MY POWER WENT OUT!! WoohOOOOOO!!

[stephenk]

Ever since I've been a flashaholic I've never had a power failure!

 

[IlluminationDomination]

Based on the timeline a blackout here would likely be when I am asleep. I don't much enjoy waking up in the cold so I'd just as soon not lose power again... but batteries are charged. LOL

Really I worry about falling trees blocking my street, hitting my car, or worst of all my house or deck. I live surrounded by forest on 3 sides. Heavy wet snow and 40 mph wind could threaten more than just power when surrounded by tall trees. I do not relish rebuilding my home. I already have several down in the yard I haven't cleared yet.

Yes,,,I know what you mean. The saturated earth from all the rain over the last month plus the heavy snow on the trees along w/ the wind results in loss of power and unfortunately loss of life.

I am visiting my brother in Bethlehem, PA. I am due to arrive around 4 pm. They are suppose to get 12" plus of that wet snow.


This storm is primarily a Nor'easter and Where I live in NW PA. is not getting much.

 

[Taz80]

The snow is coming down hard and wet, I went out a few minutes ago to knock the snow off the evergreens before they start losing branches. The lights have flickered a few times but surprisingly we still have power. I'm not worried lighting, I have way more than enough lights and batteries. It's the heat that's a pain to loose.

 

[Woods Walker]

Over a foot of wet heavy snow. Basically ran out of the woods canceling my outing. The hike out sucked with crashing tree branches and drive back also sucked. Power out so have two luci lanterns, Fenix and Nitecore lanterns. Have a Tiara headlamp and Partner A2. A few wizard are ceiling bouncing. Looking good!!!!

 

[Poppy]

One of the three power lines to my house is drooping so low, that I am surprised that it is still connected.
We also got over a foot of very heavy wet snow. Thankfully, I have a 10 hp snow blower.
Maybe I'll call the utility company sometime next week after they get caught up with all the emergency work they will be doing.

My daughter and I walked a few houses away to pull some tree branches out of the street, and during that time we each heard a number of tree branches, (big ones) snapping. Fortunately a previous owner had removed all the trees that were within reach of our house.

 

[Taz80]

We have about six inches of the nasty white stuff. Power has gone off and on a few times, but is still on. There is so much very heavy wet slush that the snowblower will just get jammed up. I just lost a large double cedar tree in my back yard. It fell in the perfect place, if it fell in any other direction it would of hit something. I got lucky. There are alot of people without power all over the area's affected by this storm.

 

[recDNA]

My power just went out again. Heading to bed

 

[recDNA]

Looks like no juice until at least tomorrow. My yard is littered with trees. I just got down from my roof removing a branch. I didn't see any damage but could be broken shingles under the snow. All the flashlights and lanterns are getting a good workout and so am I! Maple trees are bad news with heavy wet snow.

 

[Roger Sully]

I've lucked out with both of these storms this past week. Power never went out or even flickered for that matter. Hope everyone is safe and all is well. If anyone needs anything in Central NJ PM me and I'll do what i can!

 

[Woods Walker]

Power is still out.

 

[LEDAdd1ct]

On Friday, 3/2/18, we lost power around 1:30 P.M. from the first nor'easter.

The Lower Hudson Valley and especially the area surrounding Westchester/Putnam Counties was a disaster zone, with thousands of downed trees and I don't know how many power lines on people's lawns, strung across/over/on the public highways and roads, and scores of people shivering in the cold.

I love to hike for the silence and peace that make the hills and streams of the Hudson Valley famous. However, there is often something reassuring about returning and hearing or seeing something, lights, road traffic, etc., when you get back to the car. Looking out the window and seeing dark streets and dark houses lends things a very post-apocalyptic feeling.

I ceiling bounced a Malkoff Wildcast 90 CRI 2900K single emitter light with an 80mA draw on low (head loosened) and it was very soft and pleasing. I gifted my father the identical light with the cool white emitter. I just happened to win an e-Bay auction for a warm white Nichia lantern (I didn't think I would win and was surprised when it showed up in the mail), and gifted it to my sister.

