Power outages everywhere

Dunstabe. MA is in the same boat and I didn't see too many lights going south in rt3 and north 495 to 93. The radio
said this is one of the worst and it may take days to restore power to 95,000 of us (I think that was in MA alone).
What are you using for a generator? I may pick one up since I work in Quincy and I doubt there will be a run
on generators here.

Guy
Harman Insert

Best wishes for a speedy return of power.

I bought a generator last year during a 4-day outage. I got lucky and found the last one in town. I bought a Champion 3000/4000W at an auto parts store. It has a Chinese Honda "clone" engine, and so far I have been happy with it. This model has received good reviews from the RV crowd, so i think I did OK. I would have bought anything that was available at that point, though.

I didn't need it for my stove (it runs on battery), but it was nice for the refrigerator and well pump. Also to charge cell phones, since the land line went down after a day or so.

Public Service of NH says over 200,000 customers are without power, and may be that way for days. I feel fortunate we still have power here, though that may change at any moment. Couple streets nearby are closed due to trees being down, and it doesn't look like they will be open for quite awhile. Hope everyone is able to stay inside where its warm !!

Hmmmmm.....here on the south shore it is 61 degrees right now, although the wind is whipping up pretty good. Still have power here ..... "knock on pellets". Good luck you guys up north! Remember the old New England saying...."if you don't like the weather.....wait a minute"

Reporting 180,000 without power in the Albany, NY/Capital District, with the number increasing every hour. My power blipped overnight - clocks needed to be re-set but the UPS seems to have done the trick - when I woke up this morning the stove was humming along and the house was warm. But the ice is still in the trees and the temperature is dropping, so this ain't over yet.......

Been out of power twice this morning, 2 hours each time. Live in town so they bust there hump to get us back on, safety in numbers.

Like mralias said, it's windy and warm here in my neck o the woods.
Rain and wind woke me up several times during the night but power
never went out. My stove has been off anyway due to the up and
down temps. Hope everyone in colder areas with power outages
make it through ok.

I am very fortunate. I have power,yet every street around me is without power due to trees down due to ice. The Governor was just on. He said over 210,000 homes with over 500,000 people are without power. Unfortunately the temperature is starting to fall.It is supposed to get down to the single numbers tonight and stay cold for the next 3 days. I have lived here in Portland for over 23 years. this is the worst icing I have ever seen. The ice storm back in 1998 was worse inland,but here on the coast it wasn't as bad. The complete reversal is in effect now.

Hope all you folks in maine and NH make it through the power outages OK....and even some in NY.

I bet there will be a BIG scramble for generators in those areas. To those of you who lost power, but have a back-up, congrats.

I've got my fingers crossed that you all get the power back soon.

Power is still on here, only had a few blinks through the day. Got up to 50 degrees, back to 30 now, but most of the ice melted and dropped off. Looks like I may have dodged this one. Back in the "BIG ONE OF '98", lost power for 16 days.

Power out today from 10am until around 6:00pm. I wasn't home when the power went out but my husband was and he said that no smoke came back into the house. Went right out the pipe like it should. I was worried so thank goodness. Got down around 60* inside and have the stove cranked up to 5 to get it back up to nice and toasty. Supposed to get really cold tonight, teens I heard.

If you are hooking up generators please if possible try to hook it up correctly so you are not back feeding into the utility system and endangering the lineman trying to restore your power.

No generator here, it only happens a couple of times a season and we just stick it out.

Glad we have a kerosene heater. Our St Croix York isn't worth the sheet metal it's made of. Power just came on at 8PM after being out for only 21 hours. Not bad!

yeah , its ugly in northern new england , my office was hit by a bunch of calls wanting to know what kind of battery backups could they us e, one guy wanted to know if he could run a car inverter and drag an extension cord in and just leave his car running to use the inverter to run his pellet stove. i advised against it, hard to say if he could find one that would work in the situation. not to mention the leaving the car run how long did he expect the fuel in the car to last.

i hate ice storms ,i feel for our northern brethren and i hope they get power back soon.

I'm wondering why stoves with direct 12V operating capability aren't more popular.

Thelin, Magnum, Dell-Point, etc.

