Ice Storm Hell

[brassmonkey]

Well, that storm sure packed a wallop! I was reluctant to vacate the house initially because the electric company and DPW have always done such a good job of getting the power back up in an hour or two.. Boy, wasn't this time a little different!

My wife talked me into going to the school and leaving the fish and dogs behind due to my girls being so young. She had a point..

Our house got down to 48 degrees before they got our electricity back, and we lost all of our fish, but the dogs were fine.. We're still thawing out.

[homebase]

We got power last night also. Friday we took a ride down Rt 2 to Leominster (actually, we got off rt 2 before Leom. as it looked like we were coming up on a jam, some parts of rt 2 were closed, I found out later) and came back through Fitchburg and Ashburnham. The roads were packed with cars, people looking for a gas station open or a place to get something to eat. We found a little dinner in Fitchburg that had power and they were packed, of course, it took an hour to get served but it was kind of fun listening to all the talk and peoples stories of the storm and what they saw.

The roads were a mess and cars were dodging downed power lines, hanging branches and debris. Crews were out early cutting fallen branches and throwing them off to the side to clear roads.

We have a generator so we were able to maintain some function. An elderly neighbor came by and was very scared that his pipes were going to freeze but he had a wood stove in the basement of his house and we got him some wood to hold him over.

I really didn't think that the electric companies were going to be able to get the power up and running as quickly as they did. Even near the center of town because there were so many mangled wires. I'm glad they did though. One of my daughters lives out on River St. which was closed. They got out the back way and stayed at my other daughters house (with their animals) and will be there till the power is returned to that area.

I don't know if you noticed Friday night, there was a full moon and it was beautiful!! A sparkly blue hew and very bright. I didn't take my cameras out, I don't know why, I thought of it later - I'm dumb!

Glad you and your family stayed safe and warm! I didn't know if there were shelters but I assumed there would be.

[brassmonkey]

Thank you, and I'm glad you have your electricity back, as well.. That night in the shelter was full of mixed emotions for me, as well as a hell of a nightmare trying to sleep.. Just when the gymnasium would get quiet, one of the 50 or so babies/children would wake up and start crying and set off a domino effect of waking up children who would also start crying. After 10 or 20 minutes of that hell and getting them quieted down, we would try to get to sleep again. Then it would happen all over again.. I left the gym at 3:40 am to come home to my 48-degree house to try to get some sleep and visit my hairy daughter. I slept like a baby for 3 hours under a heavy comforter, but knew that I should go back to the shelter to join my family..

I will NEVER be caught unprepared like that again. I will have a generator next time to run the pellet stove and keep my house at a cozy 70 degrees.. I can deal with no lights and no TV, but I can't deal with trying to sleep with a bunch of misbehaving, scared children keeping me up all night.

[homebase]

I remember the day when I put my babies to bed with their snowsuits on. We did have a wood stove and my husband would be out in the woods in august cutting the wood and we had to stack it in august! I was greatfull for the snow suits, I didn't sleep for worry and many times we slept together. My kids don't remember, but I do.

[brassmonkey]

After our electricity was restored and I took my family home, my wife baked brownies for those still at the shelter.. We felt guilty about being able to leave...
I took the brownies back up to the high school and was greeted by State Representative Bob Rice, who was just doing rounds of the shelters.. I was impressed by his initiative to come to Winchendon.. I shook his hand, gave him some sweets and went on my way... He's got my vote!!

The Red Cross workers also deserve cudos for coming all the way from the Cape.. To sleep on cots and run the shelter...

Thank you to Sue... She was great!! And to all the other volunteers .. Bob Mabel was there showing his two silver stars to people, and while Bob is a great American, I deserve a silver star for listening to him for 24 hours... Man, that guy loves to brag, and I suppose he has earned the right...

[kevin]

Our power came back on Sunday afternoon around 3:15. It got a bit chilly Saturday morning but we did OK with a generator and wood-fired cook-stove. We had plenty of food and water on hand and were able to keep the vast majority of our frozen food from thawing.

