Power's out

[heymagic]

Finally tonite around 7pm the power died...been flakey all day but held on. Got the shop work all caught up just in case...so we still have internet,gas fire place , cable and the genny...whoohoo !!

Gotta laff, the neighbor is sitting in the dark, 6 mos old baby. Probably $1200 a month in new car payments, keeps buying old beaters to restore, never finishes them, never sells them. He can hear the genny run and we flash the porch lites once in a while...I'm a baaaddd person. 8)

[SomeSailor]

Yeah... is nice and windy here. We were without power for a couple of hours.
Luckily we had the trusty Honda ready to go. I was very impressed using it for the first time (in a power outage). We powered all our Christmas lights on the house, the TV and cable box, the pellot stove AND... the microwave for my dinner (pot pie).

The genny didn't flinch and only came out if economy mode when the microwave came on. VERY impressive little genny.

... and the big ole Homelite 5500 Watt genset never saw action this year...

The little Honda has my vote from here on out... :)

[Tedster]

I know I'm weird but even though my computer has had a power surge about twenty times tonite, my power is still on and my lil Honda is just waiting to purr quietly (of course). When is this storm over with? :shock:

[SomeSailor]

We lost power a second time after we'd gone to bed, and it was off for aout 3 hours, but we had cable and DSL the whole time.

[Go Aweigh2452]

Got the old generator running the house now... got heat, microwave, hot water, cold frig, tv and satelite. Now I have to find gas...

Lost a couple of trees. Glad I moved the truck from its tented location to in front of the attached garage... I'd be ****ed right now... Had a feeling to move it last night...

Well, you all have a great Christmas here int he NW... I gotta go pack for HI... 8)

[SomeSailor]

Have fun Doug.

I'm sure Hawaii is looking pretty good right about now... :)

[bradvo]

Have no idea what house or boat looks like. I was up in the middle of the night and power was out. Used my cell phone to see with, that was a first.
It sounded like my shake roof was comming apart. I am at work and will not be able to get home until around seven tonight, so in the dark again.
Told my wife when she gets home to do a walk around and then call me.

[heymagic]

We lost some asphalt shingles, got a contractor friend on the way. Lost a big plexi windscreen on the deck, 1/4" x3'x4'...it shattered, a piece hit the sliding glass door frame just below the glass and broke a piece of the frame....yeehaww. Power came on at 8:20. Lost internet a while , broken fiber optics line near Olympia. Obviously that is fixed. Whadda nite !!

I have a cheap 5kw gen I bought from Harbor Frieght about 1997 or so..$400 bucskis. A $200 gentran panel in the car port. Bought 10 gallons of gas Tuesday. Being on well water we need 220 , I may get a quieter genny next summer though, hate to keep the neighbors awake...

Have a nice visit in the islands Doug.

[SomeSailor]

I've got the Homelite that has prolly 10 hours total on it. REALLY loud though. I love the power, but hate running it.

The little Honda is the way to go.

Christmas lights on the house, TV, cable box and microwave... never dropped off. It'll hold an honest 1000W in economy throttle and you can barely hear it run. Neat toy (err... I mean tool)

[linedog]

Lost power about 11 P.M. wife woke me and the kids up to sleep downstairs we have lots of trees close to the bedrooms. I left for work about 8 A.M. left the house with the genny running, the gas fireplace on, and my wife was cooking breakfast on the gas cooktop. Now I gotta go fix some phones.

[3788sam]

Pretty much the same for us.
Lost power about 2250, on again at 0100. Lots of trees around us but they came through OK.
Going to check on the boat this afternoon, but we double up on the lines durning the winter any ways.
Courious to see what the max gust reading on the wind guage, on the boat?

[Randygh]

No power outage here. The more frequent causes of power outages here in Douglas county are due to a drunk hitting a pole or a faulty breaker. Sure looks nasty when looking to the west. :D

[Skwcrj]

The little Honda (2000i) is running our fridge, TV, Sat dish and dsl modem. It's pretty much just running at idle which means it should last around 15 hours on a tank of gas (according to Honda).

We have quite of few branches all over the backyard but not nearly as bad as my back neighbor. His yard is covered with branches. There's one very large fur tree (>70 feet) leaning and just held from falling by surrounding trees on my next door neighbors lot. I hope it holds until they can have it cut down.

