy self to pretend she was Laura Ingalls. She muttered, "I'd RATHER be Mary."

We bought a generator that time and have hardly had to use it since.

 

[tvguy]

Well, electricity I could do without for longer than water. We had a plumbing problem earlier this year that required our water to be shut off for 3 days. Had to fill buckets up with water from the neighbors so we could flush the toilets.
I had an Aunt and Uncle who had a cabin on a lake with no electricity or plumbing and we used to stay there for a week at a time no problem. They finally got power and put in a holding tank in 1990.

 

[L&Lfan]

We lost power 7 years ago in July for 3 days. After one night without air conditioning I checked into a hotel until power was restored.

 

[superme80]

I feel your pain. When we dealt with the blackouts in October I realized how much I hate the Pioneer Lifestyle!!!!

 

[HeatherC]

One word...generator. We paid about $800 for ours and it was the best money we have ever spent. We are on a well, so no water either when the power goes out. The generator runs everything we need...fridge, well pump,heat, tv, etc.

Even though they are noisy, the make the loss of power so much more bearable.

Hope you get power back soon!

 

[Klayfish]

about seven or eight years ago, the Philadelphia area got hit with a freak October snowstorm. We lived in the far northwest suburbs, so we got about eight inches of heavy wet snow. It knocked out all electricity in the area. Our house was also on septic, and a well. We had no power for 7 days. I won't lie, the first two nights we stayed in the hotel. However, after that, we had to go back home. We used my grill to cook all of our food. I had a small gas generator, but could power one or two lights. we used glow sticks at night as night lights for the kids. They thought it was fun, kind of like camping. we drove them to the local YMCA to take a shower. If we had to go to the bathroom, we drove to Walmart which was 5 minutes away. we look back on it now and laugh, because we did the best we could to make it almost like camping in the old days.

However, I will say I hope that I never have to do that again.

Sorry for the horrible grammar. Talk and type all my phone stinks.

 

[Moliphino]

about seven or eight years ago, the Philadelphia area got hit with a freak October snowstorm. We lived in the far northwest suburbs, so we got about eight inches of heavy wet snow. It knocked out all electricity in the area. Our house was also on septic, and a well. We had no power for 7 days. I won't lie, the first two nights we stayed in the hotel. However, after that, we had to go back home. We used my grill to cook all of our food. I had a small gas generator, but could power one or two lights. we used glow sticks at night as night lights for the kids. They thought it was fun, kind of like camping. we drove them to the local YMCA to take a shower. If we had to go to the bathroom, we drove to Walmart which was 5 minutes away. we look back on it now and laugh, because we did the best we could to make it almost like camping in the old days.

However, I will say I hope that I never have to do that again.

Sorry for the horrible grammar. Talk and type all my phone stinks.

The 2011 October snowstorm? We also lost power for a whole week for that one, too, and it was hell.

 

[ZZBane]

Many years ago we had a small generator that got stolen by the guy painting our house. Whatever.

Fast forward to last year, a little over a week before Thanksgiving, we get a random ice storm. It wasn’t that bad, but it was the first one of the season and it knocked the power out. It was around 7/730 pm. Right before I was about to get my son to bed. My mom called the power company and estimated the power to be back on by 10 am the next day. It was my parents, myself, and my 1 year old. We put a fire on in the living room and my parents slept on the couch. My son and I went downstairs like normal and I put him in fleece pjs. I put a fire on downstairs too.

I should mention that whenever we lost power in that house, absolutely NO WATER could go down any drain. No flushing toilets. Our basement would flood. We found out the hard way. Twice.

Anyway, the next morning it was a bit cold in the house, but tolerable for the moment. As long as we had warm clothes on, we were ok, but we still didn’t have electricity. I told my mom to call for another update. So she did. She then had to call again because we weren’t exactly sure what we heard....turns out the power would be out for an estimated 4 MORE DAYS! Yes...that doesn’t work too well with a baby. Luckily, I worked at a hotel about 5 minutes away. I called my work and got us a room for the next several days. I had to work that weekend anyway. We ended up selling out because apparently the outage was massive! My GM comped our entire stay. Granted, I worked doubles for several days straight.

My dad stayed at the house with our dogs and was able to buy a tiny generator that a store a ways away had left. He bought out one store of ceramic heaters. He would come to the hotel to shower and eat.

We lost everything in both our refrigerators and everything in a giant stand up freezer we had.

Our power came back on around 130 pm on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I cried when I found out. I just wanted to go home.

But lesson learned. My brother happened to surprise us with a visit during this time and was staying at the hotel I worked at. He and my dad went online and my dad ordered a nearly $1500 generator.

We live in Florida now, so no worries on ice storms or snow, but if a hurricane ever comes this far inland, we’re prepared.

Sorry for the long post. It was a crazy time though for sure!

 

[low-key]

I am a Caveman

 

[focusondisney]

We live south of Buffalo NY. A few suburbs to the north of the city have had prolonged outages (days to about 2 weeks) due to ice or wind storms. Luckily with our most severe storms, we have only lost power for 36 hours at the longest. But, the utility that services our neighborhood is terrible. We get random short outages, sometimes for no apparent reason. We had 2 outages in November. Early in the month it was out for about 4 hours. Then the night before Thanksgiving, it went out for a bit over 2 hours. Weather was fine, I have no idea why it went out. That was the 4 th time this year it went out.

We have been doing some home renovations getting things ready for when we retire in a couple of years. We had talked about getting a generator off & on for years & finally decided to go for it after the outage in early November. We had estimates a few weeks ago. We literally just had a Generac whole house generator installed yesterday. We don’t want to mess with setting up a portable one or worrying about getting gas for it .... that’s hard to do if the gas stations don’t have power either. A neighbor has a Generac too & that thing pops right on as soon as the power goes out. No fuss, no muss.

I think our infrastructure isn’t being upgraded & the weather is getting much worse. So we aren’t anticipating the power situation will improve any time soon. Even if we just get a few short outages a year, we feel the cost will be worth it.

And now that we have it, I’m pretty sure it will be years before our power goes out again.

 

[RedAngie]

We lost power 7 years ago in July for 3 days. After one night without air conditioning I checked into a hotel until power was restored.

Was that the "derecho?" Our electricity went out for about five hours. I know someone near the Jersey Shore whose power was out for close to a week

 

[Disneylover99]

We had an ice storm about six years ago, just before Christmas. We went to Niagara Falls for a few nights right before the storm. We didn’t realize how bad it was until we saw our house on the local news. Lol. They were interviewing my neighbour who was out with a chainsaw trying to cut up all the huge trees lying in the middle of the road. We quickly booked a longer stay.

We only lost power for 2 days and we were away, so it was okay. My poor dad lost power for over a week.

 

[L&Lfan]

Was that the "derecho?" Our electricity went out for about five hours. I know someone near the Jersey Shore whose power was out for close to a week

Yep, we stayed at Harrah’s for 2 nights.