Power Outage

[Teddy da Bear 11]

We have been without power here north of Niles since 4:15 this morning.

Cannot tell when it will be back on as you can never get through to the power

company.

I am sure it won't take too long......but it is 9:30am now. And we did not

have any bad weather.....it was all warm!

And this is a big outage.....no lights to be seen for miles when I was up last

night at 4am.

Glad the laptop has batteries....lol And I also keep several of the old style

phones handy so I can make and receive calls.

[Kelly 1,033]

Our power was out for a short time in the night, I'm thinking it was the 50+mph winds following the warm weather we had yesterday, it was 58deg here and melted 28" of snow and rained on and off most of the day, now today it's 30deg. and very windy :hide:

[Teddy da Bear 11]

Wow....28 inches of snow! Am I jealous!.

I found out from the power company it was not weather related.

It was a substation on a different grid that they buy power from.

Power came back on at noon.... 8 hours without power.

Glad it did not happen during that sub-zero weather.

[jerrell 1]

:hide: boy this weather is crazy, you fellows up north is catching )(*)*(& , first ice storm, then snow storms, now flooding, one night freezing, highwinds, and the next day 60-70 degrees, is this typical for the middle north and north east,???? 28" of snow, i wouldn't know how to handle that ..

you fellows have been paying the preacher haven't you ,

Yesterday we had rain and threats of tornados but we missed that..today sunny and mild,,shop time tomorrow if we don't have an earthquake

jokeing aside,,, this weather i know is hurting a lot of people and i have never seen the weather act like this.

[Teddy da Bear 11]

People forget over time....

This crazy weather we are having was the norm when I was a kid.

The real crazy weather is these past years since 1978 with all of these

mild winters. Those have been abnormal. Many of the guys aren't old

enough to remember the real weather from years ago.

[Sparky-(Admin) 23,129]

Hey Mike. Might be a good time to hit the wife up about getting a tractor mounted generator .

Glad to hear the powers back on for ya.

Mike..........

[Teddy da Bear 11]

Mike......don't you read my signature?

You will find that I have a 3000 watt wheel horse generator.

Never tried it yet. I also have a 6500 watt generator and a 1650 watt

generator.

And I am curious......why would I ask my wife? :D

[jusjeepn 59]

Mike, I know power outages can be very frustrating but believe me they are no more frustrating to you than they are to the lineman who have to be out in the bad weather (rain, snow, fog, heat, high winds, etc...) fixing the problems with the lines. No system is ever trouble free. If your horses ran perfect all the time and you never got the satisifaction of repairing them, would you still keep em? OK... dumb question, but you get the idea. I can assure you the lineman in your area have been busting their butts to keep you on through this torrent of storms and bad weather we have been having. I personally know some of the lineman in your area and I know they are tired and worn down from working the Ft Wayne ice storm where we had 125,000 customers out of power. Now you figure each customer has an average of 4 people per household, thats about half a million people with out power. 1200 Line crews consisting of approx. 2 guys a crew turned all the lights back on in 6 days. Thats pretty darn good if you ask me! I have been working nonstop (except Christmas day) with all these storms and high winds. I know it may be an inconvience to you, but honestly, we bust our butts to keep the lights on and when they are out to get them back on as quickly and SAFETLY as possible!

Thanks for listening to my rant

Pat

[linen beige 15]

Pat, My hat's off to ALL the linemen. Through the years I've had many opportunities to watch you guys in action. From simple poles down due to car crashes to a huge ice storm in '03 that shut down everything here for several days. There were crews here from as far away as Oregon.

I never envied you guys for being up in the buckets in the driving rain while I sat in my warm, dry cruiser with the lights going so no one would hit your trucks.

As I told a crew during the big ice storm, I never thought I would find a man attractive, but you guys are beautiful.

:hide:

[Duff 206]

Pat, I'm with Jim on this one, and a lot of other very, very grateful folks for the great work you guys do under some of the worst conditions Mother Nature can dish out!

We just came out of an ice storm here in New Hampshire that at its height had 400,000 homes and business without power - that's a good chunk of our entire state! And to those who may not know NH topography, we're full of steep hills, valleys, and lots of woods. A fair amount of our power grid runs away from highways, so access has to be made by four wheeler or specialized tracked vehicles that can get out into the back country to make repairs. The line crews came from all over the East and busted their butts to get power back on to folks. God bless 'em!

Now here's the upshot of what I think is the ultimate human and politicial stupidity this world has come to. A local legislator here has called for an investigation of the utilities on the grounds that they don't properly maintain their lines. For example, he's asserting they let trees grow too close to the wires and power poles. In the name of God, what does this idiot want - 300 foot wide swaths everywhere there's a power line? Aside from the incredible expense of clearing and maintaining that much area, the sheer ugliness would be amazing. And I doubt many landowners here would stand for it. High power transmission lines are one thing, but the smaller stuff? Come on!

Anyway, had to vent on this before I blew a gasket........

Best,

Duff :hide:

[bk-scouter 93]

Pat, no need to rant here, I can only imagine the crappy conditions for the lineman to work in during these power failures. I know I couldn't do it (since I'm afraid of heights ) and we depend on you guys greatly. My hats off to ya!

OK, time for a lineman tribute

[Teddy da Bear 11]

I do not know how the rant got started....lol

I never complained about the lineman....lol

[linen beige 15]

TDB, I think the rant is about the politians who think they can stop God from growing trees into power lines. I'de be willing to bet that this guy has a friend or relative in the business of installing underground utilities and is trying to drum up work (read profits) for his buddies.