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OMG people...
My power went back on today around 3 in the afternoon. I have my cable hookup in the bedroom computer but, curiously, not in the livingroom (where the TV is...no "Heroes" tonight I guess)...other than that everything is ok once again but WOW...what a crappy time everyone here has had.
Anyway, we're ok but I'm exhausted. Between the storm scaring the crap out of me and saving my tree and keeping the basement dry and most of all freezing my ASS off, I haven't slept much. Also, I'm really sad about the trees. This is the most lovely time of year. The trees were just starting to change. Now they're ripped up...the streets are piled ten feet high in debris. All my bike trails are blocked by tree stuff, and who wants to look at torn tree scenery anyway? It's so depressing. Sleep will help I know...but right now I just feel like crying.
Plus, we didn't get to the closing. Heh. So our sad little tree-deprived house is STILL not ours. *sigh*
*needs a hug*
My power went back on today around 3 in the afternoon. I have my cable hookup in the bedroom computer but, curiously, not in the livingroom (where the TV is...no "Heroes" tonight I guess)...other than that everything is ok once again but WOW...what a crappy time everyone here has had.
No electric meant no heat . Also no light so we operated by candle light for simply days and days. The tankless water heater needs electricity to work, so our water was ice cold. Fortunately the gas stove meant soup and boiling water...which was good because there was (and still is) a warning to drink only boiled water. The pumping stations were down so, no safe tap water for a while.
About half of the 490,000 people who lost power during the storm are back online. We're all cleaning up, but I can tell you it's a depressing thing because 100% of the trees here are damaged and about half of them are so badly damaged that they'll have to come down.
My Mom's back yard is destroyed. The Japanese cherry tree that my late Dad planted 30 years ago is splintered right down to the ground, and the maple tree I hugged and pleaded for (when I was eight) when my parents wanted to cut it down has finally come down. Only the red maple made it, and it looks like something chewed on it.
At my house, our own tree out front made it. Maybe because I've been playing Okami (which is all about saving nature and stuff), I felt just awful for it during the storm...so I went out a few times when it got really loaded down with snow and shook the branches. That was dumb, because the whole thing could have come down on me, but I DID manage to keep it from splitting like about a third of the trees on this street did. We had young sugar maples all the same height lining my street, lovely young trees maybe 20 years old, and now the street is a disaster. It looks like tornado damage.
Our huge old silver maples in the back yard fared much worse. they cracked and crashed all night on thursday and most of Friday...it's a miracle none of the branches hit my house. I could see the branches that are normally 20 feet above the ground bowed down and banging against my bedroom window...it was terrifying. Every time one cracked like a pistol shot I expected it to come through the window.
The loss of electricity caused our sump to shut down. Sumps are great water elimination systems as long as you have electricity...otherwise they become water delivery systems. Our well was filling fast, greg and I were bailing for hours. About 9PM on Thursday he quit and was ready to let our basement fill up, but I said no way and jumped into the car at the height of the storm.
I drove to Home Depot at about 20 MPH. Lightning was flashing all around, the snow was so thick you could hardly see ten yards, trees were falling in the road, and transformers were blowing all over the place (the lightning flashed white but the transformers blew up all blue-green). Lines were coming down with the trees...I saw at least three lines threashing and arcing in the road and I hope to never see that again.
Home Depot had nothing for me...back up sumps are more expensive than the regular ones...plus they need ultra-complicated uber-expensive power sources that I can't fathom nor afford. I was about to give up, but I remembered that an aquarium siphon will pump about 400 gallons in an hour, so I looked for those. Found 'em in the marine section. 9 bucks. Runs on two D cell batteries. I picked one up and grabbed 3 packs of batteries and went home, not really sure it would work.
It worked like a charm. I ran a length of air tubing to the storm drain and you know, that silly little thing kept our basement dry. It ate batteries...I had to wake up and change them through the night. Char and I had to drive to Niagara Falls searching for more batteries on Saturday (there are NO D cell batteries, generators, or power saws to be bought in about a hundred mile radies from here, now). It ended up dying utterly last night, but by then the worst of the flooding had ended. I'm totally buying a few for backup once things around here calm down.
About half of the 490,000 people who lost power during the storm are back online. We're all cleaning up, but I can tell you it's a depressing thing because 100% of the trees here are damaged and about half of them are so badly damaged that they'll have to come down.
My Mom's back yard is destroyed. The Japanese cherry tree that my late Dad planted 30 years ago is splintered right down to the ground, and the maple tree I hugged and pleaded for (when I was eight) when my parents wanted to cut it down has finally come down. Only the red maple made it, and it looks like something chewed on it.
