Tampa Turtle 1011 Posted October 31, 2012 Share Posted October 31, 2012 NJ I will be thinking of you. I was out for 10 days then 5 days in the storms of 2004. It can get really old really fast. I learned that Pizza places, who typically have gas ovens, can keep going for a while once the power is out. And the sound of generators is really, really annoying. Link to post Share on other sites
WasE61 23 Posted October 31, 2012 Share Posted October 31, 2012 I recall the Blizzard of 1978, when we were without power for 48 hours and the temp was -24 ambient, -60 wind chill. Many others were without power for 5-7 days. No one had generators in those days, no gas, no wood stoves. Main floor of the house got down in the 40's. Link to post Share on other sites
qwazse 4342 Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 Can't speak for other towns, but prolonged outages are routine around here. They may be isolated to a couple of blocks (sometimes more), but we can usually count on needed to check on elderly neighbors who are too stubborn to spend a couple of days outside of their home. Starting to hear of landslides now that the ground is saturated. Link to post Share on other sites
OldGreyEagle 5 Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 Back amongst you guys. Was out of power for 52 hours, many huge trees in the neighborhood came down and took the lines with them. Mostly cleaned up but not all. Still many streets in town impassable because of down treea and not everyone has power, My wife has two daughters in New Jersey, one a mile from the Ocean near Asbury Park and another in Middletown Middletown is ok, the Asbury PArk one is bad off. House OK but no power and no prospect for quite awhile. Her parents are in Old Bridge, he is 91 and her mother is 86. Then again, he was on the beach at Normandy, he doesnt consider this stuff as major. SO, the house is a little cold, put on a sweater and relax. I know its worse in many places. Just a note and a sideways rant. So, I am listening to the local radio stations to get updates. It's been 36 hours with no power and the radio announcers talk about where you can find help on their Facebook page or the stations website? Excuse me, I wouldnt be listening to your lame station if it wasnt for the weather and if I could look this information up on the web, I wouldn't need it because I would have power in the first place. MORONS AND MENTAL MIDGETS Link to post Share on other sites
WasE61 23 Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 Saw a report on the news this morning about a teenage girl who took the family generator and set it up outside yesterday (and today) with a ton of power strips plugged in so neighbors could recharge their cell phones. Even plugged in a coffeemaker! Cool kid. Link to post Share on other sites
AZMike 173 Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 With all the reports of the president referring people to websites for disaster relief, it made me wonder how many people even own transistor radios now? It seems like an essential item in a disaster, but a spot check with people at work found that outside of car radios, only a couple had battery-powered radios. I think I need to buy one and a solar-powered battery recharger. I had one after we lost power for a few days after the Northridge Quake in LA, but we don't have one anymore, just iPods... Link to post Share on other sites
qwazse 4342 Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 I have a radio with a built in hand-crank dynamo and rechargeable batteries. It has preset tuning to national weather service channels. Link to post Share on other sites
NJCubScouter 1389 Posted November 5, 2012 Share Posted November 5, 2012 Coincidentally, when I made my last post in this thread (Weds. around 11 a.m. Eastern), power was just going on at my house (give or take 15 minutes.) I did not know that until several hours later, though. So we were without power for about 40 hours, which made us better off than a lot of others. My mother just got her power back yesterday (Saturday.) That meant the difference between losing almost no food from our refrigator/freezer, as in our case, and losing all of it, as in my mother's case. (Actually, if we had been without power for about five more hours we would have chucked everything as well.) As of the last email update from the power company, about 75 percent had their power restored, but I think that excludes the coastal areas that were completely devastated. One of my brothers lives in one of those areas, and has not been able to get back to his primary residence, which fortunately he only rents, and he has other places to stay. My home Internet, cable and phone service did not come back until yesterday, so it was out five full days. My office building, for whatever reason, got power back Tuesday afternoon but lost it again Thursday morning, and as far I know doesn't have it back. I do have a story similar to OGE's Facebook story. Now that we can watch tv again, we have noticed that the cable company is incessantly running ads on almost all channels saying how hard they are working to restore "your" cable service, Internet etc. Well, if we were still waiting for it, we couldn't see the ad! Now, they may be running it so that if someone is staying with someone who has cable/Internet/phone, they can hear what is being done to restore their service back at home - but it isn't worded that way. And all the people I know of who are staying with other people, or in hotels, are doing so because they have no electricity at home, and cable/Internet are pretty far down the list of priorities. Though I do think my son would suffer actual physical injury if he was without the Internet for more than a day, so fortunately he has been in his dorm at college through this whole thing - also in New Jersey, but he was only without power for about 24 hours, and his Internet came back at the same time. His classes were cancelled all week, but the dining hall at his school remained open the whole time, so after he got his power back there was little thought of his coming home - he was better off than we were! He did come home yesterday to help me clean up around our property. And after all that, there were aspects of this that were really nowhere nearly as bad as expected. The amount of rain was not as much as expected, with the result that the rivers in my area did not flood. While there obviously was a lot of flooding at the Shore, there was very little inland. We have had much smaller storms with a lot more flooding from the rivers. When those things happen, our troop gets mobilized to help set up emergency shelters and serve food, and while some of those were opened here and there, none were opened where our troop would have been called upon to help out. Link to post Share on other sites
OneHour 11 Posted November 6, 2012 Share Posted November 6, 2012 We empathize with y'all. We went through Ike. What was terrible wasn't the storm itself. Even though it was harrowing listening as the storm howled for 8 hours straight, but the after math ... the long lines at everywhere you turn, the power outage for one week and for some more than one, and most of all the rudeness that came out of people were the worst part of the storm! We didn't have the looting as Katrina, but there the rudeness and unscoutlike conducts came out of the woodwork! Our electricity didn't come back on for 6 days! Camping stoves and propane came in handy! The first couple of days, we had block parties trying to finish up with all of the perishable before the fridges all melted. We have never eaten so much, so well in so little time! Living near the Gulf of Mexico, we come to stock non-perisable as well. We learned to fill up bath tubs, pots, pans, etc, with water; as a results, we had enough water for several days. My two eagle scouts learned first hand what that Emergency Prep merit badge is all about! But anyway, glad, y'all made it through ok! 1Hour Link to post Share on other sites
NJCubScouter 1389 Posted November 6, 2012 Share Posted November 6, 2012 Today, some portions of my town where power had been restored lost it again. I spoke with one of my friends who lives in one of those areas, and I can't even describe the level of frustration I was hearing. I can't blame her. And some people are starting to grumble that the power companies' self-described Herculean efforts aren't enough. Most of New Jersey, including where I live, is on odd-even gas rationing, and the lines at gas stations have exceeded three miles (probably more.) It's like the energy crises from the 70's all over again, except that now the cars are competing with lines of people on foot trying to get gasoline for their emergency generators. With about 80 percent of power now restored, I am not sure why the lines of people on foot lining up with their gas cans seem to be getting LONGER, but they are. Maybe the nor'easter predicted for Wednesday has something to do with it. More trees are going to be knocked into power lines, including some weakened from Sandy, so this could get pretty bad, again. Link to post Share on other sites
gsdad 59 Posted November 6, 2012 Share Posted November 6, 2012 We were lucky to lose only a few trees in the yard, there are still some in my area in the dark. Our council camp(Ockanickon) sustained heavy damage and is organizing work parties. It looks like I will taking my chainsaw for a ride next weekend. Link to post Share on other sites
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