[sunnydude2]

We have been out since ~10pm last night. Our house has sump pump in crawl space as we are in bottom of development in old gravel pit. Looked down there this morning and we had about 3' of water and rising. Luckily they build a deep spot that is below the foundation for the family room. Located a Honda EU2000 this morning and bought it. Pump ran for about 15 minutes and is now running the fridge. Boat got a new toy! Thank you mother nature! :D

[SomeSailor]

Great new toy... I'm sure you'll get some use of it on the boat. :)

[3788sam]

Checked on the boat- OK
Highest gust recorded on the boat- 67mph at 11:15 last night.

[Tedster]

Well, I got my wish I guess, my lil Honda 1000 has been running non-stop since Friday at 8:00AM. I spent 9 hours picking up fir branches all over my front yard, the cars, the roof, the deck, and esp. the back yard. Other than being very, very tired I'm happy to report no damage! The power is still out and no idea when it will be back on, the biggest rub is that the house is all electric, so all we have is the genny and fire logs to exist on. But I know we are the lucky ones by comparison. :D

[bradvo]

Hey guys, I keep hearing on the radio about comparisons to our small disaster to katrina. meaning , how awful they must have had it.
Nobody mentions that our power has been off for a couple days and NO LOOTING is going on.
Compare that one..........

[coolchange]

Power out vs. losing whole neighborhoods and having to live in a superdome or disperse to 50 states to live....I dont think there is much of a comparison.

[Tedster]

The only comparison is that yes we did have hurricane force gusts, thats it! :roll:

[bradvo]

I guess I did not explain myself well enough. The Folks in the Seattle metro area have been callin in to a local radio talk show and talking about how horrible it must have been in the KATRINA disaster. It is now a 2 day event so far and people are already frustrated. They are thankful for not having to deal with the HUrricane event that took place in NO.

I am comparing our 2 day black out to what it took the fine folks in the NO area maybe 2 hours to begin looting. We are a little slow up here in the north when it comes to FREE.
I am being a smart ass

[heymagic]

I did hear of reports of store owners sleeping on premise to prevent looting up north. It's too farking cold to be looting...

When was "our" last looting...WTO riot?

Some areas seem to use any excuse for looting..sunrise, indigestion, Ed McMahon showing up late...

[II Lucky]

Been without power since Thursday at 5 p.m. Honda 1000i running the boat heaters and Honda 3500 running the house/friidge/freezer/house heat. It is getting a little old. I took some firewood down the street to some elderly neighbors and loaned a trailer to another so that he could get fire wood. I check on the boat power hourly. Will have to go to Mother in laws to get a shower. Since we have sold our R.V. we have lost our backup housing. Guess I should dump II Lucky for a bigger condo on the water. Hope everyone is doing well. Sounds like we may have a few more days without power.

Bryan

[bradvo]

I am one of the lucky ones, power back up this morning at home.
We stayed on the boat last night . We were not alone, many peolpe chose the boats over home . Marina had power.
I hope to take a look at Crows nest and Tyee Marina's in the morning since I am off work. Both of these got hit hard by the storm. There just about 5 minutes from the house but i have not been available during day light hours to check it out.

[pkrogh]

This power outage thing is kinda goofy. We have one power line supplying
the island, which went down for 8 hours a couple of days ago and then again
last night for about 4 hours. We've had power all day today with no real chance
of losing it again. (unless we have another hurricane!)

But a half mile away on the east side of the island some folks still don't have
power after four days??????
PSE trucks have been all over and they seem to have fixed just about everything
but I guess some failures are not simple ones. Maybe some big gadget cooked
or something and it's on 'back order' .

Most of those folks have alternate heat and light and the few that don't are with
neighbors.

The oldtimers here (5th generation) say that this was the '20 year' storm.

And it's not even officially winter yet!

Pete

[SomeSailor]

It was really odd looking out across the Sound and NOT seeing Whidbey Island over there in the morning. Just blackness where you normally see the lights of Langley and Clinton. Even the ferry looked like it was heading out to sea or something. :)

[pkrogh]

I saw the aerial pics of the Seattle area last night and it was very eerie seeing
huge areas of darkness.

Kinda reminds one of how dependent we are on the electron!

