Mother Nature WTF???

[tulip]

Unscheduled leave for all of us Fed'l public servants. Hopefully, a lot of folks will be taking the day off so the traffic won't be nuts.

Good. I'm in DC for a meeting and was dreading the ore-4th of July traffic this afternoon. I'm sure it will still be bad. Back roads will definitely be my friends.

[FlyingScot]

Well the other shoe dropped. We had ANOTHER storm last night with 60mph winds. Some people who had just gotten their power restored lost it again! Others who never lost power in the first storm are now without it. What a screwy weather week. It looks like 7/8 will be when everyone should have their power restored and we're in for another hot one with temps in the high 90's through the weekend.

[OakLeaf]

Lots of phone lines down and switching stations with no power. They put a portable generator on our switching station but we still don't have phone. They're saying Sunday for electric now. Provided no more storms. My parents in Annapolis, MD had power back in less than 48 hrs, but there are just too many transmission towers down here and across the region. I'm getting used to going without a shower....

[withm]

Lots of phone lines down and switching stations with no power. They put a portable generator on our switching station but we still don't have phone. They're saying Sunday for electric now. Provided no more storms. My parents in Annapolis, MD had power back in less than 48 hrs, but there are just too many transmission towers down here and across the region. I'm getting used to going without a shower....

You need a "Sun Shower." They heat up pretty quickly in weather like this and can get downright hot. Your local camping supply store should have something like this

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&key...l_73h1z5t99s_e

[lovelygamer]

I am knocking on wood. I was woken by the storm this morning and it was bad but so far no power losses in my area. I really feel for you all up in the metro region. I hope the power is restored quicker than the predictions.

[ny biker]

Lots of phone lines down and switching stations with no power. They put a portable generator on our switching station but we still don't have phone. They're saying Sunday for electric now. Provided no more storms. My parents in Annapolis, MD had power back in less than 48 hrs, but there are just too many transmission towers down here and across the region. I'm getting used to going without a shower....

My water heater is in an attic on the top floor of the building, one floor above my condo. It's ridiculously inefficient to have it there, especially in winter, but the water in it had no trouble staying hot after the power went out this weekend. I used just a bit of it to take a cool shower on Saturday and then stood there air-drying. It cooled me off quite a bit.

My cable tv and internet service is on and off right now, which means anyone who has phone service through the cable company also has service going on and off. And my neighbor, who has two Verizon land lines in her house, says one works fine but the other has not worked since Friday night. I've heard about FIOS problems, too.

I just keep thinking, at least it's not winter when we have to worry about freezing pipes when the HVAC loses power. And we don't have horrible floods like there was after Katrina. It sucks but could be much worse.

Meanwhile I haven't heard much about the fires in Colorado, so I hope that means they're getting them under control.

[OakLeaf]

Sun shower would be nice if we had water! We finally found a generator so we can stop hauling ice, but it would have to be wired in to power the pump.

[Tri Girl]

thinking about you all over there. This weather is truly crazy.

I saw this, and had to laugh, tho. I'm sure some of you living in the area will get a giggle out of it. Not trying to make light of the situation, but with all the wacky weather, this just made me laugh.

Hot Weather in Richmond
It's a total weather spoof- just watch.

[zoom-zoom]

I'm really thankful that the storms haven't hit here. We were without power long enough last Summer to lose the entire contents of our fridge. And since we have a well we had no pump...no running water. No toilet. That got old really fast. A neighbor a few blocks away is on city water and let us fill buckets from his hose, that way we were able to heat water on the stove and bucket-flush our toilet. It really sucked. Thankfully it wasn't hot.

Our next house will either be on city water or we'll buy a good generator, from the get-go. We also won't have a power-vented water heater, which can't be used without power.

[tulip]

thinking about you all over there. This weather is truly crazy.

I saw this, and had to laugh, tho. I'm sure some of you living in the area will get a giggle out of it. Not trying to make light of the situation, but with all the wacky weather, this just made me laugh.

Hot Weather in Richmond
It's a total weather spoof- just watch.

Wonderful!! We'e had some dramatic weather in RVA for sure!

[OakLeaf]

Wooohooo! Electric and internet both came back last night, way earlier than predicted. If I'd known all we had to do was buy a generator, I'd have been looking harder. There are still something like 350,000 AEP customers down in Ohio, don't know what the total is for all companies.

Oddly enough, even though we have DSL, still no phone. This happened once before and the phone company explained that the DSL is switched from a different station from the voice service.

Kudos again to our awesome co-op, and to all the line workers from around the country who've been working so hard to get everyone back on line. And thanks to our friends in town who let us swipe water and take a couple of showers.

[Koronin]

Glad you've got your power back.

[ny biker]

A couple of storm tidbits from the DC region --

We've had problems with 911 service in the close-in suburbs in Virginia (Arlington, Fairfax County, Alexandria). This was the most disturbing of all the news I've been reading since the derecho hit. When you see an alert from your local government advising you to call the non-emergency number or go to the nearest fire station in an emergency, it's pretty scary.

On a lighter note, I spoke to a friend yesterday who lives in DC, and he said they did not lose power at his house. In fact they never lose electricity at his house, because they're on the same grid as the White House. I lived around the corner from him for a couple of years back when I first moved to this area, and I don't think I ever lost electricity while I was there, but it never occurred to me why that might be the case.

[Blueberry]

On a lighter note, I spoke to a friend yesterday who lives in DC, and he said they did not lose power at his house. In fact they never lose electricity at his house, because they're on the same grid as the White House. I lived around the corner from him for a couple of years back when I first moved to this area, and I don't think I ever lost electricity while I was there, but it never occurred to me why that might be the case.

Snort. That's too funny!!

The other stuff is just plain scary. DC seems to have had significant natural "issues" too frequently lately.

[ny biker]

This has some good tips on maximizing your ability to communicate during power outages...

http://blog.ce.org/index.php/2012/07...after-a-storm/

BTW, we had some thunderstorms tonight, not severe but with some wind and lightning, and about 11,000 lost power afterwards. At least some of them had only just gotten the electricity back...