2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Non-Minnesotans arguing about the weather...

[manurespreader]

Re: 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Non-Minnesotans arguing about the weather...

I lose power here in Michigan about 3 times per year. Have lost it for as long as ten days and many times for a day or two. Often in the winter. The cost of those whole house generator set ups that my neighbors seem to have is prohibitive, so I bought a honda 6500 w generator that is hooked into a switching system to power essential things only. I have natural gas for cooking and hot water and a Gentran 30310 switch.

The whole thing cost about $2500. It runs the furnace blower, freezer& refer's, a few lights, the well, and the kitchen. It's minimal but it works.
I like the generator, but it's starting to burn oil. I'll probably get a slightly bigger one next time. I just wheel it out if the power goes off, plug it in and it runs about 6 hours on a tank of gas.

[SteveP]

Re: 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Non-Minnesotans arguing about the weather...

39.000 still without power in Toms River. 3,000 turned back on yesterday.

The father of one of last year's Icers seniors is the Emergency Management Coordinator in Toms River and mom is a paramedic and ER nurse. Pretty sure they're racking up the overtime!
Hoping Dr. D and everyone are OK

[FreshFish]

Re: 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Non-Minnesotans arguing about the weather...

Regarding generators, a friend of a friend reported that they bought a Honda generator that could be converted to run on liquid propane. Since they already use liquid propane anyway, it works pretty well for them, not having to have gasoline on hand. Supposedly it is pretty quiet too. (unlike our neighbors' clanking monstrosity).

So far all of our outages have been in the autumn, and it has worked for us not to have one. However, were we to lose power when it is below freezing, that would cause enormous damage with frozen pipes and we are re-thinking our prior decision.

[Hopkinja]

Re: 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Non-Minnesotans arguing about the weather...

Quick update from the Lehigh Valley of PA: Lots of business have re-opened, but still a significant amount of people without power. PPL lists 69,000 customers without power in Lehigh County, out of a total county population of 350,000. Northampton County doing slightly better, with 30,000 outages out of a population of 300,000. Also note that some rural townships are not served by PPL, so the percentages are probably higher.

Fortunately I made it through unscathed. Only a couple of flickers.

Rumor has it that Cabela's in Hamburg received a shipment of 700 generators yesterday which sold out in 2 hours. More are supposed to be arrriving today.

[Ralph Baer]

Re: 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Non-Minnesotans arguing about the weather...

The Potomac in DC is nearing flood stage http://waterdata.usgs.gov/md/nwis/uv...20,00062,00054. (See the gage height graph.)

It flooded by a few inches according to that graph and now is receding. At Haines Point, where I tried to ride my bike until I was chased away by the Gestapo Park Police, it looked like it went about a foot over, but didn't reach the road. It rises higher than that typically a couple of times every year.

[SteveP]

Re: 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Non-Minnesotans arguing about the weather...

The father of one of last year's Icers seniors is the Emergency Management Coordinator in Toms River and mom is a paramedic and ER nurse. Pretty sure they're racking up the overtime!
Hoping Dr. D and everyone are OK

Got a text from him this morning -=- worked 117 hours in the past 5 days!

[Ralph Baer]

Re: 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Non-Minnesotans arguing about the weather...

Got a text from him this morning -=- worked 117 hours in the past 5 days!

3 hours off in five days!

[FreshFish]

Re: 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Non-Minnesotans arguing about the weather...

If you believe the long-range forecasts, a major northeaster is brewing, ready to slam New England toward the end of next week.

[Patman]

If you believe the long-range forecasts, a major northeaster is brewing, ready to slam New England toward the end of next week.

Couple that with the reports out of Staten Island (**** poor disaster management). Woof! If it hits NYC then you're going to be looking at Haiti like conditions real soon.

[ScottK]

Re: 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Non-Minnesotans arguing about the weather...

If you believe the long-range forecasts, a major northeaster is brewing, ready to slam New England toward the end of next week.

That's enough hype to make a major network proud. How about, most of the long-range models bring a coastal storm into the Northeast late next week, with the possibility of some heavy rainfall and maybe snow well inland?

[Ralph Baer]

Re: 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Non-Minnesotans arguing about the weather...

DrD lives in Jersey, right? Anyone know what town?

I got an email from DrDemento. He's OK but "hunkered down".

[FreshFish]

Re: 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Non-Minnesotans arguing about the weather...

I got an email from DrDemento. He's OK but "hunkered down".

phew!

[joecct]

Re: 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Non-Minnesotans arguing about the weather...

Here's a blast (or two) from the past....
http://www.newstimes.com/news/slides...#photo-3660341

[Ralph Baer]

Re: 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Non-Minnesotans arguing about the weather...

I got an email from DrDemento. He's OK but "hunkered down".

http://board.uscho.com/showthread.ph...=1#post5540293

[DrDemento]

Re: 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Non-Minnesotans arguing about the weather...

For a pretty weak storm-our highest gust was 65mph and we got less than an inch of rain-this thing was a monster PIA. Lost power Monday hours before Sandy hit. We had nothing-all electric based here. Perhaps the biggest problem was the loss of all traffic control (lights were out or down). NJ is a crowded place and most imbeciles insist on still going places no matter what. Things are slowly coming back-we got power and cable today after 6+ days. We were prepared but you do start to get a bit squirrelly afte 144 hours cooped up with no communication. Thankfully we have a landline phone and this episode taught me to never give that up. It was the only thing working. I have been through far worse storms in the past-Andrew 1992 in Miami, Charlie 2004 in Port Charlotte, etc but the population density here just made things exponentially worse. The other problem is that now in 2012 most are just so much more dependent on technology to live their lives than we did in the past. Cell phones, computers, electronic banking, etc has made it so that the younger generations just do not know how to get anything done without these conveniences. Let's just hope we do not get a repeat of this-there is a predicted noreaster coming in 3 days.