Pete

[SomeSailor]

I'm OK as long as we have the HondaTrons :)

Only need those to run the auger on the pellet stoves. We can pretty much go off the grid here otherwise.

[Tedster]

Well day three is here with no power, the house is now down to 48 degrees, and the fun is truely gone. I truely hope they are getting close to me soon. :cry:

[kirkster5]

This is really starting to suck!!! I finally got an estimate from PSE as to when they might get a crew to our rural little road here in Port Orchard and they said that there was 2-3 days of tree removal and cleanup with another 2 days to repair/replace the poles/lines/transformers etc(pretty much stated they needed to rebuild our entire system). They hope to start working on it tuesday. TUESDAY!!!F*&K! That means another week of this. To add insult to injury my father in law starts off every conversation with me with "you really should have bought a generator".
F%$K!
My bad I guess but never thought I'd be out of power for 10days.
On the plus side since in order to keep warm,have showers,cook,flush a toilet etc....my wife and I are spending the nights on the Boat. I told her it was a good investment!! :P

[Tedster]

Ok you Honda EU experts, mine after three day with the same load now has the "overload" red light on and is not producing power. I shut it off, but any ideas what to do? :?

[SomeSailor]

Does it produce any power at all with everything disconnected? The inverter might have bit the dust. You could check the 12V output to see if that still works.

Got a meter around?

[Tedster]

I'm at work right now, but when the red lite is on it does NOT produce any power.

[SomeSailor]

Maybe I should re-phrase that. Have you measured the 120VAC and 12VDC outputs with a meter?

[Stratocaster]

Ted, does the reset button bring it back to life, or no difference?

[Roel Jansen]

Ted, Always thought you were the honda guru!

[Roel Jansen]

Ted,
Just a thought maybe the revenge of the great Buba of the KIPOR! :evil:

Sorry but although your situation isn't easy, that this should happen especially to you, made my day start with a big LOL!

[SomeSailor]

I looked at mine last evening and there really doesn't seem like much to the circuitry. Lemme know if can't get it going, I can probably track it down to a component for ya.

[Tedster]

Well last nite I powered her up again and only ran the refer and one lite on it. That seemed to work and ran all nite w/out any issues. So at this point it seems fine. Now me on the other hand, not so good, day 4 of no power, and no shower! But after looking at the pic's of others much more serious I know that I only have temporary issues! :|

ps. the inside temp of our house is now 47 degrees!

[voyager]

We finally got power last night at around 4:00. We had friends who had power the whole time so we stayed with them from Friday on. I was very thankful that they offered to let us stay and even through it was crowded it was way better than sitting in a cold house. I noticed the wind moved my daughters trampoline about three feet. It looks like it just picked it up and set it back down

[bradvo]

Ted. 4 days w/o shower?? You need to go find a YMCA.

[dumluck53]

sniff-sniff.....Ted.....is that you?

;)

(ya know I luv ya, man)

[Tedster]

Don't worry I be doing the sponge bath deal almost daily!

[II Lucky]

We got our power back this morning around 11:00. It is amazing how much my house turned into a squatters camp in the last four days. Extension cords, heaters, etc. I talked with some friends up north and they indicated that some parts of Woodinville/Sammamish may be out until after Xmas. The Portland area got hit hard but apparently not as hard as you guys up north. A little unusual since the Willamette Valley usually gets the worst of it. Hope everyone is safe. Take care.

Bryan

[SomeSailor]

Don't worry I be doing the sponge bath deal almost daily!

He said... "almost daily" :shock:

[3788sam]

Great- now I have mental image of Ted standing over the sink at Olympic Yacht Center- giving himself a sponge bath! :oops:
My eyes are burning :shock:

[heymagic]

Even worse..Mr. and Mrs. Jones being shown a new Motoryacht and Tedster stepping outta the shower nekked...

[Randygh]

I heard on the news that 8 people in the Puget Sound area have died of CO poisoning since the storm last week. Sad. Don't people realize you can't run a generator or barbaque indoors? I bet new generators come with operating instructions in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Farsi, Russian and Texan!! These unfortunate morts are shining examples of how the best instructions aren't worth the paper on which they are printed if they are not read or heeded. Wonder how many generator companies (Honda et al.) will be sued due to the morts?