The big lesson is that I need to have more good gasoline on hand. The can I had at the start was iffy so the generator would only run for 30-40 minutes when first started, then increasingly shorter periods of time after that unless I let it sit for a few hours. Once I got some good gasoline it ran fine for the whole tank. I'd like to fit it with a small car muffler to quiet it down a bit.

I also need to finish wiring in the transfer switch. I had the pump and furnace hooked up, but the freezers were running off an extension cord and we had no lights other than flashlights. The generator is not big enough to run the furnace, water pump and electric stove at the same time, but careful management should allow 2 out of 3.

Thirdly I need to finish the propane cook-stove. All it needs is a hose and cylinder, although a stand would be nice. The wood cook-stove was fair for cooking on but the propane stove would provide more options and capacity for cooking.

It sounds like major sections of the town are still without power. The last 20% is always the toughest.

[brassmonkey]

Wow, Kevin! A real Grizzly Adams!! You were prepared! I've always said that they should have an option for freezersrefridgerators-a dryer-hose like fitting where you could put your freezer against an outer wall with a 6" hose leading outside with some tight-sealing louvers in-line. In the winter, put the thing in winter mode and it can just open and close the louvers based on a thermocouple in the freezer to regulate temperature.... That would save a ton of money, and it could operate without power like a car thermostat, thereby making power outages in the winter no problem..

[brassmonkey]

I must say that the incompetent architects that designed the school and planned for it to be an emergency shelter should be shot! The lights in the bathrooms weren't on the emergency circuit, (I ended up buying glow sticks for the bathrooms). Jim Abair had put touch lights in the bathrooms, but some pieces of crap stole them. The lights in the office (command center) weren't on the emergency circuit, and there was ONE 110 outlet that was powered by the huge damned generator.. ONE damn outlet for all the oxygen machines for the elderly, cell phone chargers, Nintendo DS chargers, radio chargers.... ONE OUTLET!!! The fire department had a generator half the size, and EVERYTHING at the fire department was powered by it, to include the soda machine out in front of the station, the television and the 50-ft Christmas tree lights....

The hot water at the high school was also overlooked, so showers were out of the question.. What a piss-poor planning job they did in planning that emergency power equipment.... A 20,000 gallon oil tank for a generator to power only SOME internal lights-no parking lot lights, and no hot showers.... Definitely not a good place to have emergency shelter...

Hopefully they'll call in an electrician and get that place up to snuff (and probably CODE) before the next time they need it. Having bathrooms that aren't lit can't be legal, and since they did have an incident where an individual was arrested for indecent assault on a person under 15 during that stay, they really should look into getting the bathrooms and parking lot lit.

[homebase]

Lots still without power in our area and surrounding areas. We are fortunate.

Brass, you put a light on some very serious problems!! We all learned some things with this storm. My husband and I were talking and there are a few things we need to shore up to be able to "weather" storms that knock us off the grid.

[kevin]

Dec 16, 2008 15:02:02 GMT -5 brassmonkey said:

Wow, Kevin! A real Grizzly Adams!! You were prepared!

Thanks. We decided years ago that our best option in difficult times is to shelter in place. Events like Katrina, and this closer to home, continue to reinforce that decision.

I've always said that they should have an option for freezersrefridgerators-a dryer-hose like fitting where you could put your freezer against an outer wall with a 6" hose leading outside with some tight-sealing louvers in-line. In the winter, put the thing in winter mode and it can just open and close the louvers based on a thermocouple in the freezer to regulate temperature.... That would save a ton of money, and it could operate without power like a car thermostat, thereby making power outages in the winter no problem..

Interesting idea. To work well though I think it would need to have 2 hoses, one at the top and the other at the bottom with one-way louvers. The one at the top would be set to let warm air escape while the one at the bottom would be set to bring cold air in.

Another set-up I've seen on the internet turned an unused outside door into a small cold pantry. Basically it was an uninsulated vented enclosure with shelves that fit in the doorway and had an insulated door to the inside.