Northeastern peril
- desertbadger
- Posts: 4192
- Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:42 pm
- Location: Southern CA desert
Hubris is such a dangerous thing and yet so very hard for us to avoid at all times.JayTrek wrote:Found this story on Drudge, Wendell, in reference to the bodies in Staten Island.
http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/11/02/sons- ... en-island/
Sure sounds like of all the boroughs...they got hit the hardest by a long shot.
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- Posts: 3121
- Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2011 1:13 am
- Location: Central Maine
My brother in Montvale NJ was watching outside during the night of the storm and he said it looked like Baghdad during "Shock and Awe" with the pole transformers frying. Then the substation 1/2 mile away went up and he said it lit up the skyline and he could hear the frying of the substation. Amazingly he didn't lose power.
Another brother nearer the coast we haven't heard from yet. Can't remember the town. Near Keansburg, but not Keansburg. Middletown maybe? I can't remember.
My BIL lost power during the storm and to our knowledge is still w/o. To hear him talk is like listening to a spoiled child. No excuse on his part. He is the director of Emergencies/Disasters for the company he works for. He travels to disaster areas across the globe. Of all folks he should be prepared, yet not even a candle in the house. His entire house is electrically driven. Now it's no better than a beached whale, except it stinks less. He does have running water, but he can't look at that as being a bright spot. He can only see it as "his" hot shower was taken away. In cotrast to a lot of other folks he's doing great, but he can't see it.
We've been there and done that many years ago. It's not fun, that's why we have redundant systems. When we lose our feed from the utility we might see the flicker in the lights as the system switches over to "whole house UPS" (it happens in 20 milliseconds). That's only the first system. There are 2 others after that, 3 when I finish building it. I found losing running water was the first thing we missed and the most difficult to correct during an outage, so that meant designing a system to "never" fail since we pump water with electricity. Of course anything can fail, but it's highly unlikely that ours will. It hasn't in 15 years. It wasn't inexpensive.
Another brother nearer the coast we haven't heard from yet. Can't remember the town. Near Keansburg, but not Keansburg. Middletown maybe? I can't remember.
My BIL lost power during the storm and to our knowledge is still w/o. To hear him talk is like listening to a spoiled child. No excuse on his part. He is the director of Emergencies/Disasters for the company he works for. He travels to disaster areas across the globe. Of all folks he should be prepared, yet not even a candle in the house. His entire house is electrically driven. Now it's no better than a beached whale, except it stinks less. He does have running water, but he can't look at that as being a bright spot. He can only see it as "his" hot shower was taken away. In cotrast to a lot of other folks he's doing great, but he can't see it.
We've been there and done that many years ago. It's not fun, that's why we have redundant systems. When we lose our feed from the utility we might see the flicker in the lights as the system switches over to "whole house UPS" (it happens in 20 milliseconds). That's only the first system. There are 2 others after that, 3 when I finish building it. I found losing running water was the first thing we missed and the most difficult to correct during an outage, so that meant designing a system to "never" fail since we pump water with electricity. Of course anything can fail, but it's highly unlikely that ours will. It hasn't in 15 years. It wasn't inexpensive.
Brian
Maker of Kramperts Finest Bay Rum and Frostbite
Or find it here: Italian Barber, West Coast Shaving, Barclay Crocker, The Old Town Shaving Company at Stats, Maggard Razors; Leavitt & Peirce, Harvard Square
Maker of Kramperts Finest Bay Rum and Frostbite
Or find it here: Italian Barber, West Coast Shaving, Barclay Crocker, The Old Town Shaving Company at Stats, Maggard Razors; Leavitt & Peirce, Harvard Square
Understand that a bit. We were out of power for 5 days after what was eventually rated an F5 went over the Tennessee River here and knocked out 19 towers. It was all a part of that massive outbreak on April 27th, 2011. The most notable tornado plowed through Tuscaloosa and wiped out many buildings along McFarland Blvd.
Where we were lucky is that we have gas hot water and heat. So even though we were out of power, we had no issues having hot showers.
Now gas hot water is the scourge in most situations because you never know when the pilot light has gone off until you get in the shower...trying to get ready for work...and can't get hot water.
But that week...it was a Godsend.
Where we were lucky is that we have gas hot water and heat. So even though we were out of power, we had no issues having hot showers.
Now gas hot water is the scourge in most situations because you never know when the pilot light has gone off until you get in the shower...trying to get ready for work...and can't get hot water.
But that week...it was a Godsend.
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- Posts: 3121
- Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2011 1:13 am
- Location: Central Maine
Jay, for us propane (on demand) hot water was one of the upgrades. I had to remove electrical load to make the system affordable. Also to go were the electric range and oven. I kept the electric clothes dryer because it's optional. Clothesline is inexpensive, requires no moving parts, and consumes no juice.
