Whooohooo the Power is on!!!!!

[Honorine]

Well hot diggity the power went on 45 minutes ago, after being out since monday, ahhh I'm so relieved!! Dishes are piling up, so tired of cooking on top of the woodstove(even though it works really well) and its so nice not to have to listen to the backround roar of the generator. It was some lovely fellows from Kentucky that came and worked on our lines today, it was sweet to hear a southern accent again, told them how grateful everyone was that they came up. We are used to losing power, lost it for 5 days last october as well, but man it gets old fast. We fared much better than many others, although a tree did punch a hole in our nearly new sheds roof. Family in Jersey is worse off, I'm headed there tomorrow with our generator and as much gas as I can safely carry. Hope everyone here in the area is okay too.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Glad to hear you made it through okay! Have a safe trip tomorrow.

 

[MaggieJ]

Five days is a long time to be without power. Glad you were prepared to cope with it.

 

[tnelsonfla]

Yeah losing power is bad enough when your prepared for it. But a few years ago in Jean and Francis it was 14 & 10 days for each of them. Wilma was like 5 days. Hopefully everyone is ok and maybe society has to be prepared for this type thing every year. UGH!

 

[dragonladyleanne]

Yayyyy! Careful on the road, I read that NJ is sadly lacking in gasoline (NYC even worse), so drive your most fuel efficient vehicle, and pack extra fuel as well as the generator, if you can. And watch out for road bandits!!!

 

[MaggieJ]

Road bandits???

 

[Honorine]

The National Guard is patrolling the hardest hit areas, many of these neighborhoods you have to show ID just to get into them. In my one sisters neighborhood which has boats from the nearby Marina gracing peoples lawns there has been looting, thieves coming up the river in boats and robbing the houses. Security has been much tighter. Some areas like Seabright you can't even get into, because of the danger of broken gas lines and debris. There are a number of rescue groups that helped out in Katrina that are also in Jersey now, one such Mennonite group pumped out her crawl space for her and put her garden timbers back in place. Most neighborhoods have curfews, those that are badly damaged you can only enter and leave during certain hours, others you have to be off the streets and in your house. My 'riverside' sister is lucky, her house didn't flood, just her crawl space, although her heater is down there and will need to be replaced. The car she left behind was in a few feet of water, its probably toast, and her landscaping was all over. Her shed stayed put simply because its packed to the roof. She's much luckier than many others, who had their houses completely flooded. Neither of my sisters have power, may not for weeks, but my mother does, so I'm happy about that. Worst part was being unable to call my mother, system was down, I could only reach one of my sisters, it was 2 days before I got to talk to my mom. We were sitting pretty, all prepared and good to go, freakish little homesteaders that we are!! I'll be traveling mostly highways tomorrow, 78 and the parkway, they'd have to stop me to rob me. Gas is in very short supply, we filled the generator and have three 5 gallon cans, think I'll just cover them up just in case. I haven't heard of any 'Road Bandits' in Jersey but I'll keep an eye out, desperate people do desperate things. Maggie years ago there was a rash of robberies on 95 in Florida, between Ft Lauderdale and Miami I think, they would have little kids flag down motorists and they'd rob them. Nice eh?

 

[Miss M]

We have so been there! Glad y'all got your power back on so quickly! :razz: We had to show our ID to get back home after Hurricane Ivan, and there were bandits in the city. Good you were prepared for the storm, as so few people do that!!! Take care!

 

[dragonladyleanne]

Road bandits???

:yeahthat: What Honorine and Miss M said!

I didn't have to show ID to get back into Pensacola after Ivan, but I also made it home on gasoline fumes, all the stations south of Montgomery AL were shut down due to either no gas or no power to run the pumps. We saw several "you loot we shoot" signs, and heard stories from friends and neighbors about such scams to rob returning residents, and siphoning of cars left unattended and no gas lock. A week later, we happened to be very near a Home Depot when the car radio reported it was getting a shipment of 2 dozen generators, so we popped off the interstate to see whether we could get one. The store was surrounded on all sides by traffic, plus a full parking lot, only the outside lane of 6 lanes was moving. As we decided to pass, we saw a convoy approaching: a troop transport truck with the canvas rolled up to reveal a dozen Guardsmen with rifles, followed by a flatbed containing the generators, followed by another troop transport and a jeep mounted with 50 caliber machine guns. So, yeah, road bandits exist, and people get stupid when they're desperate.

Glad you and your mom have power, Honorine, hope your 2 sisters (and the rest of the east coast)do soon. {{{hugs}}}

 

[Miss M]

I didn't have to show ID to get back into Pensacola after Ivan,

We were in the Gulf Breeze/Navarre area, which was almost cut off from the mainland, so that's why they were checking IDs I guess. That, and it was really just devastated in much of the area. There were places where we knew there were houses, and now there were just concrete pads. Even some of the concrete pads were gone! Our apartment was unharmed, but there was damage all over the rest of the property.

We saw those signs too. And one that said, "Ashley, I told you to clean your room!" That was on a house that had flooded, and all the possessions and carpet were sitting out in the yard. :lol: It's good to be able to have a sense of humor in a time like that. If you don't laugh, you'll cry, so you may as well laugh!

Being good little domestic -ahem- troublemakers, we had plenty of nonperishable food stored up, an alternate way of cooking it, and plenty of bottled water. We were fine.<br /><br />__________ Fri Nov 02, 2012 11:27 pm __________<br /><br />

The car she left behind was in a few feet of water, its probably toast

Yes, I remember from living on the Delmarva Peninsula that cars weren't particularly fond of salt water! They didn't even have to get wet... just the salt in the air was enough to make them deteriorate!

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Being good little domestic -ahem- troublemakers, we had plenty of nonperishable food stored up, an alternate way of cooking it, and plenty of bottled water. We were fine.

Lol. Troublemakers! Hah!

I can't understand why people do not prepare, especially in areas that are so often devastated by storms. I can understand it a bit more here in CA, where years go by between devastating earthquakes, but people just have no idea how fragile the world they perceive as "normal" is.

Our major issue will be water. We have a 5000 gallon tank, but if there is an extended crisis with no electricity and the inability to replenish our fuel for the generator, we will be in a lot of trouble. We have been looking into wind and solar power for the well, but haven't made a move on it yet.