Bad Ice Storm in Charlotte (picture link added)

Quickbeam

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Sitting in the glow of my flashlights using my old Laptop before the juice runs out. Power went out at 4:00 AM. 660,000 current outages in the area. Luckily we have a fireplace to keep the house warm.

Huge mess. I'll post pics later.
 

Sigman

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Just heard on CNN that 1 million were without power...that's 1 million customers - times family members = lots of folks stumbling around in the dark (or hopefully sleeping through most of it). Hope they stay warm!

Strange weather we're having here in Alaska, we've broken all kinds of records as far as snowfall & temps go. I'm in Anchorage and it's 41 degrees on my front porch at the moment. It rained this morning. This is unheard of here! We've basically had no snow to speak of (a little dusting a couple of times)!
 

logicnerd411

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Hey! Your snow came to us here in VA. The only reason I can post at this time is because of school closings.
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James S

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Also in VA. I think we had more than 3 inches, which is certainly enough to paralyze this city. My trees are bending under nice coat of ice as well, I can't imagine driving right now anywhere. I haven't heard a single plow go by on the main road yet. But then, this only happens once or twice a winter here so you can't expect people not to freak out about it I guess
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I still have power, so I'm warm and dry and still have plenty of batteries...

On CNN they were saying that 1 million in Carolina was 1 out of 6 customers! Thats a LOT of people. To Quickbeam, stay warm!

-James
 

Charles Bradshaw

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Looks my timing on starting the Survival Preparedness topic was prophetic. Fortunately my area is going be missed by the storm entirely. I'm in North Central Ohio, halfway between Cleveland and Columbus on I71.
 

Lux Luthor

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You guys are so lucky! The storm is just brushing us with maybe an inch of snow. Up here, we laugh at that, and 3" doesn't usually even get the plows running.

If you remember that so called storm of the century, we got 30" of snow. The school I was going to wasn't closed!
 

James S

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I'm from Chicago originally so I am also very amused watching people get so frantic about a few inches. The ice that followed did really mess things up though.

What was interesting to me was the police presence at local grocery stores yesterday before the snow started falling! Before the storm hit I made a stop at SAMS and at the local grocery to pick up the few things I didn't have stocked up. It wasn't crowded or crazy yet, people here tend to wait until they see that first snowflake to panic
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But there were police at SAMS with their car parked very prominently out front and standing up front frowning at me, and then another one at the local kroger doing exactly the same. These folks were not shopping, they were on duty.

Do they just make it a point to be obvious during the always crazy holiday shopping period? Or were they really preparing for a food riot?

I suppose I could have spoken to the guy at SAMS, but he really was frowning at me so I just smiled and went quietly about my business...

-James
 

radellaf

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I'm in Cary, near Raleigh NC, and the 1/4"-1.5" of ice has really messed up the power lines here. Tree branches broken all over the place. Duke power in nearby Durham County says it's the worst outage in their whole history. Hard to believe it beats what happened after hurricane Fran, but that's what they say.

My main lights were a Brinkman Long Life and CMG Ultra, along with the eveready folding 2 LED "lantern".

Light, I have. Heat, I don't. It was 60 deg in the house when I left to go to my wife's office to do this surfing. What a pain. Doubly so that I'll probably have to toss all my frozen food. Too cold in the house, but not cold enough where it counts.
 

Icebreak

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radellaf-

My brother lives just outside of Cary. Thanks for the update. NBC national news just came on. Man, you guys wolloped!

What is the unidentified object to the right of your monitor with the cube, sphere and cone on top?
 

Albany Tom

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Originally posted by Lux Luthor:
You guys are so lucky! The storm is just brushing us with maybe an inch of snow. Up here, we laugh at that, and 3" doesn't usually even get the plows running.

If you remember that so called storm of the century, we got 30" of snow. The school I was going to wasn't closed!
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Sounds like RPI...

Yep, we had maybe an inch tonight. They do run the salt trucks for that, eventually, if it's in the daytime. At night, or on a weekend, they may or may not. For me, a snowy drive home means a 20 minute drive becomes 35, because speeds go down from about 50 to 35 on the 40mph posted roads to my place.
 

