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It's still bad in areas of MA as well. I just heard from a friend who lives in Bolton - still no power, and not expected to be back on until the END OF THE WEEK! :eek: Thankfully, she got a generator, and it is 52 here today.
Bad one for sure. I think I would take snow over this anytime, and I didn't even lose power...
SheFly
Crankin - thanks for the concern. I actually did ride on Friday, and boy howdy did I get wet! For the first time ever I rode through a real stream, one that had overflowed its banks and had taken over the road. Water over my axles!
However, the road was fine, wet but not icy, and traffic was delightfully light. If only I hadn't gotten soaked to the bone it would've been an OK ride. No icy branches fell on my head, which was my coworkers' concern :p The trees in Shrewsbury were all covered in ice and bowed down to the ground or with branches snapped off. My company worked off of generator power all day. By afternoon when I left, it was sunny and 38 and the ice had mostly melted. I even saw a guy out on a recumbent on my way home!
North of us, however, is still a disaster zone. We went up to Holden yesterday and trees were encased in ice, limbs and branches still hung from wires, wires were down across roads, nobody had power, National Guard convoys drove around among all the tree-removal trucks and electrical trucks. I hope they're OK up there.
Yup, I just got more info on my old neighborhood in Boxborough. Still no power and the elementary school is closed. My neighbor's daughter and grandchildren are still here, staying with them. When I talked to the daughter's husband yesterday, after he had just come back from their house in North Hampton, NH, he said he doesn't know when they will be able to return.
Yes, I would take snow any day over this.
Kfergos, glad you made it Friday. I wasn't sure how far north you had to travel to work. Saturday was the first day since last winter that I didn't see any cyclists on the road in Concord, although the streets were mostly clear.
Tuckerville, we're in the line of the ice and sleet today and tomorrow. Our area is predicted to get 1-2 inches of sleet on top of ice. I noticed the ice storm is moving across OK this morning so you'll be getting it pretty soon. I'm washing up everything I can in case we lose power. Stocked up on soups and Spam so we'll have a hot meal. :)
Day 5 and still no power. House is about 42 F but I'm still in it. It's cold. Trees were still encased in ice last night but fortunately temps raised a little and melted things this morning.
Saturday night when I got home the house was at 39 F. Friend with generator showed up at 9 pm. I had the generator for 3 hours before he had to take it back. Everything was stone cold and it took 3 hours to get temps up to 52. I'll take it. That and it might have kept the pipes from freezing as it was about 15 F and temps in the house were sinking.
When I woke up the next morning it was back to 41. Man with generator came back again for a few hours in the afternoon and we were able to bring house temps up to 58 which quickly shot down to 52 but man, compared to 41 it was comfortable. We also bypassed the switch to the well pump and I was able to recharge the well and collect more water. The generator was a good one and we were able to run the well and the furnace at the same time for about 2 hours so I had hot water for a spell. I washed dishes and bathed. It was a bit sad to see the generator go and know it wouldn't be coming back. Temps today are better.
On my way out of my road I saw 2 electric utility trucks turn on my road and stop. I wanted to run out and hug them and tell them to keep going straight. So seeing that, was heartening and it looks promising but I'm not sure where they were going. And, on the major highway to work I saw a convoy of about 10 National Grid trucks heading west out to my area so that lifted my spirits. If I don't have power yet tonight I will be staying with friends nearby who do have their power back.
I learned two of the most important and useful tricks that I have learned in a long time and I will throw in with my other bag of tricks in being a resourceful, self-reliant, solo homeowner:
1. I learned how to bypass the main feed to the house and rewire the furnace so that it gets current directly from a generator. And I learned how to troubleshoot when things don't quite behave the way they should.
2. I learned how to rewire and bypass the main feed to the 220-volt :eek: switch to the well pump. None of it is difficult.
other things:
-I know what kind of generator I want
-The key to staying warm when your house is 40 F is to eat frequently, like every 2 hours.
Mudmucker, I hope you get your power turned on soon. It's no fun freezing in your own home. :( Did you have any structural damage?
Thank you very much. Fortunately no structural damage and no trees damaged the house, or conduits weren't ripped off from the house. There is one wire down on my property but I traced it back and it is only the cable. There will be alot of cleanup on the property though, downed trees and branches everywhere. No, it's no fun being cold in your house. But as I say, it could always be worse. But as I said earlier, new tricks to add to the bag and I am thinking of new and additional contingency plans for times such as this. No harm done....
Mudmucker, glad you're OK. Wanna come show me how to wire my pump into the generator?
Thank you. I am so excited about this newly acquired knowledge I would love to share it with you:)Quote:
Originally Posted by OakLeaf
This is what it looked like here in Western Mass:
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.s...tegory=Weather
We have generators and kerosene heaters, and managed to stay warm, take showers, cook hot meals, and watch TV. We came home from getting more gasoline yesterday to find our neighbor scooping water from the brook to flush his toilets with (he had a woodstove, but no water). Some woman in town also nearly died from carbon monoxide poisoning after running their generator in an attached garage with the door closed.
