Tropical Cyclone Irma

[DonH56]

Don, I am from Quebec, where ice and snow and cold put down our wire lines and towers. Can you not put a pipe exhaust outside with the generator in the concrete basement enclaved in its own enclosure?

Where I live now it is similar to Amir; trees and branches fall on the power lines everytime we have strong winds. We can lose power for a day or two.

If I lost power for 48 hours, along with the fiber optic line and telephone line, it is no big deal; I go for a ride on my bike...it is splendid here...the mountains, the ocean, the forests, ...all that jazz of nature.

Snow on the island is minimal, and does not last. But we sure can get some heavy downfalls occasionally...ask Amir.

Anyway, generators are not for everyone, or for every region.

Well, duh, yes you could (put it in the basement and duct it)! Sorry about that Bob, that does make sense. Like you, here the intake and exhaust would have to be shielded from snow or otherwise protected since we do get several feet at once on occasion. There was some code issue with having it indoors or too close to the house but I am not sure I ever asked explicitly about placing it inside and what sort of ducting would be required. It was not an option for us (no place for it since we finished the basement), and my vague memory is that the unit was not rated for indoor use (need custom ducting or greatly expanded ducts to our mech room even if it would have fit and probably custom ducting to the generator, plus we needed a special gas line that would have been a bear to get inside). They do make "indoor" generators but I never really looked at them. They are designed for inlet/outlet ducting and such, with specially-shielded motors and additional sensors to ensure they are not emitting excess CO inside.

A friend of my has his in a shed with a duct through the wall. Since it is not living space it passed code, though I remember he had to rework some of it to meet the required inlet/outlet standards, and had to move it and shield it for fire safety.

No power for 48 hours? In the summer, maybe, but 48 hours in a blizzard is a long time; we need heat or pipes will freeze. And our snowiest month is actually March, with April and November a toss-up. The other big player is that we get our water from our well (~300'/100 m down to the pump) so we also lose water when the power goes out. Life in the country...

 

[amirm]

Underground cables cost well over double the cost of overhead round here and produce massively more disturbance whilst being done. Maybe for a new development so they can be laid before anything gets built they wouldn't be too dear.

Again, ours was done recently after the fact. And it has exactly the same environment as our home close to seattle. So no reason that a little power company like ours can do it, and major one just 70 miles north cannot.

Electricity is our lifeblood. It needs to have protection from wind and storm. As I noted earlier, we lost power for 8 days in winter. If we did not have a generator and gas furnace, it would have been a nightmare.

 

[RayDunzl]

They've knocked out roughly half of the maximum I saw:

332,396 service outages, now down to 167,579

About 60 hours recovery time now, so 2,750 recoveries per hour on average.

 

[RayDunzl]

Apremont-sur_Allier a pretty village near where my French house was has no visible cabling at all because of its beauty and it was/is a massive project, there probably isn't a house there less than 100 years old and the Chateau several hundred.

http://www.apremont-sur-allier.com/fr/village/

I guess the Chinese were impressed, too:

http://matthewniederhauser.com/research/2011/05/22/tianducheng-the-heavenly-paris-of-china/

 

[NorthSky]

8 days Amir! Was it during the Mt St Helens eruption?

Seriously, Seattle can be in the dark for that long during winter?

 

[amirm]

8 days Amir! Was it during the Mt St Helens eruption?

You would think! But no, we got about a foot of snow in the hills where we lived. They did not plow it as it doesn't normally snow there. So we lost power and we could not drive anywhere either!

They focused on getting the power back for the populated areas first and we were next to last to get attention and as I said, it took 8 days. I shudder to think what would happen if we did have a major disaster like Rainier blowing its top.

Seriously, Seattle can be in the dark for that long during winter?

Per above I don't think Seattle itself was without power for more than a couple of days. It was the suburb that took the most hit and had more trees to disconnect power.

 

[Don Hills]

I can't remember the last time there was an actual outage at my home. Even glitches are rare. If the incoming AC misses more than one cycle, the central heating trips out (safety cutout). I've only reset it once in the last 12 months. This is in spite of what you would call regular extreme weather. For example, the yearly average wind speed here is 29 km/h. (Chicago is 18 km/h.) On average, wind gusts exceed gale force (75 km/h) on 175 days of the year.

