The Old Folks Home

[Alaskan]

puh-CAHN.

How my mom said it, so that's how I say it.

But she also said, "Q-pon" (coupon) and I say COO-pon.

Yep! That word is another super accented one! My kids say coo-pon

 

[CapricornFarm]

puh-CAHN.

How my mom said it, so that's how I say it.

But she also said, "Q-pon" (coupon) and I say COO-pon.

Pee can!

 

[getaclue]

The storm hit, and everything was going just fine. I made stewbeef and gravy, green beans, and had about 10 - 15 mins left for the potatoes to finish up, so I could mash them, when the power went out.

Generator turned on, so I put the potatoes, and some of the boiling hot water into a big glass bowl, and finished them up in the microwave. After they were mashed, we had a delicious supper.

The storm lowered the temp. It was around 72 degrees.
The rain was blowing towards the front and left side of the house. I opened the back windows, and the patio sliders on the right side of the house, which are also protected from the rain by the patio itself. No A/C needed. That blessing has helped conserve fuel for the generator.

We were hammered for hours with 60 mph sustained winds, and up to 90 mph gusts. I'm glad to report that we sustained no damage. The chickens settled into their cages in the garage, and have done fine.

Internet went out, but with phones, and a couple tablets connected through our cell phone carrier, we were not isolated. I even played a few movies for us, on my tablet.

The electric company has been hard a work restoring power to hospitals, fire stations, law enforcement sub stations, pharmacies, grocery stores, gas stations, etc. They're a higher priority than residences, although if you live on a line that is connected to any of the priorities your power got restored promptly. Next they go after larger areas of residences, like big sub-divisions.

They told us last night, that they had sustained a good bit of equipment damage to a couple of the electrical sub stations out here, and it could take up to 3 days to get them fixed, and get us up and running. I know they were working on it tonight, because we had power for about a minute, then it went down again.

Like us, all of our neighbors have generators of some type, so it's not too big of a deal to lose power. Funny how generators sound a lot like lawn mowers. At 3 am, it sounds like everyone is out mowing their lawn.

This morning, after all the storm had passed, the cat came out onto the patio. She kept searching for Quacker Sparkles, our duck. She was very distraught that she could not find the duck. I ended up having to take her out to the garage, and show her that the duck was fine.

All the neighboring men hopped on their tractors, armed with chain saws, going to make sure none of our more immediate neighbors were trapped, either in their homes, or uable to get out of their driveways, due to fallen trees.

There are a few tiny pockets of areas that didn't lose power. Our little convenience store nearby, was up, and running. It was doing booming business, and packed with people. Long lines at the gas pumps, and long lines of people getting prepared food. We didn't really need anything, but the kids wanted OJ, which is why I went.

With them turning on the power for just a minute, I'm hopeful our power will be fully restored before it gets hot out again.

 

[pertnear09]

The storm hit, and everything was going just fine. I made stewbeef and gravy, green beans, and had about 10 - 15 mins left for the potatoes to finish up, so I could mash them, when the power went out.

Generator turned on, so I put the potatoes, and some of the boiling hot water into a big glass bowl, and finished them up in the microwave. After they were mashed, we had a delicious supper.

The storm lowered the temp. It was around 72 degrees.
The rain was blowing towards the front and left side of the house. I opened the back windows, and the patio sliders on the right side of the house, which are also protected from the rain by the patio itself. No A/C needed. That blessing has helped conserve fuel for the generator.

We were hammered for hours with 60 mph sustained winds, and up to 90 mph gusts. I'm glad to report that we sustained no damage. The chickens settled into their cages in the garage, and have done fine.

Internet went out, but with phones, and a couple tablets connected through our cell phone carrier, we were not isolated. I even played a few movies for us, on my tablet.

The electric company has been hard a work restoring power to hospitals, fire stations, law enforcement sub stations, pharmacies, grocery stores, gas stations, etc. They're a higher priority than residences, although if you live on a line that is connected to any of the priorities your power got restored promptly. Next they go after larger areas of residences, like big sub-divisions.

They told us last night, that they had sustained a good bit of equipment damage to a couple of the electrical sub stations out here, and it could take up to 3 days to get them fixed, and get us up and running. I know they were working on it tonight, because we had power for about a minute, then it went down again.

