Icy Ice

Keving wrote:We got whacked again last night and that seemed to be the straw that broke the camels back.

Yep! We thought it was all over, late Monday afternoon, but the weather radar showed a couple bands of rain still to come. That did it, at 7:30 Monday evening a circuit breaker on a pole across the street tripped and reset three times in a row and our power went off and came back on three times. Then it tripped the fourth time and we were out for 18 hours. We were one of the lucky ones because we are on a major feeder line that got repaired first. Lots of pretty views like those Smitty showed above; but NOTHING like the destruction we saw in the 1998 storm where it took 4 days to fix our line instead of 18 hours.

My brother reported from way Downeast that it is not as bad (widespread) as the 98 storm. A narrow band got hit very hard. There are outages that are not being predicted to come back online until Fri. Merry Christmas to those folks.

Kevin

Just lost wifi but got the 3G going. Hi, Kevin, glad to hear it isn't widespread like the last one was.

Well, widespread is a bad choice of words perhaps. I mean that the 98 storm clobbered everyone in a huge area. Entire regions without power for days and more. This has effected areas within regions over a widespread area. Still bad if you are one of the affected ones.

Kevin

Gad zooks.... I'm beat. I feel like I've been kicked by a mule. We were without power for 2 1/2 days & another day before Internet came back. I chased hard to keep us and the neighbor from freezing. I swapped the generator back & forth non stop until it tossed a bearing and died. That was at 2:15AM Christmas morning. That led to getting a different generator from across town. Oh man...

Here's a couple pics... that bent over tree is crossing all three high tension lines.

Splendid ! Did they send the Wood Butchers in after isolating that circuit out? There had to be a pile of 'em like that,and the worst ones broke and knifed through all three phases. Busted crossarms.poles,insulators...You name it ! Glad your back ! Smitty's sending a First-Aid Team for that motor !

Glad to hear you are powered up Freddy, I just came from a home that has been out for 5 days. They were using a 2400 watt generator with extension cords run all over the place for lights etc. and they were in much better shape than some. I helped him get his boiler going for awhile to get some hot water in his pipes. Lots of trucks working down this way so he should be online by morning. Still out where I work with lines in the road and 6" of snow forecasted for tonight. I made some adjustments so that we can plow the road with out getting snarled in power lines.

You're a Good Man,Keving ! Good eye on those lines. We live by the analogy that the gun's always loaded,so play them"Hot" at all times!

Good Advice Bob, I could just picture a plow truck going down the road with a ball of wires hanging from the wing and a couple of transformers dangling from behind. I left a couple of nice coils off to one side. One for Hydro and one for Fairpoint.

Have you gotten your power back on? Islesboro got hit really hard, I am still with out power but I start my generator and run it for a few hours to fire up the boiler…. staying warm!

Hi Karen, We are very fortunate here on Deer Isle. The cable that feeds us runs from the mainland is somehow routed so that we often have power when the mainland doesn't. We were only out for a couple of days. People I know on the Surry stretch just got powered up yesterday and the crews were working the Brooksville area late yesterday and into the night. I am hearing that repairs will be running through the weekend and into the middle of next week for some of the more remote homes and side roads. Have the linesmen given you any idea how much longer you will be out? I hear you about the generator. The house I was at last night was running a 2400 Watt Yamaha. It was the quietest gen I have ever listened to and seemed to be very strong for its size. I was very impressed with it.

i find those older heavy cast American made generators (like the old Colman's and such) never die... I have no idea why brand new Harbor Freight Predator couldn't make it one month never mind one season

Nearly killed myself walking out the door to get my icy this morning... one step and whooosh just caught myself from taking a huge header
2200 sq' and my lil' hand feed and still have not turn the oil burner on yet this year for anything but H/W

So many stories, it's not over by a long shot. W lost power last night at exactly midnight for one full minute. I was going "Ohh, noooo, not again". Then it came back on. I'm thinking they shut us off to turn on some other circuit. The power company crews are working around the clock. I see they had to pull the crews out of Surry for a while because some idiot said he'd kill someone if they didn't work on his line first?" Sheeesh! A police escort got them back on the job.

3" of fresh snow hasn't helped a thing.

Internet comes & goes. I don't know what's up with that.

Stay safe!

Yeh, I heard about the threats, I have a theory about people like that but I should probably keep that theory to myself. The warmup tomorrow should help but Sunday nights report doesn't sound good. Could be more of the same. Still lots of crews working in the brooksvile area but no power on the herrick road. Heading into the woods tomorrow on snowshoes to see how much damage our camp has. Never snowshewed before, should be interesting. With all the trees down I figure it will be a safer bet than mechanized devices.

I got power restored today. I was putting on my coat to go out and fill the generator with gas and start it up for the night when the power came back on…. My dog is really happy because the noise of the generator makes her nervous.
Keving do you have a pair of ski poles, they might help with the trek in.