Community Chat

[Meowingkitty]

30 minutes maybe and that's usually because someone drives into a transformer or a transformer blows up. If we do get a good storm maybe an hour but it has been decades since that happened. 

[aubnwa01]

For 4 Days after the Inaugural Day Storm in 1993 in Western WA.

[Lali1]

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@DiAnne wrote:

Many, many years ago we had a wind storm and my power was out for two weeks.  Because my house was all electric at the time we had no hot water.  I went to my neighbors house every other day with my soap and towels to take a shower.  The same neighbors brought a bowl of oatmeal and a big containers of hot coffee over every morning.  He was a lifesaver!

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What a great neighbor. What I missed most was my coffee and my heater during this mess.Now everything is back. I can't get coffee creamer, eggs, bread or milk but I'll survive. 

[FiddleDeeDee]

Almost a month. Hurricane Isabel. Insurance paid NOTHING. Out of pocket was almost $200,000. Freaking nightmare.

[ECBG]

We were without power over a week when we had two young boys and a young chocolate lab, named Molasses. 

A puppy and a 100 year old blizzard!

Luckily, DH was/is a camper and had lots of equipment.  We also had a kerosun heater I boiled water on and added to cold to wash in.  

We slept in the great room

I also pulled the grill up to the back door and was making French Toast in cast iron skillets.  I went to the freezer and thawed homemade spaghetti and made the noodles on the kerosun heater.

Our neighbor lost her perishables min the snow!  She couldn't find them!!!

[CatsyCline]

We lost power in Superstorm Sandy - 4 days in late October and it was pretty hot then. we used the generator for the fridge and well pump and one small TV. when the power was restored i think it was a wednesday nite. Survivor was on and the lights and the other TVs all came on!  it was around 9:30 i think.

And then maybe 3 years ago a car struck a utility pole, by the next neighbor over (our telephone and electric are on the same poles.) A big old tree was involved and it was a tricky operation. lots of red tape... took days and days between the State and a contractor to cut down the tree and restore power and phone.  We have a gas operated generator and it ran day and night and LOUD. so difficult to sleep with it running outside.   it happened in March and luckily we have a wood stove for heat. it was about 4 days too.

[Nuttmeg]

I was without power for two weeks in 2012 during hurricane Sandy. 

[Lilysmom1]

The power outages are what makes the big storms memorable for me.  In Nova Scotia we had Juan and then White Juan.  History says these big storms hit us every 50 years. Juan and White Juan were the exceptions, occurring within months of each other.

Juan happened in September of 2003.  100 million trees were knocked over, uprooted and thrown around.  It was the most damaging storm in recent history devastating our municipal and Provincial parks, some found in our capital city.  It made landfall in my bedroom community.

White Juan, as 2004's storm came to be known, was a hurricane-strength nor'easter blizzard that hit Nova Scotia five months after Hurricane Juan devastated parts of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. That storm dropped as much as a metre of heavy snow.   I can still remember backhoes being used to dig snow out.

DH and I shovelled our long driveway by hand. Our car was buried to the roof.   No snowblower could get through that!  Plows were tossed aside as useless.  The snow was too heavy.

Both of these storms brought out the best in neighborhoods.  Friends helping friends.  We lost power for three days.  It was after these storms that we built our retirement home and a generator was a necessary element!  

While we lost power for three days, streets close by were out for two weeks.  S

[violann]

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@SloopJohnB wrote:

@violann  Wilma was in October, too.  What state are you in?

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NY Tri-State. Typically, I pretty much enjoy where we live, but along with millions and millions of others, my tolerance for discomfort and annoyance is worn about as thin as a mosquitoe's

wing span.

We DIDN'T have a power outage this last time, we DIDN'T have lung or heart involvement as we dragged our 75 + year old bodies through Covid, and our calendar reveals that although we THOUGH February had about 97 days in it this year, fact was it was STILL only 28.

KEEP ON, COURAGEOUS AMERICANS. IT HAS TO GET BETTER! ( At least that's what I keep telling myself).

[Isobel Archer]

Thankfully only 4 days.  It was after a major storm and the heat rose to 100 degrees.  We had a portable generator that powered the refrigerator so we didn't lose food and we had ice - so that helped considerably.

We also have a wood burning fireplace that has served us well when we lost power in the winter for a couple of days.