Like us, all of our neighbors have generators of some type, so it's not too big of a deal to lose power. Funny how generators sound a lot like lawn mowers. At 3 am, it sounds like everyone is out mowing their lawn.

This morning, after all the storm had passed, the cat came out onto the patio. She kept searching for Quacker Sparkles, our duck. She was very distraught that she could not find the duck. I ended up having to take her out to the garage, and show her that the duck was fine.

All the neighboring men hopped on their tractors, armed with chain saws, going to make sure none of our more immediate neighbors were trapped, either in their homes, or uable to get out of their driveways, due to fallen trees.

There are a few tiny pockets of areas that didn't lose power. Our little convenience store nearby, was up, and running. It was doing booming business, and packed with people. Long lines at the gas pumps, and long lines of people getting prepared food. We didn't really need anything, but the kids wanted OJ, which is why I went.

With them turning on the power for just a minute, I'm hopeful our power will be fully restored before it gets hot out again.

Glad you checked in and doing fairly well.

 

[Cynthia12]

The storm hit, and everything was going just fine. I made stewbeef and gravy, green beans, and had about 10 - 15 mins left for the potatoes to finish up, so I could mash them, when the power went out.

Generator turned on, so I put the potatoes, and some of the boiling hot water into a big glass bowl, and finished them up in the microwave. After they were mashed, we had a delicious supper.

The storm lowered the temp. It was around 72 degrees.
The rain was blowing towards the front and left side of the house. I opened the back windows, and the patio sliders on the right side of the house, which are also protected from the rain by the patio itself. No A/C needed. That blessing has helped conserve fuel for the generator.

We were hammered for hours with 60 mph sustained winds, and up to 90 mph gusts. I'm glad to report that we sustained no damage. The chickens settled into their cages in the garage, and have done fine.

Internet went out, but with phones, and a couple tablets connected through our cell phone carrier, we were not isolated. I even played a few movies for us, on my tablet.

The electric company has been hard a work restoring power to hospitals, fire stations, law enforcement sub stations, pharmacies, grocery stores, gas stations, etc. They're a higher priority than residences, although if you live on a line that is connected to any of the priorities your power got restored promptly. Next they go after larger areas of residences, like big sub-divisions.

They told us last night, that they had sustained a good bit of equipment damage to a couple of the electrical sub stations out here, and it could take up to 3 days to get them fixed, and get us up and running. I know they were working on it tonight, because we had power for about a minute, then it went down again.

Like us, all of our neighbors have generators of some type, so it's not too big of a deal to lose power. Funny how generators sound a lot like lawn mowers. At 3 am, it sounds like everyone is out mowing their lawn.

This morning, after all the storm had passed, the cat came out onto the patio. She kept searching for Quacker Sparkles, our duck. She was very distraught that she could not find the duck. I ended up having to take her out to the garage, and show her that the duck was fine.

All the neighboring men hopped on their tractors, armed with chain saws, going to make sure none of our more immediate neighbors were trapped, either in their homes, or uable to get out of their driveways, due to fallen trees.

There are a few tiny pockets of areas that didn't lose power. Our little convenience store nearby, was up, and running. It was doing booming business, and packed with people. Long lines at the gas pumps, and long lines of people getting prepared food. We didn't really need anything, but the kids wanted OJ, which is why I went.

With them turning on the power for just a minute, I'm hopeful our power will be fully restored before it gets hot out again.

Glad you're ok. Have a cousin there, they did I'm too. A panel if their fence was broken out, power out, but doing ok.

 

[getaclue]

I was totally wrong about why the lights went on for a minute last night. A neighbor forgot to flip his breaker switch when he fired up his generator. It was bleed back into the outside line, which powered things up all down the line.

He figured it out real fast when it overloaded his generator. Just in our little town, there are 197,000 people without power. That's not the number for the whole county. There may be 2000 homes that have power, scattered here and there. There are 1,300 electric company trucks working in our area alone.

We will eventually get power again. I just think it might take longer than anticipated. I think our feed store has power. If so, we can get our propane tanks refilled as needed to keep the generator running.

 

[bruceha2000]

I was totally wrong about why the lights went on for a minute last night. A neighbor forgot to flip his breaker switch when he fired up his generator. It was bleed back into the outside line, which powered things up all down the line.

