Ahh... today is a much nicer day than yesterday. We had 2"+ of rain and gusts to 55-65mph for most of yesterday afternoon and evening. I am glad I moved my cars as the top of a tree fell in the driveway. Just branches and a sheiit load of leaves in the rest of the yard. The only costly damage was the Davis Instruments anemometer and rain collector I had set up fell over in one of those 60mph gusts and the $125 anemometer broke. I did not loose power but there were sporatic power outages around the area.

Sean in NC

Yeah. Around here it was simply a very windy day with some rain. Of course, that means that my power's been off for nearly 24 hours now, as CP&L/Progress Energy provides a worse quality of service than that found in most third-world countries.

You're posting from a battery-operated device?

I lived out near Jordan Lake when Fran came through in 1996. CP&L cut the power off 6 hours before the storm hit us as a precaution I guess.

Sean in NC

At least you guys don't live 4 m (12 ft) below sea level...

No. I'm posting from work.

And you're right. There was no danger of flooding where I live, but other areas of tow live in flood plains, so they aren't always so lucky. As it happens, Isabel didn't rain all that much.

I'm on the Hampton Roads Peninsula, and the power just came on here this morning. There are so many trees down... In fact, they're saying that classes won't be open at the college here until Wednesday, and the storm has been over for two days!

gusts to 55-65mph for most of yesterday afternoon and evening

Wow.

I don't think we got above around 30 in Durham. But I'm probably more "inland" than you.

John

At least you guys don't live 4 m (12 ft) below sea level...

Elevationist!

Actually I am 30 miles west of Durham near Mebane. We had an outer band of the storm sit over us for a few hours with a lot of wind and rain. I was talking to some folks over in Southern Durham, Southsquare, that said that it the winds were not as bad over there. Durham is mostly in a valley I guess.
Sean in NC

I live near Baltimore, but I was in Pittsburgh all weekend and missed the storm. I returned home yesterday to find a big mess... Trees down everywhere - I lost 2 trees in my yard, and my dad says he lost 11 trees. No power. I lost all my food, but other people certainly faired much worse than I and lost so much more - flooded houses, basements, etc. My friend says the dumpster at our grocery store was full of spoiled frozen food because they had lost power - its Monday now and we still have no power (I'm at work).

The Pittsburgh TV stations were showing footage from the flooding in Baltimore - unprecedented. None of my friends at home knew how bad it was because they had no power to see the news coverage. They said roughly 650,000 of BGE's 1.1 million customers were without power during the storm - they say its down to about 250,000 now. There are still traffic lights this morning with no electricity. On my way to Pittsburgh on Thursday, I lost count of the number of utility work crews from other states driving in before the storm to help fix the outages.

My dad keeps a sailboat on the Patapsco river, which runs up the west side of the Bay into Baltimore - aside from the terrible flooding, he said at the marina across the cove from us, all the boats that were pulled from the water were either tipped over or had floated away. The water rose so high that it floated the boats right off their stilts - about 10-14 feet above normal.

I'll try to post pictures of the damage - but my CF reader is at home, inside my unpowered computer. I hope everyone made it through OK.

We lost our power for a day, my neighbor lost a lot of siding, a few trees down here and there but for the most part we didn't get hit too bad. I'm in Northern Virginia.

Today = day 4 without power in Richmond (well, about 30 mins north of Richmond). As of yesterday, the local firemen said that the electric workers in the field were saying it would be another week until we had power back. This is the downside of the living in the country ..... We have a generator, though, so at least I have my TiVo and well pump

Today = day 4 without power in Richmond

I understand that being without power is an inconvenience, and I sympathize with the people so afflicted.

But it is hard for me to get excited about three or four days with no lights in a relatively benign environment.

Try losing power when it's 20 or 30 degrees below zero sometime.

About 10 years ago we had a freak winter snowstorm (dare I call it a blizzard?) that hit in mid-September. This storm dropped maybe two feet of heavy, wet snow overnight onto trees that were still fully leafed and green. This was such an unusual occurrence that most of the above-ground pwer lines were affected -- we just don't normally get storms that knock trees down into powerlines here. Some homes were without power for as much as three weeks.

No power means no heat -- even oil furnaces require electricity to run -- and no heat means not only an uninhbitable house, but severe damage from frozen pipes. Many homes were simply abandoned untiil Spring as it was impractical to attempt repairs in the dead of winter.

I'm not trying to minimize the problems caused by hurricane Isabel. If we had a storm blow through Fairbanks with 80-100 MPH winds dropping the better part of a foot of rainfall, you'd probably need a GPS just to find where the town used to be. But loss of power with temperatures well above freezing? We'd just cope and not think it was anything all that hard to deal with.

tanstaafl.

