Nor'easter watch thread

[Adios Pantalones]

Londonderry, NH- mebbe a foot. Major tree limb breakage, and power is out.

I had an uncle with a saying about this: "Snomomin in a bickdoo. Porkslappy vermouth". He had serious dementia.

 

[begreen]

2.7 million without power in the NE. More than Irene. CL&P says this is the most outages ever. It will take weeks to clean up this mess. I hope the weather turns mild for these folks. There is going to be a lot of cleanup needed and some extended outages for some. This is why I have a good stove, wood and a generator.

 

[btuser]

Latest estimate is a week without power. Not good. Time to fill up the gas tanks.

 

[JustWood]

No snow , 40 and sunny here in "The Belt" !

 

[BrowningBAR]

My property is a mess and my trees look like hell.

 

[Badfish740]

Just hit the 24 hour mark. Posting via blackberry now-phone lines went down during the night (we have dsl). Thank god its in the 50s but it will get cold again tonight. The neighborhood is a symphony of chainsaws and generators. I'm too tired to even look for scrounging opportunities. The gas stations seem to have power so that's a plus. Hope everyone else is hanging in there.

 

[Wallyworld]

I guess I lucked out, Penobscot bay while cold is warm enough to change it to rain. Maybe have 2 or 3 inches, power went out last night, really only after a few hours of snow, I thought we'd be screwed for sure when I got up but power was back on after a couple of hours. Wish the rest of you well in getting cleaned up. Supposed to be 50s here all week

 

[begreen]

Hope all the white stuff melts soon for you all.

 

[jharkin]

Our power went out AFTER the storm at around 1pm today. Still out and I just now powered up the generator to cycle the fridge and water heater and recharge things.

 

[Badfish740]

Still out here in jersey-we ventured out a while ago for dinner and an extension cord. I literally got the last 12 ga cord lowes had. It allowed me to move the genny further away from the house which is preserving sanity around here. Panera was out of bread ironically and half the county was there-all for the same reason of course. There's always tomorrow...

 

[pen]

Keep this recipe on hand for the next time it looks like you'll be stuck at the house. If you have a cast iron dutch oven it would work in the stove if just coals are in there and you move them around a bit so they are around the dutch oven and it can sit on the floor of the stove.

http://www.food.com/recipe/original-no-knead-bread-352798

It takes time, but it is literally as simple a bread as there is almost no labor, just waiting, and is premium quality. I can't buy better around here. Only cost you a couple of cups of flour and a bit of yeast if you screw it up. If you are snowed in, what the hell. Done in the oven, it's about as fool proof a bread as you can make so long as you give it the time it needs to rise.

pen

 

[Adios Pantalones]

I'm in a quandary. If I go to work and shut off my generator then my fish will likely die. I could call in, but may be without power all week.

 

[GAMMA RAY]

I'm in a quandary. If I go to work and shut off my generator then my fish will likely die. I could call in, but may be without power all week.

AP...I think your fish would make it till you get home from work...
When we moved 8 years ago my husband's fish lived in a bucket for a day or two...they did fine...
We still have one alive today...it's about 12 years old..
That sucks about the power...

 

[Badfish740]

I hear you adios-if I go to work for more than six hours or so I'm going to come home to a soggy wet basement which I just finished this summer. We have it all insured against sump failure/power outage, but I can't bear the thought of tearing all of the carpet and sheetrock out and doing it over. We also have a lot of food in the chest freezer. Not to mention my wife needs the genny for pumping milk for our infant daughter.

In short, this is really starting to suck.

 

[MasterMech]

Lost power about 4 pm on Saturday and word from the wife is we just got it back at about 4am today. Snowfall locally was only 6-8 inches but up near my dad's place (Dutchess Cty) he got almost 18"! I don't think I can remember being in a plow truck before Halloween, lol.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

Thanks guys. Some fish do better than others with temp swings and lower oxygen. I thought about a deep cycle battery and an inverter- run a line to it in the driveway.

edit: Badfish- as long as the wife can monitor for an issue and knows what switch to throw to shut it off, maybe you can make do? I dunno- hoping for the best for you. You definitely have a lot to think about there.

