46 hours without power in Nova Scotia

CBC News on Nova Scotia Power Problems

Well, the power finally came on here after 46 hours. We had a lot of wet, heavy snow that took down 6 transmission towers and affected 100,000 power customers - that might represent about 300,000 of the 950,000 odd people in Nova Scotia.

We have oil heating and an electric pump on our well. It got down to 12 C or about 54 F in the living room (the furnace uses an electric blower). We had about 5 gallons of drinking water on hand. We could have collected melt water from the snow on the roof if the power outage had persisted longer. We used about 1/2 pint of alcohol in a fondue set that we used to make coffee and tea and to heat up some canned food. I think I'll buy some cans of Sterno for the future.

My most useful light was my Arc AAA standard which I clipped to a baseball cap as a headlamp. The only criticism is that it has a bluish hot spot which distracts when you're reading. I read Michael Crichton's novel 'Disclosure' from start to finish with it. I used up about 2 1/2 AAA cells.

I used my Streamlight Jr. Luxeon when I was outdoors at night shaking off wet snow that was weighting down two trees that were slumping over the power drop running to the house. I'll have to clean up the damaged trees later when the snow melts and it's a bit more pleasant to work outdoors.

My sister used her Elektrolumens IllumiLux 3AA Luxeon for general tasks. She loves it; I dislike the pea green tinge around the hot spot.

My niece used a Dorcy 1 AAA 1 LED navigating around the house and in her bedroom.

I used an Elektrolumens Elektro Star 1 Watt Luxeon headlamp and pointed it at the kitchen ceiling for room lighting.

Overall, we did fine. I had more than 32 AA cells and 12 AAA cells on hand, so I could have gone for quite a few more days with no problem.

The power at my brother's place, which is about 10 miles away, is still off, but it shouldn't take too much longer to come back up.

Sorry to hear the weather's so poor. Over here in Winnipeg it's been warmer than normal. We're hovering around zero mostly. Tomorrow's supposed to be +10 I think. Hope things get better for you guys!

P.S. I agree about the blue spot on the Arc AAAs. I have a premium that I got last christmas. The family member that got it for me probably thought I was nuts for wanting a small light that costs that much. Anyways, take er easy!

I wish that would happen here! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I've got enough flashlights for the whole block, two generators, and a cell phone that I can connect to my laptop for internet. And the power NEVER goes out... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I go to Acadia University...we survived pretty well.

We managed pretty well though, the power cut early in the morning and we pretty much just lay around for most of the day. At 4pm when news started coming in about the severity of the power situation, we made a run to the Home Hardware and grabbed some flashlights and some batteries. I already had a minimag (which I should really drop an led replacement into) and then bought the Dorcy 1AA 3LED model. And some batteries of course...

The university response was pretty smooth though, I have to give them some credit. They evacuated 3 residences as they didn't have emergency lighting or heat. They moved us all into the lounges and spare rooms of other residences. The K.C. Irving Centre has it's own generator and they activated to save the bio labs and also to show movies, charge your laptop etc. The other generators were deployed to Security, mealhall and to provide lighting to the residences still occupied. Hot water seemed to still be produced at the water heating plant (or treatment plant) that the university runs.

The residences were also opened up to off-campus students for overnight sleeping and mealhall opened to all members of the community. The local firehall was also opened and served hot food throughout the night and day.

Come morning, we were informed that it was to be a repeat of Sunday unless power was restored. They opened up the 3 evacuated residences at 11am for people to pull some more stuff they needed out. We were also told to conserve any available power and also water, supposedly the town water supply was being diminished. Come about 3:45pm the power was restored to the university only, and by around 6pm most areas of Wolfville were having power restored. By 11pm 90% of Wolfville had power and supposedly most of the Valley also was restored by that time. All in all, it wasn't too severe, and it comes to show that just a couple of generators can go a long way too. And on the plus side...class was cancelled until Wednesday /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

must be hard on your supply of batteries

BTW, I live in Coldbrook, in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley which is about 10 miles west of Kentville, or 70 miles west of Halifax, or 15 miles west of Wolfville where Acadia University is situated.

Both of the Elektrolumens lights were fine on their original sets of AA cells. I think the ElektroStar Luxeon headlamp is good for about 12 hours on 4 AA cells and the IllumiLux 3 AA Low Dome seems fine for about 3 months of intermittent use. I'm guessing it would go about 10 hours on continous use. So actually, I didn't completely exhaust any AA cells at all.