!!!! That is HIGHLY dangerous and likely an illegal installation. He could fry a line worker repairing the wires. Solar panel inverters must, by law, disconnect from the grid when there is no grid power. I assume the same is true for whole house generators.

With solar, you have NO power when the grid is down unless you have batteries (which the panels can still charge) and still everything is isolated from the grid when there is no line voltage.

 

[microchick]

Morning all, checked in to see how all you folks in Florida and the surrounding east coast states are fairing this morning.

@getaclue I am SO glad you all faired well and are safe. You are to be commended. Where so many see to never be prepared for anything, you folks were prepared and ready to hunker down. I'm impressed.

Sure hope everyone in the path of the storm stays safe. Praying that you all make it through without harm.

It's so hard to relate with what y'all are going through. Never experienced a hurricane. Here we have our unique brand of weather and worry about severe storms and tornadoes that can rip through in the spring and fall and the winter blizzards and ice storms. But even with the severe storms, they blow in, wind gusts to 50+ MPH and they move on fairly fast. Over and done with.

Dealing with sustained winds of 70 + MPH for hours? Don't think I want to experience that.

Here we are in a drought. 1/2 inch of rain over the past two months or more with none in sight. The dust is bad. Everything is wilted and trees are starting to drop their leaves early. I look at the flooding and rain in Florida and think, man, send some of that up here!

@getaclue. Do you have your own weather station and wind gauge or are those NOAA statistics on the winds?

We have been tracking the wind speeds on line and they have been all over the place. NOAA saying the winds are 90MPH for example with gusts to 115 and you look at Ventusky.com will say, no, winds sustained at 60 and gusts to 90 so who can you believe?

You're there. What are you seeing as far as the wind is concerned?

 

[microchick]

!!!! That is HIGHLY dangerous and likely an illegal installation. He could fry a line worker repairing the wires. Solar panel inverters must, by law, disconnect from the grid when there is no grid power. I assume the same is true for whole house generators.

With solar, you have NO power when the grid is down unless you have batteries (which the panels can still charge) and still everything is isolated from the grid when there is no line voltage.

That's just what my husband said, Bruce. He could have killed somebody.

Neighbors put in solar instead of electricity. Ecologically admirable but they asked us what we thought about it before they did it. We told them out here to consider hooking into the grid. The initial cost is pretty bad. Ours was 2500. They said their quote was much higher, but the power company pays you back with discounted bills. For something like three years we just paid a service charge on our bill. They decided to go solar and put the panels on the southern facing side of their barn. They use batteries to store their power but on cloudy days you can hear them running a generator to charge the batteries when they run down.

We hear it and go hmmmmm, so you paid $$$$$ for a whole house solar array and now you are paying $$$$$ to the gas company in order to run your generator? So how is that solar array saving you money?

Plus one time when we talked to them the husband said with a tortured sigh...Batteries needed replaced after a year.

Every Eden has its serpent. The wiring on our road is three phased for those who have heavy power consumption. Our wiring is single phased to our farm that DH installed himself. We have in ten years only lost power once and it wasn't down for very long. They work to get the power back up as fast as possible. Back in rural IL it was going off every week and was down for almost 5 days during an ice storm. We had to harass them in order to get them to find the problem which was a downed wire on a lane about 3/4s of a mile away from us and for some reason they didn't know it.

We have an emergency generator but it isn't connected to the farm wiring. Safer that way.

 

[bruceha2000]

They use batteries to store their power but on cloudy days you can hear them running a generator to charge the batteries when they run down.

We hear it and go hmmmmm, so you paid $$$$$ for a whole house solar array and now you are paying $$$$$ to the gas company in order to run your generator? So how is that solar array saving you money?

Plus one time when we talked to them the husband said with a tortured sigh...Batteries needed replaced after a year.

1 year? They aren't using high end batteries, sounds more like the old time 12V lead acid batteries linked together. But even then I wouldn't expect them to need replacement annually. Batteries should never be run down to 0, in fact I think 30% is the recommended "floor". Also need to not overcharge them. They may not have proper controllers to manage the batteries.

If they have to run the generator often, they don't have enough battery capacity and maybe not enough generation capacity for extended cloudy periods.

I'm all for DIY but the "Y" better know what they are doing. Which, with solar, I do not thus I paid the companies that do know.