 

[NorthSky]

I see now, Amir. A tougher price to pay for living in the wilderness, away from the masses. But the advantages are worth it for me anyway, with less congestion, less noise, less pollution...overall. And I am a 4x4 man with heavy duty chains, so I am ready. You should see where I used to live. That was on the mountain side, of a forest, very steep.
___

On that same subject of power/electricity, and Irma; I've just read these two short articles recently released:

• http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/13/us/10-days-without-power-guide-trnd/index.html
Please read it, because as you'll be reading electricity is a lifeline indeed for some people.

"The danger was exemplified Wednesday, when eight people died in Hollywood, Florida, after their nursing home lost air conditioning. The residents' causes of death are being investigated."

This link is about the Caribbean people...real scary stories.
• http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/13/us/irma-hurricane-felt-like-watch/index.html

 

[Blumlein 88]

High wires are ugly, I agree. You want to take a picture of a beautiful view, and electrical wires are in there; I don't take the picture.

I've taken pictures of beautiful places that appeared ruined by power lines. Then I spend a few minutes photo-shopping out the power lines and poles. Works great and you have a nice picture.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Yes, by us! They lease the pole from electric company. See: http://www.aglmediagroup.com/placing-small-cells-on-wooden-electric-distribution-poles/

You are probably thinking of the dedicated towers that host multiple operator ones. Those do go on steel structures.

Okay, good to know. They don't do that where I live. The big tall towers are all they use. Some places make them disguise the towers as pine trees.

 

[NorthSky]

I've taken pictures of beautiful places that appeared ruined by power lines. Then I spend a few minutes photo-shopping out the power lines and poles. Works great and you have a nice picture.

This is something I need to learn.

 

[NorthSky]

Okay, good to know. They don't do that where I live. The big tall towers are all they use. Some places make them disguise the towers as pine trees.

Do you have fiber optic where you live?

 

[Blumlein 88]

Do you have fiber optic where you live?

Yes, fiber optic runs thru my yard and the nearest box is beside my driveway. I am the second house from the DSLAM. And it is ATT, and they will not even connect me onto their slow DSL they provide over it. Even though previous owners had the service. A common ATT policy in some areas. Quite maddening.

The only way I have internet is I use some Ubiquity gear to connect to some people I know several hundred feet up the street I live on. So we share, allegedly 6 mbps DSL that will sometimes hit 5 meg later at night after most people are in bed. So if I do really large up or downloads I either let it run for hours later at night. Or go up the highway a few miles to a truckstop with good free wifi.

Here is one of many articles about the matter.

https://arstechnica.com/information...s-broadband-to-your-neighbors-but-not-to-you/

And yes before buying this house I inquired to be told it was available. Even asked about this situation to be told it had been cleared up and connection was no longer a problem here. Then when I asked to be connected they made an appointment, and called the day before to say no connection was possible. I get offers for the wonderfull ATT internet and TV in the mail about every 5 days and have for two years. They have spent some real money to advertise a service they won't provide.

 

[c1ferrari]

I guess the Chinese were impressed, too:

http://matthewniederhauser.com/research/2011/05/22/tianducheng-the-heavenly-paris-of-china/

Interesting.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Wow, it is beautiful indeed. You guys get strong winds and heavy rain occasionally?

No there are never hurricanes and the rain is normal. It gets too hot (for me) in summer and pretty cold in winter compared to Oxfordshire where I am now.
I don't live there any more, but the Allier, which joins the Loire about 5 miles up stream, is the last big European river without dams, so the river varies enormously from winter to summer, it can flood in winter but in summer it is very low and people sunbath on its sandy bed.
I did buy my turntable when I lived there, it was the ex-demo model of Goldmund's European distributor of the time and he didn't need it when they stopped selling turntables, I have had it over 25 years now but it gets little use.

 

[RayDunzl]

Below 100k outages now...

68,000 restorations in 8 hours, 8,500/hour

The biggest bubble:

 

[RayDunzl]

I could not ride around in this:

... and an even taller one here

 

[Sal1950]

For example, the yearly average wind speed here is 29 km/h. (Chicago is 18 km/h.) On average, wind gusts exceed gale force (75 km/h) on 175 days of the year.

Dang, now you folks should get "The Windy City" title.
Maybe a place where those silly fan farms might actually be worth the investment?

 

[RayDunzl]

Did local Indian mounds save Tampa Bay from Irma's worst? Some say yes

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/times...mpa-bay-from-irmas-worst-some-say-yes/2337228

 

[Sal1950]

A few photos of some damage and homes in my park that didn't fare too well.