The thing I like about my Arc AAA is that there's about 5 hours of continuous, steady light from 1 AAA, then it drops immediately into moon mode -- no guessing at all. I had a full pack of 8 fresh AAA cells and about 4 loose cells with about 90% capacity, so I would have likely been fine for up to a week or more. I'm glad that power came back on though when it did, since we were starting to get fairly cold. In another day, we would have had to go over to my brother's place where he was running a wood stove.

There were two major problems that everyone was experiencing (or were about to) -- little cash (most people use debit cards and ATMs), and need for gasoline in cars. One filling station that had emergency generators had a lineup of 300 cars waiting for gas. I've promised myself to have at least $100 in emergency cash available in the future.

I can tell you guys were NOT following the lessons learned for the blackout of 2003. $100 in cash - small bills prefered (so you don't have to worry about change)

You NEED a minimum of 1 gal of water/person/day, and should have a minimum of 3 days supply.

Small camping stoves are your friend - if not, an esbit type stove

If you live in a house - think about a generator - or at least an inverter and enough battery to run your furnace

GAS - NEVER let your gas tank go below 1/2 full - NEVER. I can tell you some funny (sad) stories of folks trying to get desiel fuel during the blackout in NYC - including one of the Emergency groups (BIG name) who put away their truck 2 days before without refilling their fuel tank, and only had 1/4 tank - enough to idle for 4 hours ir so, but....

Good points, KC.

My brother is still off; it's now more than 2 1/2 days for him. Thousands more are in the same pickle.

[ QUOTE ]
KC2IXE said:
I can tell you guys were NOT following the lessons learned for the blackout of 2003. $100 in cash - small bills prefered (so you don't have to worry about change)

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL, I seem to remember someone here saying they didn't need cash anymore because they would just go the ATM.....uh yea right!

$100 is better than nothing but I think you really need to keep a bit more than that, price gouging does happen. I keep 50-one dollar bills, 20-five dollar bills and 10-ten dollar bills on hand in a ziplock snack size baggie and sealed again in an envelope.


Of course I'm single, when I was married my ex was into that stash all the time.

GregR


P.S. my aunt called me Saturday evening and said her power was out and they did have any flashlights handy. She lives in Northern Sask.

Double_A: I was talking minimums - not optimums

[ QUOTE ]
KC2IXE said:
Double_A: I was talking minimums - not optimums

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep me too, cause I have that amount at home and in my truck. B-T-W I generally feel if you've got to choose between home or vehicle, go with keeping preps in vehicle. I'm where ever my truck is, even when I'm at home!

[ QUOTE ]
Double_A said:
...snip... B-T-W I generally feel if you've got to choose between home or vehicle, go with keeping preps in vehicle. I'm where ever my truck is, even when I'm at home!

[/ QUOTE ]

Have you been looking in my truck? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

I don't keep ALL my stuff in the truck - that would deprive my wife/kids when I was away, and it wouldn't all fit

I must admit that I'm a bit crazy about it because I do "emergency communications", so often I'm out with folks like the Red Cross and Salvation Army (hence my comment about one of the disaster agencies who forgot to fill their gas tank)

Spent last night tweaking my radio gear - building a nice dual band grab and go box.

I REALLY want to add MORE water to my kit - I'm at the minimum of bottled water, but usually keep a few gals of other drinks in the house (rotated). One the list is to add a generator, and change the fire place to a wood stove insert

[ QUOTE ]
KC2IXE said:
[ QUOTE ]
Double_A said:
...snip... B-T-W I generally feel if you've got to choose between home or vehicle, go with keeping preps in vehicle. I'm where ever my truck is, even when I'm at home!

[/ QUOTE ]

Have you been looking in my truck? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

I don't keep ALL my stuff in the truck - that would deprive my wife/kids when I was away, and it wouldn't all fit

I must admit that I'm a bit crazy about it because I do "emergency communications", so often I'm out with folks like the Red Cross and Salvation Army (hence my comment about one of the disaster agencies who forgot to fill their gas tank)

Spent last night tweaking my radio gear - building a nice dual band grab and go box.

I REALLY want to add MORE water to my kit - I'm at the minimum of bottled water, but usually keep a few gals of other drinks in the house (rotated). One the list is to add a generator, and change the fire place to a wood stove insert

[/ QUOTE ]


Yea, I've got a new truck and I'm itching to put a shell on it. I carry far too much and have to stow it on the back seats in the crew cab.

GregR-KC6ZWO

Already, you guys have me convinced I need some cash for emergencies since I'm one of those guys who uses plastic for everything. And the market doomsayers have me nearly convinced to put a grand or two in gold bullion. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Mark

Speaking of power outages, I was attending a munincipal assembly meeting last night when the power goes out... I had my Arc AAA to get me through though. I don't know what I would have done without it.