Anyone on PCMech dealing with Irene?

[strollin]

Just curious if anyone on the forum is having to deal with hurricane Irene.

[David M]

Only dealing with the medias obsession with it.

[Petef56]

Originally Posted by strollin Just curious if anyone on the forum is having to deal with hurricane Irene.

I'm in NJ far inland near the Delaware River. My biggest problem is all the rain and concerns over basement flooding. I've got the sump pump running every couple of minutes a spare pump on hand and a generator in case of power failure. So far so good, no failures.

Wind is not so bad. I have big trees close to the house, but so far the winds are not even strong enough to knock down any branches.

---pete---

[Nuclear Krusader]

Oh, finally someone posts! I was thinking all of you had been washed away and that was why no one was replying.

[cmillar6]

I'm in New Jersey far inland as well, not too far from Philadelphia. Did not have a battery backup sump pump or a generator. By some miracle we did not lose power and I have a dry basement. I can honestly say last night was the most terrifying experience of my life.

[pam123]

NYC, Bronx, here.
I'm in a zone C area so no evacuation this time (need category 3 for that) but over at the Silver Beach area, peninsula, and further east it's getting "fraught".

[shadowpr]

I'm on the south shore of long island.

We did fine. Seems like for us here, it was more hype than anything else.

[kram 2.0]

Irene had an indirect hit on Richmond yesterday. I got lucky - I was part of the 25% in the area with power .

kram

[Petef56]

Originally Posted by cmillar6 I'm in New Jersey far inland as well, not too far from Philadelphia. Did not have a battery backup sump pump or a generator. By some miracle we did not lose power and I have a dry basement. I can honestly say last night was the most terrifying experience of my life.

I can't tell if you are kidding. If not, what was so terrifying? The wind was not so bad and I've seen harder rain and stronger winds in past thunderstorms. The only thing bad about this storm was the duration of the rain and the ground already being saturated by all the other rain we had in August.

---pete---

[tigstah]

Originally Posted by kram 2.0 Irene had an indirect hit on Richmond yesterday. I got lucky - I was part of the 25% in the area with power . kram

in richmond as well. outside of the the pole that has the power lines laying in my back yard. power flickered but never went out. on the list for the power company to do cleanup in the neighborhood.

[Force Flow]

I haven't had power at home since noon on sunday. My workplace is up and running though.

[pam123]

No power outage in the Bronx but Staten Island is another matter and still under water.
Most of NYC got lucky this time.

[Kasturi]

I will be dealing with Irene in about 1-3 months. I get to audit some of the files that were reported for flood damage. Should be plenty for me to do in the coming months.

[Nuclear Krusader]

In the meanwhile, Happy B-Day!

[thefultonhow]

It went through Baltimore around midnight Saturday night. I didn't lose power, but my parents did, and they still don't have it back (they're expecting it will probably take until the end of the week). A traffic light near my parents' house (but on a much higher-priority line than theirs) was still out as of yesterday at 5pm when I drove through after a doctor's appointment. The doctor said the hospital where I had the appointment only lost power for about 10 hours, but another one nearby still didn't have power at the time of the appointment.

My aunt also lost power, then got it back, then lost it again. She actually works for the power company, and apparently they have 650,000 homes without power, and 3700 crewmembers including people from other states working to restore service. Some outages can take a day to restore because they need a tree crew, a new pole, and then they have to restring the wires, so do the math. She said someone she works with had been standing next to a downed power line in shifts with another person for 18 hours yesterday warning people about it, because crews hadn't gotten there yet.

[glc]

That reminds me of the bad ice storm we had here a few winters ago - it took a long time to get all the power back up.

[thefultonhow]

My parents just got electricity back 4 hours ago. Total time out was over 4 and a half days.

[tigstah]

light pole snapped and is still laying in my back yard. never lost power tho. called va power and advised that the power line is still down. they are still restoring power to folks here, so its gonna be a while longer. they said, dont go in the back yard with the line hot.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/c...igstah/231.jpg

[strollin]

Hearing the stories about how long people have been out of power is kinda scary. In all the earthquakes I've been thru I don't think I ever went more than 6 hours without power. I have an RV and generator as a backup but have never needed to use them in an emergency situation.

[Petef56]

Originally Posted by tigstah light pole snapped and is still laying in my back yard. never lost power tho. called va power and advised that the power line is still down. they are still restoring power to folks here, so its gonna be a while longer. they said, dont go in the back yard with the line hot. http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/c...igstah/231.jpg

Here on NJ talk radio, the topic of power outages has been discussed a lot. The power companies have so many "complaints" to deal with and they have a system that prioritizes all those complaints. If you can get your neighbors to also call in on this same pole that's down, it could actually help to get you higher on the priority list. It's worth a try.

---pete---

[glc]

I don't think it's reasonable to expect them to come fix that till they have everyone taken care of that has NO power, or are able to break a crew away without slowing down the restoration process.

[tigstah]

oh i know that all power has to be restored first. just kinda scary as that pole is about 5 feet from my office where i am sitting now and the line is hot. my power is still on so i wont complain.

[glc]

Not a good situation - if you push the issue they may cut your power (and power to everyone else in the neighborhood) till they can fix it.

[shadowpr]

i know people near me that still have no power....