 

[MasterMech]

Thanks guys. Some fish do better than others with temp swings and lower oxygen. I thought about a deep cycle battery and an inverter- run a line to it in the driveway.

edit: Badfish- as long as the wife can monitor for an issue and knows what switch to throw to shut it off, maybe you can make do? I dunno- hoping for the best for you. You definitely have a lot to think about there.

AP,

I had my tank running on a lawn tractor battery and small inverter for the times I had the gen. shutdown. I think the deep cycle will give you lots more time but just running my air pumps and canister filter I got 12+ hours out of it. I also have a battery backup air pump that automatically keeps the air going if it loses power and re-charges while I'm on generator/inverter power.

With my house/stove it's not hard to keep the house in the high 70's so running the tank heater wasn't necessary.

 

[fishingpol]

Lousy situation there guys. I have one suggestion, but I don't know how portable generators are set up, and I don't want to jeopardize anyones safety. I am just thinking if there was a way the fuel line can be disconnected from the tank, can a longer fuel line be run to a bigger tank? Maybe a local power equipment store has fittings that would let you jury rig something up? Again, it seems like a slightly larger fuel capacity is what you need here. My snowblower had a bad fuel line that I replaced and it was all hoses and small clamps. Again, don't jeopardize safety here, this is just a thought.

We just got our power back up last night and it gets old quick. The weather is supposed to be decent this week, I hope crews can get everything back online soon.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

Jon- my gennie will run like 12-16 hrs on a full tank, and my cord for it is better than 12 feet I think, but I get paranoid leaving anything like that going. I may call in today and try to dig out my tractor and use the battery and inverter.

 

[fishingpol]

Ok gotcha. I can understand leaving it unattended.

 

[Badfish740]

I just don't think shell be able to swing taking care of the baby, cycling the loads, and operating the furnace-i just don't want to put it on her either. My fathrr is retired and lives south of us so he was unaffected. Maybe ill get him to come up. So many lessons learned from this storm. I'm not wasting any time installing a power inlet/transfre switch. That will allow me to run all essentials at once without pulling a keystone kops routine with extension cords.

 

[jharkin]

Hope things start looking up for you guys. We are back online now but if the power stayed off I would have been in the same boat. My wife doesnt like to touch the stove or the generator (especially while watching the twins) so I'd have to stay home from work and manage it as long as the power stayed off.

We ended up being out for around 9 hours. Just long enough for me to need to chill the fridge and run the HWH so I got to try out the new transfer switch. This time the basement didn't flood so I could leave the gen mostly off.

 

[jharkin]

Oh hey - one other trick I did that you guys stranded who can work from home might find useful (next time ).

I got a used 700w APC Smart-UPS off eBay cheap and have our home networking (fios terminal, router, wifi hotspot) hooked up to that. The entire stack draws about 50watt so the UPS can keep it running for 2-3 hours. Between that and laptop battery and cell phone I can stay online connected to work only needing to run the gen every few hours to recharge.

I think that setup cost me under $75.

 

[Flatbedford]

BTW what is up with all this "power out here" stuff? We get winter here every year but never any of this power out stuff, unless of course some fool parks their vehicle on a power pole.

Just curious why so many of you (on the East coast) seem to be without power every time there is a storm?

Please don't tell me it's because you hang your power lines in the tree branches like they do in the Dominican Rep, cause I probably won't believe you. ;-)

We don't hang the wires in the trees, we hang 'em under trees.

This tree took out our power at 2 pm Saturday. We are told it will be back my Wednesday, 11 pm. I have a cord from my neighbor's genny. One 20 amp line for the house. Plenty of juggling between one the two refrigerators or the furnace for hot water. Good to have the woodstove. Gas range doesn't hurt either.

 

[thewoodlands]

Took this a few minutes ago.

Lived in Western MA all my life. Never seen a single storm with this much snowfall. Still coming too.

Its a bit mounded up, so subtract 2 inches to be fair. This is on my deck, currently no railings so its just open flat space. Zero wind.

mayhem, they just said on the radio Peru Ma received the most snow coming in at 32 inches. hh:

zap