Quickbeam

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I have battery time for one quick post, then I don't know how long before the next. 1:30 AM and I can't sleep.

Final totals so far, 1.2 million without power and we're one of them, still. 22 hours no power. No time to post pics yet. The fireplace is the only thing keeping the house livable.

Walking around the neighborhood I was able to watch trees snap literally left and right crashing through fences, etc. Luckily no houses in our development were badly hit.

Now the fog has rolled in just to make things even more interesting.

Next week I'm buying a generator and a bunch of canned food! We're making due, but it's not fun.
 

Lux Luthor

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Hang in there Doug! I've heard no power 'til Saturday or later for some folks.
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Good idea about being better prepared. That makes all the difference. I enjoy these kinds of events only because they don't phase me personally. But if I wasn't well prepared, I'm sure I would find them very unpleasent. I can sympathize, since it was just this kind of experience that sparked me to make preparations so that I wouldn't have to go through anything like it again.

BTW, a fireplace won't do that much. It just allows most of the heat to escape right out the chimney (although you get some radiational heating). A wood stove is FAR better, and you can cook on it too. They also make fireplace inserts, and my brother actually has a fan sytem for his fireplace that throws the heat forward and filters the air.

Personally, I just whip out my kerosene heater. It does the job quite well, although if you run it for too long (several days), it will start to soot your home.
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Quickbeam

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Thanks, Lux. You know, I lived in Green Island for a while. Remember the Brown & Moran pub? I think it's now the Troy Brewery or something. I still have a pint glass with the Brown and Moran logo on it.

30 hours and counting and no power. The fireplace is at least keeping the place warm enought to live in. I'm posing this from work (shhhhhhh!) so I can take a little time. Unfortunately, I can't post pics from work, but some will be coming.

So far the most beneficial lights have been the LW 4000 and 3000. Pointed at the ceiling they light a whole room. The Streamlight Septor has been my constant companion. Nothing beats a headlamp when you need 2 hands. The single LED setting is actually getting the most use.

More later.
 

Icebreak

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Yeah! That's it. Thanks e=mc². I'm not much for decorating my office but that might be pretty cool.
 

e=mc²

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Hey Quickbeam, I know that this is no laughing matter, but that first pic should be entitled "Glass in the front lawn." Although quite devastating, there is beauty to behold in those shots. Some years back, we got crushed up here in the NE by a similar storm, at night, but the next day when the sun rose, the devastation, although severe, was one spectacle to behold in the morning sun. All trees and shrubs had that encased in glass look to them, but it was very, how shall I say, prismatic, in the morning sun.
 

Lighthouse

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Quickbeam,

I'm sure that you have a lot more critical matters at hand, but it would be interesting to do some beam shots at night into some of the ice laden landscaping. Might be nice to look back on in the future when you get warmed up a bit.
Wishing you & yours the best. Stay safe.

LH
 

Albany Tom

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Wow. We're pullin' for you! Hang in there!

Plus, I think everybody expects a nice article or something when this is over about flashlights and stuff...

Green Island? Hmmm...a former police chief is a friend of mine. I have a couple of friends that live there, actually. I'm betting you were at least once in the Purple Pub, or maybe Spiaks's?
 

Quickbeam

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Power's back! Came on last night between 5 and 10 (we were at a friend's house who did have power!)

An article on flashlight use, eh? You got it! I'll compose it over the next day or 2.

I have lots more pics, but I didn't shine any flashlights into the landscape - wish I had thought about it earlier - everythings thawed out now.

About 50% of the people who lost power have it back. Actual final total was just short of 2 million without power - much worse than hurricane Hugo a few years back - worst that Duke Power has ever had.

Here's a funny one - upon returning from work on friday I found a package on the doorstep - The nice folks at Streamlight had sent me an updated version of their Trident, and let me tell you, it's worth it! Looks like they read my review and updated the reflector so that it's faceted. Now the incandescent bulb throws a very nice beam. They're also using a xenon bulb instead of krypton. Much brighter. I'll be posting an updated review soon. Needless to say, it got some "real world" testing Friday night and Sat. morning!

Alb. Tom - Afraid I don't recognize any of those pubs, but I have met the former chief of police in Green Island - the current Green Island dispatcher is a good friend, although it's been a while.
 
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