Barely surviving up here...

Jayhawker

Big storm blew through last night, high winds, torrential rain....wind took down a big limb in our side yard and yanked our power line right out of the meter...power to our neighbors came back on and now I have a hot wire laying in the yard.

Anyway...the generator is performing admirably...keeping the fridge and freezer running, what lights we need and the TV...
Well pump is down so we're flushing the toilet with rain water we collected. Have plenty of drinking water on hand so life is good.

I did take advantage of the rain storm to grab a bar of soap, strip down and duck out the back door for a shower...

CHIRO1989

It was here yesterday, first severe thunderstorm we have had this summer, knock on wood, I was thinking after it I needed to run my generator for a few minutes, probably the snowblower too:) 

mitdr774

Northern L.P.?

NN

Glad your otherwise OK

Jayhawker

mitdr774 said:

Northern L.P.?


Yep...between White Cloud and Baldwin....Baldwin got hammered....

Jermanator

My son and a couple of his friends are up at our camp in Wellston. A big branch broke off a tree last night and barely missed the truck.

Big Al1

Hit here about 2PM (central Wisconsin). Rained until 10PM. East of us got hammered, high winds and flooding!

earlyagain

Hope the worst is past.

mitdr774

I will be up in Grayling for just about all of September for work at some new plywood or particle board plant.  I hear they got hammered through that area as well.  

Spk

Jayhawker said:

...

Anyway...the generator is performing admirably...keeping the fridge and freezer running, what lights we need and the TV...
Well pump is down so we're flushing the toilet with rain water we collected. Have plenty of drinking water on hand so life is good.
...

Are you using you own well pump?

Jayhawker

Yeah, it's wired into the breaker panel in the house...

rberglof

We finally got some rain, rained Monday and Tuesday 2" total. Some areas got a bit of wind but not much at our place.

coolgunguy

Been pretty tame for us personally, but - as Big Al can attest - parts of Wisconsin have had more rain these past few weeks than they normally get in a quarter.  Lots of washouts, flooding etc.

Jayhawker

Power is still out....warming up wash water on the stove....I am sure glad we bought that generator...
I really need to have a transfer switch installed in the house so I can just plug the thing into the house instead of running extension cords all over the place...

mitdr774

Depending on the panel and if you can move breakers around, some panels can be fitted with an interlock that prevents the main from being on when the breaker for the generator back feed is on.

Jermanator

Zee was asking about mine. This is a similar unit but mine is branded as a GE. All my appliances, hot water, and furnace is gas so the biggest thing that it needs to run is a 3 ton central air. It handles it no problem.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Briggs-Stratton-10-000-Watt-Automatic-Air-Cooled-Standby-Generator-with-200-Amp-Transfer-Switch-040450/207044686

earlyagain

My Dad's in Pentwater. Just texted me. His brother and him share the same driveway into their land. His power pole is down. His brothers is cracked. No power for 4 days now.

Jayhawker

Yeah...no joy here either....

bisley

We had a very unusual blast, a couple of days ago - torrential downpour with high winds...while the sun was shining. It lasted about 5 minutes, and ended with a little, bitty rainbow that started and ended in my front yard. Never seen anything like it. Oh yeah, and the power went off for 5 hours. Mrs. Bisley and I just parked ourselves on the front porch and binge-watched NYPD Blue on her new IPAD with Amazon Prime video, for the whole time, till it came back on.

coolgunguy

We've had a couple of downpours, but nothing like the parts of Wisconsin have had.  I did have to send out generator trailer to our Janesville store. They had an outage Wednesday @1:30 am, and weren't back on city power until almost 7:00pm.  Not much wastage, but no business either.

Jayhawker

Still out up here....I guess we're not real high up on the priority list...

Big Chief

Jayhawker said:

Still out up here....I guess we're not real high up on the priority list...

Dang, taking them too long to restore power your way. Not like you had a hurricane like we did last year. Heck, I think my power was on after 3 or 4 days and and there was a massive power outage across the area. 

Jayhawker

The Baldwin area about 10 miles up the road got pounded hard....lots of trees and lines down and structure damage. We have gone through about 25 gallons of gas for the generator so far.....shutting it down at midnight and starting up again when we get up....
What really cranks me off is the fleet of Great Lakes Energy trucks that drives past the house every morning on their way North....when it would take them all of 30 minutes to get our line back up...

NN

So; if the wires were pulled out of the meter box, will the power company put them Back.

Here the home owner via a electrician is responsible for the part of the circuit from the mast or other
attachment system-----all the power company can do is attach the power drop to those wires
and replace the meter if necessary.


Neighbor had that happen and the power Co would not come by until they were notified it
was done and ready.

Jayhawker

As I understand it, here, I am responsible for everything on the house side of the meter....they are responsible for everything from the pole to the house...I would go out and buck up the limb but that hot wire has been laying in my yard since last Tuesday...

earlyagain

I bet if you touch anything, they can bill you some how for it.

Big Chief

Call and complain and to the local radio talk station. It may be though unless they get the big trunks fixed it will do no good to fix yours next or they are just pandering to the populated/more customer regions first.

Jayhawker

Nope...we are the only house in the area without power....and that is only because my line is down....all my neighbors had power back on in a couple of hours....I'm about to drive down to their main office and have words with someone in person....on Tuesday...

10canyon53

Let them know that you have a live wire down in your yard and that they are liable if anyone is injured or killed as a result.  I bet you will see someone out there pronto.

Jayhawker

We did that a couple of times... here's what they said..."stay away from it...if it's arcing and sparking, call the fire department"

CHIRO1989

Drop the pole across the road..