Now, if the sky is blue, I force a power outage by flipping the feed off and running off of solar for the day. We need to learn what we can and what we can't run. Plus it reduces our pay out, helps the system pay for itself, and tests the system to show any weakness. I made a change just last week. The final one I hope. But maybe not.
Now, if the sky is blue, I force a power outage by flipping the feed off and running off of solar for the day. We need to learn what we can and what we can't run. Plus it reduces our pay out, helps the system pay for itself, and tests the system to show any weakness. I made a change just last week. The final one I hope. But maybe not.
Brian
Maker of Kramperts Finest Bay Rum and Frostbite
Or find it here: Italian Barber, West Coast Shaving, Barclay Crocker, The Old Town Shaving Company at Stats, Maggard Razors; Leavitt & Peirce, Harvard Square
Maker of Kramperts Finest Bay Rum and Frostbite
Or find it here: Italian Barber, West Coast Shaving, Barclay Crocker, The Old Town Shaving Company at Stats, Maggard Razors; Leavitt & Peirce, Harvard Square
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- Posts: 3121
- Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2011 1:13 am
- Location: Central Maine
Yes, Hopefully he is.
I talked to my brother in Belford today (That's the name of the town!). Still no power, so that could be Clives issue as well. I say my brother doesn't have power. Not exactly true, he has a generator. Clive might not.
In talking today, my brother was telling me how he figured he'd fill the vehicles before the storm and use that fuel for the gen' if required. Bad idea as it turns out. There is some sort of issue in the filler that prevents siphoning. If anyone here ever plans to do that, better check it first. Bro' has a good attitude about it. He was saying how he's using this as a learning experience to learn what he needs to do differently the next time.
BTW, all sorts of fuel down there, just no way to pump it. The stations are all full and just waiting for power to be restored.
I talked to my brother in Belford today (That's the name of the town!). Still no power, so that could be Clives issue as well. I say my brother doesn't have power. Not exactly true, he has a generator. Clive might not.
In talking today, my brother was telling me how he figured he'd fill the vehicles before the storm and use that fuel for the gen' if required. Bad idea as it turns out. There is some sort of issue in the filler that prevents siphoning. If anyone here ever plans to do that, better check it first. Bro' has a good attitude about it. He was saying how he's using this as a learning experience to learn what he needs to do differently the next time.
BTW, all sorts of fuel down there, just no way to pump it. The stations are all full and just waiting for power to be restored.
Brian
Maker of Kramperts Finest Bay Rum and Frostbite
Or find it here: Italian Barber, West Coast Shaving, Barclay Crocker, The Old Town Shaving Company at Stats, Maggard Razors; Leavitt & Peirce, Harvard Square
Maker of Kramperts Finest Bay Rum and Frostbite
Or find it here: Italian Barber, West Coast Shaving, Barclay Crocker, The Old Town Shaving Company at Stats, Maggard Razors; Leavitt & Peirce, Harvard Square
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- Duke of Silvertip!
- Posts: 27393
- Joined: Sun Feb 27, 2005 1:02 pm
Brian,
Yeah, Clive is down near the Jersey shore so I've kind of figured from the start that his power was probably knocked out. Here in Tampa, most people I know personally don't have generators despite our vulnerability to serious storms.....times are hard and a lot of us just can't spare, or simply don't have, the funds to install them. I'm quite sure that Clive is safe....if not entirely happy.
Regards,
Gordon
Yeah, Clive is down near the Jersey shore so I've kind of figured from the start that his power was probably knocked out. Here in Tampa, most people I know personally don't have generators despite our vulnerability to serious storms.....times are hard and a lot of us just can't spare, or simply don't have, the funds to install them. I'm quite sure that Clive is safe....if not entirely happy.
Regards,
Gordon
And now it looks like there's another big storm heading for the east coast, bringing some rain and other stuff with it. Supposed to be showing up in the next day or two.
Gary
SOTD 99%: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, soaps & creams, synthetic / badger brushes, Colonial General razor, Kai & Schick blades, straight razors any time, Superior 70 aftershave splash + menthol + 444
SOTD 99%: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, soaps & creams, synthetic / badger brushes, Colonial General razor, Kai & Schick blades, straight razors any time, Superior 70 aftershave splash + menthol + 444
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- Posts: 3121
- Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2011 1:13 am
- Location: Central Maine
It appears global warming (not a believer in the GW religion) is going to bring us extremely early snow and sleet because the planet is warming up. Uh huh, yup. Nothing I'll be able to do to remove the frozen stuff since the ground is still soft (unfrozen) and my plow will roll up the lawn, so I'll just let it happen and deal with it the best I can. The forecasts are for it to melt by the weekend. I'll do my best to help it along.