The loss of life due to the CO asphixia should remind all boaters to have a CO detector in their vessel and keep the dectors's batteries fresh.

[dumluck53]

Even worse..Mr. and Mrs. Jones being shown a new Motoryacht and Tedster stepping outta the shower nekked...

:shock: :P :lol: :lol: :lol: :laughing3:

I'll tell ya what....being nekked wouldn't slow Ted down a bit....he'd start selling before he had his trousers on...hehehe...

Good 'un, Gene!

[SomeSailor]

... now I have mental image of Ted standing over the sink at Olympic Yacht Center- giving himself a sponge bath!

That's a quotable commentary...

Ken; Have you shared these feelings with Ted?

[linedog]

My powers back and I'm down from 19 hour days to 10 for now. Be nice to get some sleep and a shower also. Still a lot of folks out there without phone's.

[bradvo]

Chris, you going to get some compensation for your hard work?
By the way, were glad your helping us guys sitting at our desks.
And can ya leave my mother in laws off ?

[linedog]

Brad, we get OT etc. Working this much I missed out on going to Zoolights with my In-Laws, darn. . . you are on your own for you M.I.L. sorry. LOL

[Tedster]

I'm back at work after two days off at Camp No Power (our house)! Yes it is now into day 8 with no power! This is coming from a neighborhood with underground wires, go figure. My lil Honda 1000 has been running for almost 200 hours at this point, and all I have done for it was to balance it's available load it could handle, put a few ounces of oil in it, (has a warning lite when it is low) and put about 10 gallons of fuel in it. After this is over I plan to make a display case for it and it will be the focal place of our house. I also found out that I'm married to the most wonderful woman in the world since she has put up with no power and me for 8 days with hardly a complaint. Ask your wife if she would go without power in a cold house without hot water sleeping on the floor of the living room in front of old fashioned fireplace. We are both a lil crabby but still :D

Have a great holiday season! Ted & Debi

[voyager]

Ted why in the world haven't you launched your boat, tied it up and plugged it in? At least you would have lights heat and the shore side facilities?

[dumluck53]

Good Attitude, Ted! Hope you have power soon!

[Tedster]

Well here is the latest lie from PSE: Power will be restored on Saturday the 23rd at 1:33PM. :roll: :roll: :roll:
How many wanna place a bet on this amazing statement of stupidity?
In case you forgot they have told us everyday since Wednesday that the next day would be the day. :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Tedster]

http://netmail.verizon.net/webmail/servlet/HttpNimletDriver?nimlet=DownloadAttachmentNimlet&fileName=Dec 14 06 204.jpg&folderName=INBOX&messageID=615&partIndex=9

These are very good friends of ours that live about 1.5 miles from us. They still are trying to be humerous inspite of it all. They were on channel 7 TV a while back you may have seen them being interviewed.

[voyager]

Kiro is reporting that Power should be restored sometime tonight. They have additional crews from Olympia and other places helping them now. I don't know if it is true or not but I hope you get It back soon. Do you have firewood and other stuff? I don't have a generator or I would loan it to you.

Paul ( Ohana)

[Tedster]

No worries Paul and thanks. We have an ordinary fireplace that I/we have been feeding fire logs that we have spent about $250 so far. Crazy ain't it! :roll:

[voyager]

Ted I have firewood that you can have. It may be a little wet right now but it will still burn.

[Tedster]

Paul, the reason I have been using the firelogs is that they are relatively safe to be ignored in an old fashioned fireplace, and will burn once lit until they go out w/out attention. But thanks for the offer! :D

How about the four of us going out to dinner though?

[SPUD]

It's been a long week but we got power and cable restored this morning.
Thanks to Mike Kelley (PUGET MIKE) for his offer to lend me his generator ! Luckily I already had one ! I think gen sales are going to skyrocket after this one. My neighbors are thinking of putting in natural gas ones............I think it may be overkill as usually I only pull mine out once a year for a couple of hours.

Happy Holidays !

Nelson
(SPUD)

[Tedster]

Well I know this thread is getting old for most of you, but here goes, yes we still do not have power on day 9, and since no one took up my bet I win because yes they now have a new update!!! The latest will be Sunday at noon, which will be 10.5 days after it all began, or 246 hours later. :cry:

[SomeSailor]

WOW!!!