A few thoughts from this Flashoholic:

1) Being in a blackout in the warmer months and playing with your lights is fun. Being in a blackout for four days in the cold, without traffic lights, can make one feel uneasy.

2) Internet access, to me, is now no different than a utility. I got plenty of time to try out my high gain antennas and wifi gear, but at the end of the day, the rapidity with which information can be sought out and obtained via the WWW is simply unsurpassed by radio or television. We lost our access point when the power returned but I just scored what I feel is a pretty good deal on a replacement. *thumbs up*

3) My dad and sister got the generator going on Saturday, 3/3/18, and that kept the furnace and fridge/freezer alive. We were also able to charge our various devices.

4) My solar panels are cool but I'll probably be selling them in the near to mid future and investing in a LiFePO4 pack with USB buck driver/converter instead. Our local mall had power and there is usually always somewhere you can go, in a pinch, to charge things up. Others on this forum urged me to go that route in the past, and they were absolutely right.

5) I went out Friday night when the wind was whipping and the traffic lights were out to do a little scouting around. The blazing lights of the local mall were quite creepy when everything else was dark. When the power returned Monday evening, we whooped for joy.

6) The experience reinforced how dependent upon house current I am to keep my devices charged, to stay warm, to see, and, in equal measure and at the same time, how much (and how very little) human beings truly require to remain alive. It also made me feel extremely grateful to have a job with health insurance, a safe place to work, a car to get me around, and other conveniences of modernity and first world wealth I too often take for granted.

 

[Phlogiston]

A good post, thank you.

I'm curious about one of the details, though:

4) My solar panels are cool but I'll probably be selling them in the near to mid future and investing in a LiFePO4 pack with USB buck driver/converter instead.

I was wondering what the advantage is of having the LiFePO4 bank + USB converter, as distinct from a standard USB powerbank?

 

[WDR65]

I feel for you guys up there in that. Every once in a while we an ice storm that does the same thing during the cold but usually we deal with the multi-day outages with hurricanes. In that case while uncomfortable the lack of electricity is not as dire. Either way its miserable I'm sure.

LEDAdd1CT,
What about some of the various led lantern battery banks? A dual purpose tool that could possibly be charged with your solar panels if necessary. Then again I don't know your power requirements. While I have a couple of small battery banks and will use my truck charger to recharge our iPhone's/ tablets during/after a hurricane I've been thinking about adding a Streamlight Super Siege or another brand of 18650 lantern to lineup as an additional power source. I have a generator for after the storm but with my wife using electronics constantly I've been readjusting my thinking.

 

[PaladinNO]

We are finally getting summer tendencies here in Norway (a whole +5°C in the sun today), and I already can't wait for winter and the long hours of blackness to come back.

Got me one of these last week to fit on the roof of my car:
https://www.rigidindustries.com/led-lighting/140212

 

[Lynx_Arc]

A few thoughts from this Flashoholic:

1) Being in a blackout in the warmer months and playing with your lights is fun. Being in a blackout for four days in the cold, without traffic lights, can make one feel uneasy.

It is fun playing with lights for sure but invariably you find out that you either don't have good enough lights or overkill. I endured a 4 day outage in 2007 and used only a fraction of the lights I had. Running around during an outage can be very time consuming and stressful trying to find gas stations that are open that you don't have to wait an hour for gas in line and businesses that are open to buy supplies and food.

2) Internet access, to me, is now no different than a utility. I got plenty of time to try out my high gain antennas and wifi gear, but at the end of the day, the rapidity with which information can be sought out and obtained via the WWW is simply unsurpassed by radio or television. We lost our access point when the power returned but I just scored what I feel is a pretty good deal on a replacement. *thumbs up*

Internet loss made things a lot more boring for me I didn't even have a smart phone back then so I simply lost touch with the WWW. I only had radio and with a collection of dvds I had nothing to watch them with. I've since purchased a portable dvd player with car charger in case such an outage happens again.

