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| The trace from a weather station a few miles west of us |
This is not going to be much of a report because there was not much action.
This is not Mrs ERJ and my first rodeo.
We did not know the extent of the storms nor did we have an appreciation for how long the power might be out.
From previous outages, most interruptions are fixed in two hours of daylight. So our plan was to hunker-down until mid-morning and then if we did not have power to fire up the generator.
One of my brothers had been a firefighter/EMT/Ambulance-driver dude. His advice had consistently been "Stay off the roads. Don't get in the way of the people with the training and equipment. Don't become another ambulance run by doing something stupid."
I am 1.5 miles from the nearest natural gas so trying to run a whole-house generator is economically painful. I have a small, inverter type generator that will (supposedly) run 11 hours on a gallon of gas in economy mode (400W).
The only appliance I was worried about was the refrigerator. We waited until the interior hit 60F and then I strung the extension cord and fired up the genny.
It ran a half hour before the lights came back on. I let it run an additional fifteen minutes because...well, just because I didn't want to have to wrestle the refrigerator back out of its cubby and plug it back into the extension cord if it were just a transient blip of service.
***
We did a fair amount of camping when the kids were younger. We were "tent campers", not trailer campers. Our kids hated us for that.
Tent campers have an entirely different mindset than trailer campers, even if we are not back-packing in.
As long as we have glass in the windows, two days of in-house camping is a snap.
The "glass in the windows" comment is not a random comment. We had a wind-shear back in October of 2000 that picked up and threw the swingset through our picture window. It also javalined some two-by-four splinters into the roof and the other debris it threw totaled out the minivan.
What was notable about the windshear was how narrow the path of destruction was. Fifty feet one side or the other there was very little damage. Unfortunately, in the year 2000 we had the cross-hairs on our barns and house.
We were much more fortunate this time.
Windstorms are nothing to take lightly but God was good to us. Nobody was bleeding. Everybody got a good night's sleep. Southern Belle and Handsome Hombre both went to work in the morning. SB went early so she could take a shower at work...our well is electric and no electricity means we quickly run out of water pressure.
We have 12, one-gallon jugs of water in the pantry as well as countless 24-packs of water bottles. Also, five, six-gallon water jugs in the pantry. Top-side, I have two, 275 gallon intermediate-bulk-containers of potable water.
We also had the foresight to have an LP stove as our main kitchen stove. The auto-ignitors do not work with no power but a butane lighter works just fine. So I had the luxury of a couple of cups of hot coffee earlie-in-the-mornin'.
One of our neighbors still had a tree across his driveway as-of 4:00 PM today. I rode my bike over to check them out. They are waiting for the insurance adjuster. The tree damaged a vehicle and they don't want to remove the tree until after the adjuster takes pictures.
I must confess that I missed the internet. No juice meant the router was down. Cell service was slow. I actually read part of a a dead-tree book when things slowed down.
Glad there were no injuries or structural damage. Trees and crops aren't as critical, especially since the stores are still open and supplied with food to sell.
ReplyDeleteNow run the gennie out of gas, pout in a few tablespoons of either Avgas or coleman fuel, and run it empty again.....that way no varnish in the carb and it is good to go next time.
ReplyDeletePlus change the oil if it ran for more than an hour.
It is a Wen and has a fuel cutoff that runs the carburetor bowl out of gas before it shuts off. It is a well thought-out design.
DeleteI have a hand pump in the well with the electric pump. One less thing to concern me when the power goes out. And it didn't cost much. ---ken
ReplyDelete+1 on the tent camping gear. All my appliances are electric so my old Coleman propane stove lets me cook and take a sponge bath when necessary. I also have kerosene lamps for light and 3000-4000 btu of heat each for wintertime. Like you the biggest thing I worry about in an extended outage is refrigerator and freezer. I don’t have a generator so at some point I would have to start pulling and cooking the frozen stuff to preserve it a little longer. I never have much in my fridge so I do t worry too much about that side of the box.
ReplyDeleteERJ, glad to hear everything is (relatively) okay.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea such windstorms were a thing in Michigan.
Back in 2020, during the start of covidiocy when everyone acted like the sky was falling, we lost out house to a tornado that cut a swath over several miles. There were days of generators and gas cans before we could get an electrician and the electric company to get us some power. We were living in our travel trailer (4 of us with 4 cats in a 29 foot travel trailer that I thank God for saving) and fortunately the electric company guy that came out to look at our new power pole fudged the papers enough for us to get a meter and electricity.
ReplyDeleteSorry for all that. The point to my comment is that if you have a propane company near you, you can get a whole house generator that runs on propane. If the gas company extends to your area, you can get one that runs on both. And a good electrician can probably hook it up for just necessities if you don't want it to run the whole house. Depending on the size of the generator, they recommended to us a 500 gallon tank for the possibility of days of outage.
Our well is electric, too. I want to up our water storage until we can decide on some sort of backup power situation for it. While new home has a generator, the well is still on the power pole they installed during the crisis.
Glad no one was hurt. Be safe and God bless.
Thank-you for commenting. I really appreciate it when a women chimes in and offers their perspective.
DeleteMy guess is that 80%-to-90% of my readers are men of a certain age and a certain outlook on life. Women see things that we miss and we are both better for that fact.
Again, thanks for reading and especially, thanks for taking the time to comment.
+1 for LindaG. I am always happy to see her comments at my place.
DeleteAt one time. TB the Elder looked at having a whole house generator put in at The Ranch as he had a propane tank already on the property for heat and the hot water heater. The cost was bit much, as well as the wait time for the install.
"This is not going to be much of a report because there was not much action.
ReplyDeleteThis is not Mrs ERJ and my first rodeo."
If you do it right, then it is an irritation.
If not, an adventure.
If totally wrong, then a tragedy.
Seems as it you did it right.
When I had a 'micro burst' (fancy name for a wind shear) friends with grandson had stopped to stay the night. We're in kitchen chatting away and I walked over to pantry, retrieved a can and because someone asked me a question I turned and took a step back from pantry. That moment a 300 yer old tree came crashing down on the kitchen. Pantry, fridge, upstairs library all laying in yard. We finally were all alone later that afternoon, after the police, fire department and the entire neighborhood left and the electric and gas people had done there part. So the adults are sitting on the porch and guy runs a stop sign at high speed on our corner slams into a minivan and pushes it up onto the neighbors yard across the street which collapsed her porch. Police come back with the ambulances and 6 people go to hospital. Friend looks at me and says, I don't know that were ever coming too visit anymore.
ReplyDeleteLong term genny is a concern of mine as well, for several reasons. I decided on a 300 gal diesel tank on the property and a pto generator for my tractor. Just under 5 grand for everything but the fuel? I reckon I have about 1 hour of power per day for a year. Maybe.
ReplyDeleteWhen we moved to the Northwoods, I knew I wanted backup power. Whole house was out due both to cost, and defeating part of the purpose (still depending on someone to deliver nat. gas to me). Under $1500 to get an 8500-watt genny from Costco, and a transfer switch installed. Got to test it out last winter after an ice storm knocked out the power overnight. It easily ran the important things (fridge/freezers, furnace, water pump, lights, internet). The power meter I put on the transfer circuit never went above 3500 watts, and it ran all afternoon and night on 6 gallons of gas. It would struggle to run the oven, though microwave warmed up some leftovers, and there's no way it would run the central A/C in the summer, but as long as I can fill some gas cans somewhere nearby we can be living in style.
ReplyDeleteRouters are dc powered. Get the right battery for it.
ReplyDelete