Remnants of Hurricane Ike passed through here in '08. Turned our patio cover into $100.00 worth of scrap aliminum. We were in Indy that day for the MotoGP. Nicky Hayden was gaining on Rossi 'till they called the race for excessive wind. Believe to this day that Nicky would've won had the race been in just the wet, 'cause Hayden had chosen tires well. When we got home the damage was done. Power out for eight days. Lost everything in fridge & freezer.
Next year was the ice storm. Power out for six days. Emptied fridge & freezer onto patio, lost almost nothing.
That summer a friend helped me install a manual transfer switch. Portable 8.5kw generator plugs into the house at a plug on the patio. We can run everything except central air.
All that was before I discovered high performance portable lumen dispensers.
I lost power for 2 weeks during hurricane Sandy. I got by on 15 gallons of gas using my 3000 watt generator sparingly only to keep the fridge cold, the heat going, and some lights. That was the last time we lost power for more than a couple of hours.
I’ve been wanting a nice Honda generator for my house for a while now. Unfortunately we rarely loose power for more than an hour at a time here in Georgia.
Boaz, did you guys experience some bad weather or something?
I feel your pain. Lost power at home and work when Hurricane Michael moved through. Outages in my county were at 44%. We were out for four days. More frequent here, though, are outages from ice storms. Avg. restoration for my road is 2-3 days for moderate outages, 4-5 days for major ones.
We have gas logs for heat, and a 5500 watt generator that can run everything - minus the water heater. Shut off at bed time, or when no one is home. So, it’s not nearly as bad as when I was growing up, and we had no generator, nor a good non-powered way to circulate the heat from the wood stove in the attached shed.
Nowadays, the generator stays in a detached shed. It’s plugged to a receptacle for a welding machine. Flip the main breaker at the meter, and we’re good to go!
We had a little of it last Thursday night into Friday morning. Little ice storm. Lost power from 4am till 7am. Power company cell phone app said 11pm expected resolution time. I was ready to wait it out…
Got the backup fireplace running and torches tail standing in every room. Shoveled the driveway and opened the garage door manually.
Got one car in the driveway (wife and I are both expected at work). Ready to get the other out…
Then the flood light came on.
False alarm, I guess .
Sadly i put all my (unneeded) flashlights away and got ready for work the old fashioned way. Lights on and that. The boring way.
Remember the Wrights proved they could fly in freezing cold weather at sea level on the Outer Banks —- that’s near zero humidity, not a lot of water molecules in the air.
Then they packed up, moved it all to Ohio, and tried again the following summer, in hot humid weather, at 1000 feet above sea level, and couldn’t get their aircraft off the ground.