We were REALLY lucky here. Only lost it for a few hours and that was an excuse to play with the Honda. Hang in there Ted.

[bradvo]

Pretty long time Ted. Do you know what or why your place is taking so long at powering up?

[Tedster]

I have asked them almost daily, for a reason why, and so far I don't have a clue, and I'm almost sure neither do they. But whatever, it is underground since all the surrounding damage to wires or poles has already been repaired. :roll:

[dumluck53]

How you doin', Ted? Any power yet?

Thinking of you, bro.

[SomeSailor]

Yeah, the news makes it sound like everyone is back on for the most part. Any luck where you're at?

[Tedster]

Good news! Power went back on at about 9:30PM on Saturday. On Saturday afternoon we had are first PSE trucks in our neighborhood and imagine that they found a blown transformer which they then had to go find a replacement to install.
So after 9.75 days or 238hours we got power back. Today we spent the whole day taking down our survival camp (living room) and putting up Christmas and geting ready for family to come over (very tight window) but we made it with a few minutes to spare. I thought I should get back on here and thank everyone that helped us through with your concerns and offers! Thanks everyone and have a Merry Christmas! :D

ps. my flashlight, fire starter, and Honda EU1000 are now in a display case for viewing anytime you are in the area! :lol:

[pkrogh]

Congratulations and Merry Christmas Ted !!

Pete

[dumluck53]

Thank goodness, Ted...I was worried sick.

Merry Christmas!

[bradvo]

yeah, glad to hear ya can finally shower. Nine days of crust ya might need more then a boat brush ;)
Merry Christmas Ted and everyone else.

[Tedster]

Thanks for all your concerns once again, now go tilt a drink of your choice on me and send me the bill! :D

[Pegasis]

Since early AM on Friday, December 15, I have worked some 200+ hours, working with a damage acessor or shutteling crews to sites or parts from the warehouse in Kent to the service center in Redmond.

Just about all of the substations in the North King area suffered from lack of power as the transmission lines to those stations were taken out by fallen trees. The first task was to get the transmission lines back on-line so we had power to the neighborhood substations. While this work was being done, teams of damage acessors were out writing up problems associated with broken lines and tree limbs shorting between multiple wires on the electric lines. Also teams of elctical workers were traveling to western Washington to help rebuild the electrical system.

The next task was to determine which outages could be fixed and bring as many people back on-line and to bring back on-line medical services and other emergency services, emergency services and medical services prioratized before residential or commercial customers. Once we had crews working on bring back medical and emergency services we started working on quick fixes which would bring back a lot of people with the least repair work. Unfortunately Juanita and Woodinville seemed to be hit the worst by number of broken lines/poles, so more effort would be required to bring on-line the same number of customers.

[SomeSailor]

So whatcha gonna buy with all the overtime Roy?

[Randygh]

A friend told me last night that if the power line is down between the pole and a house, it is the homeowner's responsibility to pay the power company or a private electrical contractor to repair the lines? Is that true? I am skeptical of what this person said.

We had a power outage here on Maui last night. Interestingly, when the power was restored, it was very weak. Lights came on very dimly and electric ceiling fans wouldn't run. Took about 6 hours to get full strength.

[SomeSailor]

"Brown Outs" are the worst. You'll fry more stuff as the power rolls back on slowly than any other way.

If the voltage or frequency comes upslow, the amperage gets REALLY high... REALLY fast. Always unplug everything when the power goes down, and then bring it back online only when things have stabilized.

Really crappy power in Hawaii when we were there. May have gotten better, but having a surge protector took on a whole new meaning there. :)

[pkrogh]

Usually the power company is responsible for everything to the meter.

Pete

[Randygh]

Pete--Thanks for the info.

[Go Aweigh2452]

Randy, like your phone line... the company is responsible up to the box on the house. You are responsible for everything past that box inside...

[Pegasis]

As far as I know it's the utility companies responsibility to reconnect the service. Not sure if they will charge for a reconnect if a tree falls over the service line since it's the home owners responsibility to make sure the trees around the service line are trimmed back.

In regards on what to buy with the OT pay. It'll will probably be gas so I can afford to use my boat in 2007.

[Tedster]

Roy, how about a few treats for your puppy! :D