3) My dad and sister got the generator going on Saturday, 3/3/18, and that kept the furnace and fridge/freezer alive. We were also able to charge our various devices.

As much as I would love to have a generator here, the cost and care of it for rare usage isn't economically sound. Since 2007 we haven't experienced an outage lasting more than a few hours and even those have been very rare mostly when power goes off it is back on within an hour so by the time I got the generator running and cables hooked up I would have to put it all away again.

4) My solar panels are cool but I'll probably be selling them in the near to mid future and investing in a LiFePO4 pack with USB buck driver/converter instead. Our local mall had power and there is usually always somewhere you can go, in a pinch, to charge things up. Others on this forum urged me to go that route in the past, and they were absolutely right.

Solar panels have their use but it seems unless you have long outages where the weather is clear you man find them useless half the time and keeping large battery banks charged up by them awaiting an outage that may not happen often enough and long enough may not be worth the cost plus if you aren't using the batteries you may still have to continually replace them over the years to ensure you have a working system. I've found the best choice for myself is investing in 12v charging such that you can use your car to recharge your batteries then you just need to make sure you have a few gallons of gas extra around for an outage which many can just use for lawn mowers and gas powered tools.

5) I went out Friday night when the wind was whipping and the traffic lights were out to do a little scouting around. The blazing lights of the local mall were quite creepy when everything else was dark. When the power returned Monday evening, we whooped for joy.

6) The experience reinforced how dependent upon house current I am to keep my devices charged, to stay warm, to see, and, in equal measure and at the same time, how much (and how very little) human beings truly require to remain alive. It also made me feel extremely grateful to have a job with health insurance, a safe place to work, a car to get me around, and other conveniences of modernity and first world wealth I too often take for granted.

I was relieved when power came back on to contact friends online who were worried about me that were clueless as to how bad things were for me. I had neighbors that were without power for a week longer than me due to an inaccessible power pole that snapped in their back yard that they couldn't get to with a normal line crew. I now own a 12v TV, a portable dvd player that has video input and a 12v dtv convertor box that I can hook up to it plus a bunch of USB power banks, USB based lights and cords enough to light up the whole house if needed plus some COB flashlights.

 

[etc]

I lost power for a day last week, the stupid company was digging something and cut one of the legs to the house. Half the electrical devices in the house would work and the other half would not.

Lost 'net, the router was flashing on and off. I would rather lose water than online access. At least water you can buy.

 

[aginthelaw]

I forgot about this thread. My boss lost power for 10 days, in the same storm as me. The day his power came on we got hit with another storm and his power went out again. Good thing. Someone left the door to our office open so he couldn't check out the video feed to fire who did it. It might have been me...

 

[ChrisGarrett]

I forgot about this thread. My boss lost power for 10 days, in the same storm as me. The day his power came on we got hit with another storm and his power went out again. Good thing. Someone left the door to our office open so he couldn't check out the video feed to fire who did it. It might have been me...

Six years ago, I put together a car camping/SHTF kit for hurricane season and while we didn't have anything to speak of for almost 12 years, I lost power for 84 hours during IRMA and partied like it was 1999.

All of my other condo neighbors, not so much so.

While I'm pretty well stocked, Dollar Store cup candles did most of the heavy lifting. Had lots left over from WILMA in 2005.

Glad you managed, but one really needs to put some $$$ and thought into it.

Chris

 

[Poppy]

I lost power for a day last week, the stupid company was digging something and cut one of the legs to the house. Half the electrical devices in the house would work and the other half would not.

Lost 'net, the router was flashing on and off. I would rather lose water than online access. At least water you can buy.

One day isn't so bad. You could just run the modem on an extension cord to an outlet that was still working.

If it was going to be a long term issue, you could have an electrician move the breaker up or down one slot in the electrical panel.