<Tweek on South Park> But... but... how could you read the empeg BBS without power?! Ack! </Tweek on South Park>

I used my P800. I was desperate

The joys of work

Well, come on now -- if you play this game, yes, there's always somebody worse off than you. I guarantee that there are some people in the world who would scoff at your story. Being put-out is all relative ... All I was saying in my previous post is that being without power for days on end sucks. It sucks less than being without power for 3 weeks. That sucks less than having your legs clawed off by a lion.

That is all.


ms

Really. And then there was that big stink about the power grid in the northeast-to-midwest a few weeks back. Now, it was an important story because it was so widespread and pointed out problems with our power delivery system here in the US, but there were way too many stories published about overcoming the hardship of being without power for a day and a half in mild weather, yet there were basically no stories about that when (for instance) Hurrican Fran came through NC a few years back and we were all without power for a week and a half when it was around 95 degrees out, or when this winter's ice storm took out the power for about a week and it remained cold enough to keep all of the ice frozen.

Well, I'm finally back at school and have power again. I go to school in Norfolk Va. and was evacuated tuesday night. I went home to Charlottesville in central Va. We lost power at my house in c-ville around 2pm thursday afternoon and didn't get it back until about 6pm on sunday. Several trees in my backyard were knocked down. With 3 days of my dad and I chainsawing, carrying, loading, hauling etc., the yard is finally back close to normal.

I went down to Sandbridge beach yesterday morning with a friend who lives down there. Sandbridge is just south of Virginia beach. There was a lot of damage there. Power was still out and didn't look like it was going to be back on anytime soon. There were still power lines down everywhere. The main road along the ocean was completely covered in sand probably as deep as 2 or 3 feet of sand in some places. There were bulldozers, backhoes, etc. working on clearing the roads but they still had a lot of work to do. My friends oceanfront house was fine although covered in sand and just a little damp inside. You could clearly see where water had come over the dunes which used to be fairly tall, but are only about half the size they used to be now. Everyone who was there was working on shoveling out driveways. It looked like a neiborhood clearing their driveways after a big snowstorm except they were all shoveling sand instead.

Well, come on now -- if you play this game...

We've been without power since Thursday evening in Garrett Park, MD (a small town outside DC). My wife just called from home to say that the Pepco trucks (or really one Pepco truck and a horde of Savannah power trucks) just rolled into town. We had lots of trees blown down, taking many wires and power poles down with them. The repair crews don't have any replacement poles with them, and say it might be tomorrow before they get us back up.

It's been especially um, "fun" since we have a 7 week old baby and 3 year old to take care of. Changing diapers by flashlight - what a joy. Thank goodness for the gas hot water heater (and potable water - our Virginia neighbors had to boil water for a few days). Do they make gas powered refridgerators?

I was in NC when Fran came through and had no power for the better part of a week, and also lost power for 3 days a few winters back from an ice storm: I thought I'd done my time!

And the reason I opened with the quote - I really can't compete with tanstaafl: Our nanny (who hails from the tiny island of Dominica - "Not the Dominican Republic!" she always adds) tells of when hurricane David came through and left them without power for over a year. Ouch.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

-jk

It's been especially um, "fun" since we have a 7 week old baby and 3 year old to take care of. Changing diapers by flashlight - what a joy.

Sounds like you need a Petzl

Do they make gas powered refridgerators?

rvmobile.com, newenglandsolar.com and others.

Not the Dominican Republic!

I flew into the DR once on business. Into Santo Domingo, the capital. There had been a moderate rainstorm, so most of the roads were under two feet of water and the power was out. As far as I know, there was no lightning or heavy wind. Just rain. But they had it all back up by the next morning.

Sounds like you need a Petzl

Believe me, I was thinking of that thread as I held my little mini-mag in mouth... And those refridgerators do look enticing, execpt they look a little smallish. Very tempting. I figured someone had to make one - and I figured someone would link one here. This is an amazingly resourceful community.

-jk

Dude, if you ever move out here, let me know, so I can move out east. You seem to attract bad weather.

My wife has been through five or six hurricanes since her 20s. This, I think, is the first major mid-Atlantic one she's missed in about fifteen years. (Okay, so she lived in Wilmington for years, but she was in Charlotte visiting her parents when Hugo came through and then Fran followed her to Raleigh.)

Dude, if you ever move out here, let me know, so I can move out east. You seem to attract bad weather.

I lived in west LA for two years - got the full LA experience: drought, wild fires, flash floods, earthquakes (small ones), wind storms, a riot (I sat by the TV plotting fires on my Thomas guide ready to head north if it got too close), and a plague of medflies. Been there, done that. Ain't goin' back.

I think the funniest weather we had while I was in LA was the week it got below freezing at night. No one turned their sprinklers off, and every third yard was a quarter inch sheet of ice.

My power came on for about 15 seconds yesterday afternoon and then went back out. A three-mile-an-hour parade through town ensued as Pepco tried to find the wire they'd missed. Then it came on for good yesterday evening. I think my 3 year old was the happiest!

-jk

WOOHOO Power came back on a few hours ago!