BTW, even though we've had the photovoltaic system installed for many years we were working full time and were unable to fully use it (it's a small system). But now with retirement I have the time and am "playing" with it . It isn't a grid tied system, but one that I designed to supply us in the event of a power failure, so it has batteries. Screw the utility, they want to buy our power at wholesale prices and it wasn't worth installing the gear needed to feed their grid since they want to buy our power at wholesale prices. Now I use our power at their retail rates with no expenditure whatsoever for the gear required to feed the grid.
The wife tells me that last month we had our lowest electric bill in 32 years, and a substantial reduction the month before when I began this experiment. So it's worth doing IMO. We installed the PV system for the "whole house UPS" effect and considered it worth it from that respect, even though it had no monetary savings at the time. But now it's reducing our monthly $ electrical expenditure, so we get some payback. Still fine tuning it though. Minor stuff. It works great as designed except ours is a bit small as executed. Its what we have room for though. 2x the batteries we have installed and 2x the collector is better.
FWIW, at least 4 homes are using my system as designed to power their homes 24/7/365. I just designed it, gave it to them, and they built it and installed it, except theirs are larger than I could make for us. I was happy to do it and I found it interesting and a challenge to do. I enjoyed doing it and learned a lot in the designing. OK, the first family also volunteered to help defray the expense by helping us with it ($) since ours was the prototype that they copied, down to the precise wiring of the service panel and the welding of the frame to hold the PV panels. It's built like a brick $hi* house.
In 10 more years we need to replace our batteries and recycle the old ones... 2000+ lbs of lead, 2 batteries.
BTW, even though we've had the photovoltaic system installed for many years we were working full time and were unable to fully use it (it's a small system). But now with retirement I have the time and am "playing" with it . It isn't a grid tied system, but one that I designed to supply us in the event of a power failure, so it has batteries. Screw the utility, they want to buy our power at wholesale prices and it wasn't worth installing the gear needed to feed their grid since they want to buy our power at wholesale prices. Now I use our power at their retail rates with no expenditure whatsoever for the gear required to feed the grid.
The wife tells me that last month we had our lowest electric bill in 32 years, and a substantial reduction the month before when I began this experiment. So it's worth doing IMO. We installed the PV system for the "whole house UPS" effect and considered it worth it from that respect, even though it had no monetary savings at the time. But now it's reducing our monthly $ electrical expenditure, so we get some payback. Still fine tuning it though. Minor stuff. It works great as designed except ours is a bit small as executed. Its what we have room for though. 2x the batteries we have installed and 2x the collector is better.
FWIW, at least 4 homes are using my system as designed to power their homes 24/7/365. I just designed it, gave it to them, and they built it and installed it, except theirs are larger than I could make for us. I was happy to do it and I found it interesting and a challenge to do. I enjoyed doing it and learned a lot in the designing. OK, the first family also volunteered to help defray the expense by helping us with it ($) since ours was the prototype that they copied, down to the precise wiring of the service panel and the welding of the frame to hold the PV panels. It's built like a brick $hi* house.
In 10 more years we need to replace our batteries and recycle the old ones... 2000+ lbs of lead, 2 batteries.
Brian
Maker of Kramperts Finest Bay Rum and Frostbite
Or find it here: Italian Barber, West Coast Shaving, Barclay Crocker, The Old Town Shaving Company at Stats, Maggard Razors; Leavitt & Peirce, Harvard Square
Maker of Kramperts Finest Bay Rum and Frostbite
Or find it here: Italian Barber, West Coast Shaving, Barclay Crocker, The Old Town Shaving Company at Stats, Maggard Razors; Leavitt & Peirce, Harvard Square
- fallingwickets
- Clive the Thumb
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- wenestvedt
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- desertbadger
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- Location: Southern CA desert
- Sam
- M'Learned Friend
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Welcome back Clive. We had two events that are nothing compared to Sandy - an ice storm some years ago and about 7 years ago, Hurricane Elvis. The ice storm, we had wood so we could heat the house downstairs and sleep by the fire. Gas water heater made taking baths and showers okay. No tv was okay, but about 8:00 we were ready for bed. No hanky panky though, too cold, lol.
Hurricane Elvis was in mid summer. No air really sucked. We had a pool and the water was hot. One week without power. Used a generator but could only power a few things in addition to the fridge. We did power the a/c upstairs.
Hurricane Elvis was in mid summer. No air really sucked. We had a pool and the water was hot. One week without power. Used a generator but could only power a few things in addition to the fridge. We did power the a/c upstairs.
Glad to hear that you are okfallingwickets wrote:Thanks for the concern gents......power was turned on late yesterday: oh the joy to have water again and smf!!!!!!!
clive
Danny
"Because I prefer the cool, clean sweep of the tempered steel as it glides smoothly--" Cary Grant as he is shaving in a scene from "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House"
"Because I prefer the cool, clean sweep of the tempered steel as it glides smoothly--" Cary Grant as he is shaving in a scene from "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House"