Topic: Horrible Storm

[Dragonfire]

On Friday, a horrible storm went through Ohio with wind gusting to 80 mph.  The power went off here just before 6:00 pm and the phone around the same time.  We have a generator, thank goodness, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  That ran the pump for the well so we'd have water - it was only cold, but it was water - and fans.  The cable was on until about 12:45 am that night.  I watched movies on DVD ..and most of the first season of Numb3rs with a fan blowing right on me. 

The cable came back up about an hour ago.  The power came back up ...hmm...about 45 minutes ago.  The phone is still out and cell phones don't work here.  But I don't feel as cut off now that the internet is back.

The storm was horrible..trees are down all over the place.  The top of 2 or 3 big pine trees out front came down on the road.  When we went after gas for the generator, we saw uprooted trees all over the place.  It was really bad.

Last night when we went after more gas for the generator, the radio said that there were 1 million in Ohio without power.  The storms kept going and hit other areas too.  I know of someone at Epinions in DC that got hit too. 

I hope we never have another storm like that.  When I looked out and saw what was going on, it really scared me.

[Kathy]

I've been working the last 4 nights and haven't watched any news so I hadn't heard about this.

Storms can really cause havoc - Buffalo lost tens of thousands of its old trees in a freak October storm a few years back.

A Re-Tree Western New York was formed to try and replace some of the over 30,000 trees we lost that day. Many local artists used some of the old hardwood to sculpt artwork which has been auctioned off to help in these efforts.

You might see if you can form some type of grassroots organization to help your city recover from this terrible destruction.

It sounds as though no one was hurt - thank goodness - did anyone you know suffer any damage to their properties?

[DSig]

I saw on the news there were some deaths in the wind storms that blew through, including 2 children who were in a tent which a tree fell on.  At least that was the news report last night.

Dsig

[Achim]

Just yesterday I noticed that Marie hadn't posted in a (short) while. Now I see why.

Great to see you are well despite being scared a little by that storm.

[Dragonfire]

It is better here now..power, cable and phone are back.  Still crazy hot..the back lot is still full of tree limbs...a lot of people around here still don't have power.  It could be Sunday before it is back on. 

I don't think anyone I know had any damage.  I've seen a lot of big trees down..some on houses. 

In one small town near me, an older woman died when a barn collapsed.  She and her husband had been in it taking care of their animals when the storm hit and knocked it down.

A friend and their cat are staying here until the power is back on for them.  We've been watching movies..and Big Bang Theory.

[DJ Doena]

It is better here now..power, cable and phone are back.  Still crazy hot..the back lot is still full of tree limbs...a lot of people around here still don't have power.  It could be Sunday before it is back on. 

To be honest, that's one of the things I don't understand about the US. We are first-world countries, highly industrialized. And yet every year you can read articles that say that significant portions of your country are out of power for days. Don't you think it's time to abandon the old wood beams to transport electricity and the telephone?

[Dragonfire]

Oh I agree.  I know there are some areas where the power and phone lines are underground..not around here though.  It seems like there aren't enough places that way.  They site the cost of doing it as a deterrent.  But it would avoid stuff like this. 

Someone from the one electric company - thank goodness not mine - was on the local news tonight talking about the outages and stuff..how they decide where to go first and all that.  Mostly a bunch of bs really.  He did say that now it looks like some people will be without power until next week...later than they said before.  He also said that everyone who doesn't have power now because of the storm has to call in so that they will know that they want their power back on...even if they are in one of the areas where no one has power.  That guy kind of sounded like an idiot.  They said there are something like 30 poles in this area that still have to be replaced.  I went to the grocery store for a few things this afternoon..there are still a lot of power lines down around the south side of town. 

We checked the website for the power company earlier and they have on there how many are still without power in the different counties.  In this county, it was at like 14,922...something like that this afternoon.  I looked again later, and it was up to 16,451.  They are going the wrong direction there.  Stores are having trouble keeping bottled water and ice in stock because so many are still without power. 

The local news - which I never watch because they are idiots on that station - was saying that people didn't know what to do with the food that spoiled since Friday.  They spend several minutes telling people to throw it away.  I would hope that people wouldn't need step by step instructions to throw out food.

It is still crazy hot here and going to be that way for like the next week...which opens up the possibility for more storms.  Goody. 

The winds that went through here were as strong as a category 2 hurricane.  There are lines of trees just snapped off..and these were big trees too.

[Najemikon]

It is better here now..power, cable and phone are back.  Still crazy hot..the back lot is still full of tree limbs...a lot of people around here still don't have power.  It could be Sunday before it is back on. 

To be honest, that's one of the things I don't understand about the US. We are first-world countries, highly industrialized. And yet every year you can read articles that say that significant portions of your country are out of power for days. Don't you think it's time to abandon the old wood beams to transport electricity and the telephone?

