No sooner did I post the last entry then the power returned! Total outage 140 hours and 10 minutes.
Time to get things back to normal!
I think we are close to having our electricity back, there is power now exactly 1 mile from the house, this morning it was around 5 miles away. We drove past a real hard hit area about 2 miles from here, total power grid destruction. There were downed power lines, down poles and the narrow lanes of asphalt (the rest of the roadway was covered by a blanket of limbs and debris).
There was a power crew working on a main trunk and I suspect that is part of our issues of the no power thing.
For us, life is as about as normal as it can be depending on a generator for heat and some electricity. I kind of have down to a routine now, run the "genny" for 5 to 6 hours, and check the oil, top off the tank. During the day I run the heating system real warm. The heat is easy to maintain at that point when Bobbin is home.
I'm tired of stove top food and would love a baked anything at this point - but at the same point it's good to have hot food. Doing the dishes by hand is not fun either, but it's nice to have hot water.
I know I have learned a lot in dealing with this "mini-disaster", had this been a real disaster like an earthquake, we might not have natural gas, which would make things rough. We'd have to stop using the water well (until we retested it) and rely on bottled water and treating water.
I need to learn how to accomplish a few things, 1.) Stock pile gasoline for the generator (or convert to propane). 2.) Figure out how to heat the house with out natural gas. 3.) Build that "emergency kit" those public service commercials talk about.
Well that’s it for now… I am hoping that the next update is when the power has been restored.
without power - and counting.
And even more good news to come...
SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SEATTLE WA
1135 AM PST TUE DEC 19 2006
SAN JUAN COUNTY-WESTERN WHATCOM COUNTY-SOUTHWEST INTERIOR- EAST PUGET SOUND LOWLANDS-WESTERN SKAGIT COUNTY-EVERETT AND VICINITY- SEATTLE/BREMERTON AREA-TACOMA AREA-ADMIRALTY INLET AREA- HOOD CANAL AREA-LOWER CHEHALIS VALLEY AREA-OLYMPICS- EASTERN STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA-WESTERN STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- NORTH COAST-CENTRAL COAST-WEST SLOPES NORTHERN CASCADES AND PASSES- WEST SLOPES CENTRAL CASCADES AND PASSES-
1135 AM PST TUE DEC 19 2006
...A STRONG FRONT WILL MOVE THROUGH WESTERN WASHINGTON WEDNESDAY NIGHT...
A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM WAS STARTING TO DEVELOP FAR OUT IN THE PACIFIC TODAY. THE LOW PRESSURE CENTER WILL DEEPEN RAPIDLY TONIGHT AND WEDNESDAY MORNING. THE LOW PRESSURE CENTER IS FORECAST TO TRACK TOWARD THE QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS WEDNESDAY NIGHT...SO THE EFFECTS OF THIS STRONG LOW WILL JUST BRUSH OUR AREA. HOWEVER...THE ASSOCIATED FRONT WILL STILL BE STRONG AS IT MOVES THROUGH WESTERN WASHINGTON. THIS FRONT WILL REACH WESTERN WASHINGTON WEDNESDAY NIGHT.
EXPECT RAIN TO DEVELOP ON THE COAST WEDNESDAY MORNING...SPREADING THROUGH THE INTERIOR IN THE AFTERNOON. RAIN AND WINDY CONDITIONS CAN BE EXPECTED ACROSS WESTERN WASHINGTON WEDNESDAY NIGHT.
ON THE COAST AND IN THE NORTH INTERIOR...EXPECT SOUTHERLY WINDS OF 30 MPH...WITH GUSTS TO 50 MPH. FOR THE REST OF THE INTERIOR INCLUDING PUGET SOUND AND THE SOUTHWEST INTERIOR EXPECT SOUTH WINDS AROUND 20 MPH WITH LOCAL GUSTS TO 40 MPH WEDNESDAY NIGHT.
96 hours and counting - without power. Heard on the news that the nearby sub station suffered a lot of damage and the ETA of power restoration is 1 - 3 days. Today there is around 300k total without power down from 1.5 million.
Thats progress.
Tonight is our first night back as a family in the house as a family. We have water and some heat and some light. Even some TV and internet. The nearest power is about 5 miles away. Outside all you can hear is the drone of generators.
So far so good - update more later
Below are some images from nearby - enjoy
The neighbors house holding up a tree - note the snapped tree.
Tree over the power lines - this is the only way in and out of my area.
Some small trees in my yard - mostly alders.
The power have been out for over 62 hours now (went dark at 9:30 pm Thursday). Yesterday morning the my power company indicated that there were 750K households in the dark. This morning the number is down to 300K - progress, but not for me.
We stayed in a hotel last night frankly because is it very cold here now, the low last night was around 25F, the house got down to 50F, so just for a bit of normalcy and comfort we decided that we'd get a room for a couple of nights and hopefully it will A.) warm up a bit, and B.) the power will come back. Both scenarios are welcome right now.
I seem to get 6+ hours on a tank of fuel on the generator (again, THANKS to Rich for parking that here). The sounds of generators fill the area as most of us out here are on wells for our water.
AND as promised here are some images - CLICK HERE
Hi Folks - just an update. We are all OK. No damage to the house. No power. 36 1/2 hours without power and counting.
We lost power around 9:30pm Thursday night, the storm peaked around 1:00AM (Friday morning) and battered us till around 4:00AM. We lost 2 large trees. I estimate that at the peak the winds were around 50 mph sustained with gusts hitting 70 mph.
I was up all night "standing watch". I have to say that I did get very worried at one point about our well being. Hearing large trees snapping (which really sounds like a huge cracking sound) and crashing down (the close ones shook teh ground) all around you is very sobering!
The reports have it at around 1 million household with out power, and it seems to be very slow work to repair the damage. It's hard to describe, but basically there isn't a place where there isn't a tree snapped or blown over. There is a lot of damage to the whole grid, those repair guys are earning thier keep big time.
The power company estimates that we could be out of power for up to a week (YIKES) but we do have a generator and we are hoping to have power restored sooner than that.
I will be posting some images of our area soon as I get my act together - basically we are in "survival mode" and to tell you the truth IT'S A LOT OF WORK!
That's it for now ... will update as we can