The ice is melting today with warmer temperatures, but the clean up is going to be a long process. The National Guard has been activated to help out.
I have lived in New England for 54 years, and this is the worst ice storm ever. It literally looked like a bomb went off.
Wow. That's great. Excellent that you have the heat and hot water. Looks like temps will be somewhat reasonable the rest of the week.Quote:
Originally Posted by bambu101
I'm pilfering WiFi out of the building here at work from my personal laptop so I have access to TE.
I grew up in Greenfield. Where in western MA are you? Yes, I've been in New England for 48.5 yrs and I agree, worst I've seen.
I am in Blandford, which is on the slopes of the Berkshires, and also referred to as the Hilltowns. We are at around 1400 feet in elevation, which means more snow and ice. The other towns in the valley got only rain.
Mudmucker - I've been away for the weekend, and see you've been in all sorts of trouble! I hope you get electricity restored soon. Not sure if I prefer loosing power in the summer or the winter. Sort of like picking your evil. So here's hoping you're nice and toasty warm very soon.
Beth, are you guys getting any freezing rain or sleet?
I hope those of you still without power are ok. I know the temps warmed up today a lot here in NY near Albany. The ice here has melted off the trees. Many thousands of people in NY and MA and other places in the NE are STILL without power but thankfully they will not freeze today.
Tonight is supposed to be rainy, but by tomorrow temps are plummeting well below freezing again. :(
It's been awful for so many people....I feel lucky considering what others are still going through.
DH wants to buy a generator after this is over, needless to say.
Bambu - yup that's certainly western Mass. I am at 1200 feet and it's a big difference between rain and snow for MA.
bmccasland - thanks. I think I'd rather lose power in the summer. I get cold easily. But then, I don't live in N.O. either so I might speak differently if I went through that experience down there. Well, the circumstances are imposed so I don't have to choose.
Bleeker St - good you were able to get out of the woods a little earlier but 2.5 days isn't fun nontheless. It got old by noon on Friday...
Jolt, you are in the Worcester Highlands (physiographically) - that's great you didn't get that affected
some things of note:
- for about 2 days the yard was sooo fragrant with green, the evergreen smell of broken trees was heavenly
- the inside isn't that bad either - I've been using fragrant vanilla and lavender pillar soy candles the last 5 days, mmm
- for the first 3 days I kept flicking the light switch on and off everytime I entered a room, and was reminded I needed to flick the flashlight on instead.
- I never owned any Ibex or smartwool items. With the TE pi sale I got ibex and smartwool lightweight and midweight tops, a smartwool midweight half zip and some smartwool bottoms at another store. They are sooo warm, so much warmer than the polypro I have. I have been living in them, so to speak, for the last 5 days. I had just handwashed them all 2 days before the storm hit so they were nice and fresh. Bought them in the nick of time.
I think our schools will be back in session tomorrow. I haven't heard any reports of power outages, but there have been lots and lots of wrecks. My husband said the roads were not icy two miles out of town (towards his work). We managed to get out and get to the store, along with thousands of others (seemed like). The parking spaces were all sheets of ice, but the roads were all worn down. Black ice is a problem, especially when walking. All the concrete around my house is a solid sheet. Otherwise we're just fine. Although it hasn't gotten above 20 degrees, yet, and tomorrow we're expecting more precipitation.
I've been in bed almost all day wearing my wool, trying to keep warm, in my heatless upstairs! :)
Karen
Bambu, after riding those hills in Blanford last summer, I can barely imagine what it's like with ice all over them! Glad you kept warm and washed.
There have been many near misses with generators hooked up incorrectly and people almost dying from poisoning. I think there have actually been a couple of deaths.
It was 58 when I got home tonight. This is very weird. The wind is howling, though and it looks like rain, ice, and snow showers for the rest of the week.
Crankin, that's miserable. :( Tuckervill, pile on a few dogs and it will help. :)
Yeah, dogs aren't allowed in the bed! ;) Cats make good foot warmers, though.
We dodged the bullet this time. There is snow in Kansas and Missouri to our north, and ice in OK and central AR to our south. Our schools are back in session today, but only in the two northernmost counties.
Karen
Tuckerville, where exactly are you? That's wild.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuckervill
Day 6 here, no power yet.
Neither. Dare I mention that it was 72 muggy degrees? :o Had the back door open until the mosquito invasion got too bad. Is currently in the 60s, foggy, grey. The cold front is just north of us and the weather prognosticators are taking stabs at whether it'll dip south or not. :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by sundial
Our schools are closed, we had sleet off and on throughout the night but no snow. Still have power which is a good thing. I have had to fill my bird feeders twice--the cardinals are really busy. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuckervill
Mudmucker, I'd love to have you over for a nice hot meal if you were closer. My gsds would keep you nice and warm too.