The weird thing is, because of stories like this I assumed American's deal with it better, but one of my colleagues is American and he suffered a power cut last month and it was like the world was ending! In the UK, cuts can be common due to various reasons, with maintenance and age of installations being the most common. But our cuts are brief, say a day at most. That's what my friend had last month and he took the day off and kept his kids off school because there was no hot water! I said, wash in cold then you big wuss! He was horrified. I honestly think this was the first power cut he had ever had.

I just assumed that he must have dealt with much more serious outages while growing up in the States because we read about their impact so often. I'm grateful that our infrastructure here never comes close to it.

[Dragonfire]

Some deal with it better than others.  I can deal, but I don't like it.  And it was much better with the generator.
Though some people are here sort of panic and flip out anytime the news says there might be a storm.  They go running to the storm to buy bread and milk - I honestly worked with a woman who would send her husband out for bread and milk - that was it - anytime she heard a storm was maybe coming.  Of course, she is nuttier than a fruitcake in any situation. 

When I was in 5th grade, we got a bad ice storm and the power was out for days.  I can't remember how long.  No running water because of the pump.  We had kerosene heaters and managed.  We went to the store and bought gallons of water.  We took sponge baths..heated the water by sitting the pot on top of one of the kerosene stoves.  I still went to school and mother and step dad still went to work.  Well the one day I didn't have school because the busses couldn't get over the roads yet.

There was one time when we barely had water for weeks...The well had to dug deeper and the guy ended up taking forever to finish.  It has been good since then, but during, it was horrible.  We did the sponge bath thing again, heating the water on the stove.  I had waterless shampoo that I used in between watching my hair with the water heated on the stove - that was a pain in the neck.  I still went to work. 

Staying home because of no hot water...ummm...well. People all around here were still going to work while they had no power..and no hot water.

[Najemikon]

Marie, we just need to make a list of who we throw over the fence when the zombie apocalypse hits. We have to be firm!

[Dragonfire]

 
Ok

[DJ Doena]

Though some people are here sort of panic and flip out anytime the news says there might be a storm. They go running to the storm to buy bread and milk

Wow, in America even the storms are capitalists. They threaten to destroy your house but at least they sell you supplies beforehand.   

[Najemikon]

   well spotted!

[Blair]

 


I have dealt with plenty of power outages, but I have only had to live through two really bad bits of weather: an ice storm that knocked out city electricity for about two weeks, I think, and Hurricane Katrina that... well... just read up on it if you don't know.

For the first, I was a teen; we didn't have any kind of generator for our house, but a neighbor let us join with his only to keep our freezers running. We used mainly the light outside to get around (reflecting ice made it easier) I always laughed when I saw my dad walk by a wall and, not thinking, flip the light switch. We used a fireplace for warmth and heating water (to a tiny degree at least because it wasn't an open hearth, so the pot couldn't get very close.) We used a little kerosene burner to heat things like soup and a gas grill to cook a few things. For the cold, you just bundled in extra clothes as if you were outside. No big deal. It was easy to get around town, so stores would still open in some regard.

During Hurricane Katrina, thankfully my neighborhood was relatively unscathed. We had a generator, but due to the difficulty of acquiring gasoline, we used it only for a few hours at night for sleeping. Everyone got something out of their freezer each night and the neighborhood cooked on the grill and ate together. For the half dozen workers who had been working to restore power for several days in our neighborhood, we invited them to eat with us the night that we knew that we would be getting power the next day. They all said that in their years of doing this job, this was a first. In terms of moving on overall, the cleanup from the storm was a nightmare, but the actual survival wasn't really a big deal given we still had our homes.


With that said, it really gets on my nerves when people (above, say, age 10) get so upset about the power going out because they wouldn't be able to watch TV, watch movies, and get on the Internet. Then again, they may have a generator for that reason, since heaven forbid they have to find alternate forms of entertainments like going outside, reading, or playing non-electronic games like with a deck of cards. It's much worse when there are bigger problems and OMG they can't even use their cell phones! Cell phones didn't exist when I went through the first storm, and we didn't have capabilities for them during the second; you went and visited people you wanted to talk to. Face to face.

While my heart goes out to anyone who has to suffer through the emotional issues of a bad storm, too many people have just become ridiculously spoiled by having access to everything all of the time.

[Dragonfire]

Though some people are here sort of panic and flip out anytime the news says there might be a storm. They go running to the storm to buy bread and milk

Wow, in America even the storms are capitalists. They threaten to destroy your house but at least they sell you supplies beforehand.   

  I don't believe I did that.   

I don't like not knowing if more storms are coming when the electric is out.  I don't like total silence anyway and actually can't sleep that way, so I'd keep batteries so I could at least have the radio..usually with crappy reception. 
One time when the power was out for a few days, I sat up reading by flashlight.  Even with the radio, I can't sleep at night when the electric is out.  Another one of my issues I guess.