At my house, our own tree out front made it. Maybe because I've been playing Okami (which is all about saving nature and stuff), I felt just awful for it during the storm...so I went out a few times when it got really loaded down with snow and shook the branches. That was dumb, because the whole thing could have come down on me, but I DID manage to keep it from splitting like about a third of the trees on this street did. We had young sugar maples all the same height lining my street, lovely young trees maybe 20 years old, and now the street is a disaster. It looks like tornado damage.
Our huge old silver maples in the back yard fared much worse. they cracked and crashed all night on thursday and most of Friday...it's a miracle none of the branches hit my house. I could see the branches that are normally 20 feet above the ground bowed down and banging against my bedroom window...it was terrifying. Every time one cracked like a pistol shot I expected it to come through the window.
The loss of electricity caused our sump to shut down. Sumps are great water elimination systems as long as you have electricity...otherwise they become water delivery systems. Our well was filling fast, greg and I were bailing for hours. About 9PM on Thursday he quit and was ready to let our basement fill up, but I said no way and jumped into the car at the height of the storm.
I drove to Home Depot at about 20 MPH. Lightning was flashing all around, the snow was so thick you could hardly see ten yards, trees were falling in the road, and transformers were blowing all over the place (the lightning flashed white but the transformers blew up all blue-green). Lines were coming down with the trees...I saw at least three lines threashing and arcing in the road and I hope to never see that again.
Home Depot had nothing for me...back up sumps are more expensive than the regular ones...plus they need ultra-complicated uber-expensive power sources that I can't fathom nor afford. I was about to give up, but I remembered that an aquarium siphon will pump about 400 gallons in an hour, so I looked for those. Found 'em in the marine section. 9 bucks. Runs on two D cell batteries. I picked one up and grabbed 3 packs of batteries and went home, not really sure it would work.
It worked like a charm. I ran a length of air tubing to the storm drain and you know, that silly little thing kept our basement dry. It ate batteries...I had to wake up and change them through the night. Char and I had to drive to Niagara Falls searching for more batteries on Saturday (there are NO D cell batteries, generators, or power saws to be bought in about a hundred mile radies from here, now). It ended up dying utterly last night, but by then the worst of the flooding had ended. I'm totally buying a few for backup once things around here calm down.
Anyway, we're ok but I'm exhausted. Between the storm scaring the crap out of me and saving my tree and keeping the basement dry and most of all freezing my ASS off, I haven't slept much. Also, I'm really sad about the trees. This is the most lovely time of year. The trees were just starting to change. Now they're ripped up...the streets are piled ten feet high in debris. All my bike trails are blocked by tree stuff, and who wants to look at torn tree scenery anyway? It's so depressing. Sleep will help I know...but right now I just feel like crying.
Plus, we didn't get to the closing. Heh. So our sad little tree-deprived house is STILL not ours. *sigh*
*needs a hug*
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From:
no subject
I'll pass that news about property value on to my Mom. She could have had it MUCH worse. She just replaced a flat front porch roof about a month ago with a new-built pitched roof that has ice shields. Plus she removed our old ancient tree from the front of the house as it had finally died. That thing was HUGE and over 100 years old...it would have surely come down even though it had few leaves. Her street looks like a bomb went off.
Generators are an awesome idea. There were absolutely none to be had here. Everyone snatched them up right away. Keep gas on hand for it if you get one, because five gallons lasts maybe 15 hours if you're lucky and that's just about long enough to go find more. Around here some places ran OUT of gas because the deliveries couldn't get through (120 miles of the NY state thruway was closed for almost two days).
Your oak trees sound lovely. Unless one falls down entirely you're probably safe...30 feet away is a good distance. I don't know who planned out the back yard of our home...those silver maples are just 10 feet from our foundation. That's a recipe for disaster! I still can't believe we didn't get anything crashing through our bedroom window.
From: (Anonymous)
no subject
I'm figuring that I'll get a generator and run it the way my father always does - you use the woodstove for heat, battery-powered lanterns for light (and I stock pile batteries like only the New England child of Minnesota parents can), and you turn on the generator only when you need to run the well pump. Frugal? Us? Noooo. :-)
By the way, I read your post about the aquarium pump to Bob, who is as impressed by your inventiveness as I was. On the drive to barony meeting last night he kept shaking his head and muttering "aquarium pump..."
We're almost cleared out of the apartment - we're working from the top down. The attic is empty. The spare bedroom is empty. Tonight our bedroom will be empty. I think that we'll be completely out by the end of this weekend. Then I can concentrate on *un*packing. I have no idea where my dishes are right now. Thank goodness for paper plates and take-out!