Deep Freeze: Aftermath

[fitzw]

It's over, except where it isn't.

We have had our power restored, but there are still people in our town and neighboring towns that haven't. Some grammar schools were converted into shelters, and aren't open for classes. There are still roads that are partially blocked by fallen limbs and whole trees. Yards and driveways are covered by branches and more trees. Without power, some people don't have working phones, no longer having phones that can run just off the power from the phone lines. For others, the phone lines are still down.

Crews are out, clearing debris and repairing damage. There are reports that some areas of the power grid essentially had to be rebuilt from the ground up, replacing everything, rather than just splicing and restringing cable. Utility trucks and crews came from neighboring states, and there are reports that some have even come down from Canada to areas north of us.

News reports don't really begin to cover what it was like, and our farm really only got the edge of it. Two miles away, the damage was much more severe, much more visible. I only had to haul one tree limb from across the end of the main driveway -- other places have whole trees to deal with.

In my daily record, I skipped over certain things in reporting some of the details, and missed some activities altogether. The posts become more general by Sunday's report, not just because I was typing a lot in a short period, but because the details begin to blur after several days of the emerging routine. We were caught at that point in the stage between where everything is in emergency mode, and settling in to the day to day routine of working without electrical power. Those days of transition are anything but restful, as you figure out where your preparations are lacking, what substitutions you are going to need to make.

I don't recall mentioning what it was like to be working outdoors during the rain and wet snow on Friday morning, clearing limbs and diverting runoff from the basement, all while hearing the crack-boom of trees breaking in the near distance, echoing off of the hillsides (I know I mentioned it in some replies in posts by helwen, and may have included them in my own posts, but I'm not going to go back and check right now).

I recall the silence in the house, without the quiet background murmur and hum of electrical appliances, the refrigerators, the freezers, the circulating pumps for the heating system. I remember the eagerness of the chickens when I carried in a pail of water for their feeder.

I recall working in the kitchen with helwen in the early evening hours after dark on Friday, doing food preparation chores that we had been putting off, such as her cutting up apples to make applesauce, and me cutting up another of the butternut squash. Both being placed into covered bowls and moved out to the back attic, rather than bothering to put them into the refrigerator, which we wouldn't actually empty for two more days (shortly before our power was restored). These will probably be cooked today.

Early on, I thought about how my parents were going to deal with the lack of one of their primary entertainments, following the news and weather on the television. For that reason, I brought down my crank radio for my father to listen to on Friday night. On Saturday night, I brought down the radio with rechargable batteries in it (it has an internal power pack for the dynamo), because my father said that the dynamo didn't charge the radio for a long enough period of time.

When our power was restored, my mother searched in vain for news reports of the ice storm in our area. I think that by the time that we got power again, the news had moved on to other things -- the ice storm was no longer breaking news. The newspapers this morning had much more information than the TV news did.

There was the hauling of food scraps to the chickens, which are really no closer to the outside door than hauling the scraps over the retaining wall to the compost heap, but the compost heap isn't so eager to get the scraps that it will peck at your boots.

There was the image on one of the nights of a small, old pumpkin, rolling down the slope of the compost heap, rather than sinking into the top layer of leaves, because the leaves have frozen solid with the ice. It didn't stop rolling for at least 25 feet, vanishing into the darkness.

There was the joking that the power would have been restored that much sooner if I had just started work on repairing that electrical outlet earlier than I did.

On Sunday, I began washing dishes, because there is just so long you can go without washing your dishes, even when the power is out. My mother was doing the same downstairs, which she really dislikes because she can't bend over at the sink for as long as she used to be able to do.

BTW, a power outage can remind you of why it is a good idea not to let dishes pile up in the sink at any given time...

For washing dishes, I kept a 5 qt. pot of water heating over the woodstove, and a bucket of cold spring water beside the sink. We only have one sink stopper at this time, so only one sink can retain water. Dishes were washed in the sink in a mix of the the hot water and the spring water, and rinsed in the bucket. I decided to wear latex gloves for this, not because the water in the sink was hot, but because the rinse water was so cold. When the wash water got overly dirty, I would drain the sink and put in more hot water, using some of the rinse water to cool it to a tolerable level. I was getting a good rhythm going, talking about how I might just wash dishes that way from now on.

There was opening and closing of the barn doors, depending on the temperature outdoors. This occurs whether or not there is power, but it was one more task to be included while doing all of those necessary to make it through the storm and its aftermath.

Later in the week, we will have to go out into the woods to check for damaged trees there, to finish taking them down where necessary.

I still use the flashlight when I go into the basement to check on the heating system...

Comments

[prince-hring.livejournal.com]

Thank you, L., for your multi-part story!

And, yes, a backup generator can be a very useful item... if you can figure out a way to keep fuel around for it.

We had a bit of an ice storm up here, with trees bent and broken all over the place, but we didn't (or, at least, I didn't) have any long lasting power outages: just a few "bumps". I was, however, grateful for how I heat my house (a gravity fed, oil drip pot burner with a convective aerator i.e. no need for electric power)... it left me free from worry about getting cold.

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

I intend to look into multiple-fuel generators if I can find one in the right size.

The main issue will probably be wiring, as we will want to isolate the controllers for the circulators from the controllers for the rest of the heating system, which includes the oil-fired boiler. I had a discussion about it with my brother W this evening, so the thoughts are there, but I'm trained as an electrical engineer, not an electrician, so we will probably have to get an outside contractor to consult with.

I also discussed with my father the possibility of including the pressure pump for the water, but that's not essential with the spring water being available.

[prince-hring.livejournal.com]

I had my place wired to take a generator.

An auxiliary box is placed near the main box. A switch is mounted so that the aux-box feeds either from a bar on the main box or from the generator. The circuits that need to be powered by the generator are then moved from the main box to the aux box.

For me, that's the pump, refrigerator, microwave (!), and the main lighting circuits.

As for multi-fuel: not necessary.

If you are using a gasoline generator, you just need to rotate your supply. Since you have a tractor, I assume that you are already rotating supply.

If you choose propane, you exchange a lot of little headaches for one medium sized one. It doesn't go bad over time, but you do have to concern yourself with keeping the tank(s) full enough for an emergency.

My $0.02 + tax.