News report on all the power outages....it's bad up there.

http://wbztv.com/local/state.of.emergency.2.885655.html

If you add up the numbers, it looks like as of last night, there were about 750,000 folks without power.
Crews have come in from as far away as S. Carolina, Viginia, and Canada.
A friend of mine works for National Grid and was meeting crews from Virginia as they arrived last night.
No one has seen this type of devastation in New England. There was an ice storm in 1998 that hit Maine and went up through Canada, but people in the rest of New England weren't impacted too badly. There were people in Quebec that went without power for 45 days.
Ice storms like this are strange, to say the least. I live about 10miles from Worcester, which has been devastated by this storm, yet there was no ice at all at my house.
Yesterday my wife and I drove North from here in two separate vehicles on two separate roads that run parallel to each other, about 3-4miles apart. We both saw a swath during that 10mile ride that was about 1/2 mile wide where trees and lines were down, ice everywhere, and then on then a bit further north, no ice what so ever.

A lot of generators will be sold, and a lot of folks will wish they had one before this is all over.

Another secondary effect is that parts of Worcester, Ma, are infested with the Asian Longhorn Beetle. A very serious threat to trees/forrests. No one is allowed to remove any wood from the contaminated areas as it has to be handled in a very specific way. The beetle is pretty much impervious to pesticides and is almost impossible to eradicate, once an infestation happens. No one knows what impact this will have on the spead...as no one can account for all the wood in situations like this.

More on the beetle:
ALB attacks and kills many hardwood trees, such as maple, elm, horsechestnut, ash, birch, poplar, willow and many more. ALB could significantly disrupt the forest ecosystem if it became established over a large area.

http://www.uvm.edu/albeetle/

Jim

Update at 7am...

Numbers of folks without power in Mass are down to 200,000. Looks like crews made some pretty good progress overnight.
No idea what the numbers are in the other states...NH and Southern/coastal Maine got hit at least as hard as Worcester, I think.

I remember the storm of '98. We were on a woodtove back then and a home generator for a couple of days so life was as normal. "Semper Paratus "
I hope for a speedy recovery to all those areas affected - I know during the Quebec outages our linemen volunteered form Ontario and I'm sure other States will do the same there.
Good Luck

i am in southern NH and power has been out for over 30 hours. Luckily, i installed a generator system with transfer switch so i have pellet stove, diretv, computer, water - all the necessities. I feel very fortunate compared to many others around me. Probably be a few more days before power is restored. Looks like a war zone around me.

Lobstah said:

If you add up the numbers, it looks like as of last night, there were about 750,000 folks without power.
Crews have come in from as far away as S. Carolina, Viginia, and Canada.
A friend of mine works for National Grid and was meeting crews from Virginia as they arrived last night.
No one has seen this type of devastation in New England. There was an ice storm in 1998 that hit Maine and went up through Canada, but people in the rest of New England weren't impacted too badly. There were people in Quebec that went without power for 45 days.
Ice storms like this are strange, to say the least. I live about 10miles from Worcester, which has been devastated by this storm, yet there was no ice at all at my house.
Yesterday my wife and I drove North from here in two separate vehicles on two separate roads that run parallel to each other, about 3-4miles apart. We both saw a swath during that 10mile ride that was about 1/2 mile wide where trees and lines were down, ice everywhere, and then on then a bit further north, no ice what so ever.

A lot of generators will be sold, and a lot of folks will wish they had one before this is all over.

Another secondary effect is that parts of Worcester, Ma, are infested with the Asian Longhorn Beetle. A very serious threat to trees/forrests. No one is allowed to remove any wood from the contaminated areas as it has to be handled in a very specific way. The beetle is pretty much impervious to pesticides and is almost impossible to eradicate, once an infestation happens. No one knows what impact this will have on the spead...as no one can account for all the wood in situations like this.

More on the beetle:
ALB attacks and kills many hardwood trees, such as maple, elm, horsechestnut, ash, birch, poplar, willow and many more. ALB could significantly disrupt the forest ecosystem if it became established over a large area.

http://www.uvm.edu/albeetle/

Jim

Update at 7am...

Numbers of folks without power in Mass are down to 200,000. Looks like crews made some pretty good progress overnight.
No idea what the numbers are in the other states...NH and Southern/coastal Maine got hit at least as hard as Worcester, I think.

Click to expand...

Line crews are also on the way there from Wisconsin and Michigan! Hope your power is back on as soon as possible. Stay safe and don't go near any down lines or near any trees laying on the lines!

My sister in Northboro MA has been without since
4 am yesterday. Luckily she has this comfy RV
they bought this past summer. She got a phone call stating
that they can expect to be powerless for a couple more days.


Hope you all get power back soon!

Still no power here... been almost 48 hours.