The northeast got slammed by a nor'easter that started late afternoon of 3/13 and ended early morning of 3/15. The power went out at 11:30 am on Tuesday and was out until at 11:15 am on Thursday (just shy of 48 hours). Then it went out again at 12:30 am Friday morning, and was restored 9:30 am the same day. So a total of 57 hours without power.
Not only was power out, but my cell phone had no phone calls or texts from 5:30 pm Tuesday until about 4:30 pm on 3/17. That is not entirely accurate as there was one point on Wednesday that I could text my sister and let her know I was alive on Thursday (but some texts didn't send so it was a very short window). Interestingly, I still had FB and other apps, although they did run fairly slowly. However, all I really wanted to do was keep up on the town FB page in case I could offer help to others - plus keep the 71-73 people that were on my particular outage area apprised of how it was going.
The outage started at the pole in my yard, so I always knew when the line workers were there. Pic from the second outage where they had to replace the transformer (first outage had 4 trucks there - 2 big and 2 small. 2nd outage there were 8 trucks). The power company claimed that both outages were caused by tree limbs, but as you can see, there are no trees even close (they had come out 2 months ago and cut down any trees that were there). Nor were there any limbs when I went out to look prior to the workers getting there. My bet is the transformer had just reached its lifespan.
I endured the outage pretty well with a Ryobi power station that I bought last fall. It ran the P43 for about 4 cycles before batteries gave out. The house bound elderly neighbor across the street, who I help with snow clearing, groceries and picking up meds, had power throughout the ordeal (yay), so I was able to recharge the batteries when needed and keep the main floor warm. I was feeling genius for getting the power station since the 800w gas generator that I bought way back in 2014 (and never been used) would not start. I had been planning on using the gas generator for the downstairs stove and/or hot water, but that obviously didn't happen. I will say now, that I sorely missed the old water heater since it didn't need electricity to run. At the same time, even a replacement water heater (instead of combi-boiler) would have required electricity per the new codes, so it is what it is.
I ended up with 30" of snow. A person I know in the next town over (and higher in elevation) received 35" of snow and I've heard reports from others that received 40-44" of the white stuff. Before (3/12) and after (3/15) of the north side. That bank is about 4' tall in the first pic
The west side
The south and east sides
Ski areas and snowmobilers are happy anyway. Yesterday got into the 50's and somewhat windy, so there was some meltage, but today is supposed to stay near freezing. Then a gradual warm up thru the week. I'll take it since that will keep the melting slow so keep flooding down or non-existent.
Thanks for filling in more details from the sketch you were able to give us, earlier, Bogie. That's a fair amount of snow and I join you in rejoicing that it is not expected to be a rapid melt.
Sorry about the water heater and about your generator. Some things work out better than others.
Stay warm -probably from all the exercise you'll be getting?!
Posted by: Cop Car | March 19, 2023 at 08:34 AM