Still no power here, and no sign of any restoration efforts in our immediate area. Some towns around us still have almost 100% outages, including Otis, and we are in day 5. Even with generators, it is getting old.
Crankin, the strangest thing about this ice storm was that the roads never iced up, just the trees. It was like mud season in April on the roads, but January on the trees. The roads were impassable because of snapped power poles, trees, and wires down all over the place, but not because of ice on the road surfaces.
I am thinking of you guys still with no power.....how simply AWFUL. :(
Wish I could bring you a hot shower and some radiators....
Keeping my fingers crossed for you.
Mudmucker - are you warm YET??? :confused:
Concerned minds out there are sending you warm thoughs of crackling bon-fires, hot cocoa, and plain old central-air.
:eek:No I am not warm yet. Wait a minute, I think I just caught one of your warming thoughts or a spark from a virtual bon-fire for just a moment....:)Quote:
Originally Posted by bmccasland
read your post earlier - what I'd give to slap a mosquito right now...
Temps will drop a little more into the 20's but nothing that would threaten pipes and cause more problems at least...
I've just gotten my first actual estimate of power restoration, possibly by Thursday.
My electricity gets distributed by National Grid. Big Utility. There are utility companies here from Tennessee, South Carolina, Michigan that are obliging these contracts. There are some towns near me who aren't off of Big Utility but from small util - those without these larger service contracts. I've heard estimates of power restoration by Dec. 24 to some of those towns.
Good luck, Mudmucker. The snow is moving in! I don't think tomorrow will be too bad, but Friday looks like a big one.
We live in a town with its own utility company. It was fine when they came and got our power back on after 45 minutes,from downed branches on our street. I don't know what would happen if the devastation was worse.
Thank you very much. Snow is moving in? Cripes, I've been so pre-occupied with the weather inside my house I am unaware of what is happening outside on its way!Quote:
Originally Posted by Crankin
The small util company I was speaking of is Fitchburg Gas and Electric that serve solely I believe, Townsend, Ashby, Ashburnham, and some of Lancaster. Townsend is real bad.
Yea, I heard that about Townsend. One of the other students in my grad program is from there, although she lives in Sommerville now. She said her dad is a teacher there and the schools are closed for the rest of the week. They didn't know when the power would be on. I noticed that Chelmsford and Westford have school tomorrow, so the power must be mostly back on. Those are the places closest to me that have been dark.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bambu101
On the news here the weather people commented that those cities/towns along the Route 7 corridor of Berkshire County only got the rain (I'm in Pittsfield) but those towns off the corridor (the hilltowns like Savoy, Otis, etc.) got slammed. The weather was warm (almost 60 degrees) most of yesterday but the rain that started falling froze overnight making the roads all over pretty darn slick.
Snow's in the forcast for tonight.
I'm in the extreme northwest corner of Arkansas, less than a mile from Oklahoma, about 25 from Missouri and about 70 from Kansas.Quote:
Originally Posted by mudmucker
The weather is usually quite a story around here.
Hope your power is back on by now!
Karen
You and Sundial seem to live in some type of of hellish weather vortexQuote:
Originally Posted by Tuckervill
:eek:
Tuck and I like to live on the edge. ;)
Mudmucker, have you thawed out any over there??
Speaking of bizarre weather, check out this cool cloud:
http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20...S/812169924&tc
Holy Toledo! That would scare the rice outta me!
It's rather like an optical illusion.
Karen
Thanks for posting that, Sundial. You are truly our Weather Mistress! I think clouds are so cool. I have the Audubon Guide to the Weather and they have all sorts of clouds in that book.
That is one freaky cloud!
No power yet, and it is day 7. Some people in our town have been told after Christmas for restoration (a full TWO weeks after the storm).:eek:
Woohoo !! I just got word from the neighbor the power on my road is back ! Temps in the house were ranging between 39 and 44 F and that was getting real tiresome after a week.
Whew. Just in time - there is a big storm predicting 10 inches or so tomorrow Friday, flurries on Saturday, then snow again on Sunday. If power isn't coming on for people by tonight, I can't see how work crews will be able to proceed well in this upcoming weather through the weekend.
I have my main turned off in the event things got back on when I wasn't home. I might leave work a little early to go turn it on. Then get ready to snowblow myself out from my 100-foot driveway.
I have my cable line strewn across my yard. Don't know if they fixed that. I don't care. It will be soo nice to have heat.
Bambu I was wondering what goes, your way. Although you said you have wood stoves and generators, generators get very old too. Yes, I've heard dire predictions on power restoration for some people.
Mudmucker, that's great news!! Hope you have a cozy, warm house waiting for you when get home tonight.
Bambu, that really stinks! Are you having to take cold showers?? :eek:
Tulip, I am a skywatcher and secretly desire to be a weather alertist. ;)