CCCCold!!!

[gpoehlein]

Well, after a little over a day without access, I'm finally back online. Tuesday evening, we got hit with that nasty ice storm that rampaged through the center of the US. It funneled right down the Ohio River Valley and we got hammered. I woke up tuesday night about 2:30 to the sounds of tree limbs breaking, then about 3 the power went out. They said in our area (Southwestern Indiana), over 75000 people were out of power yesterday. Today there are only 55000 still out. Some of us may not have our power back before next week.

This morning the house was down to 45 degrees. Thankfully, my girlfriend's house got power back late last night, so I gathered up the cats and "moved in". Since I got her set up with wireless a couple months ago, I'm online again! (Suffering TRF and YORS withdrawal!)

Oh, and it looks like I may be off work for a few days - the dairy I work at is in Madisonville KY and pretty much the whole city is shut down. My boss just told me that the city may not get power back to the plant before Monday. I don't think I've ever seen a storm this bad (lots of snow, yes, but the ice in the trees has been a total nightmare.)

 

[madsen]

That is horrible, and we all wish you and your neighbors the best. On a slightly positive note during this time of emergency--you could use your down time in efforts to think how to combat global warming. I saw Big All on TV yesterday saying that we were killing the planet--and everything was melting. Truly disturbing. P.S. I love cats. They never kick you out--and are perfectly content if you just rub their belly once in a while.

 

[FROB]

Man, i can sympathize. Went 10 days without power in the great ice storm of 98. One thing you might want to do if you expect the power to stay off more than a day or 2 in very cold weather is to shut off the water and drain the pipes so they don't freeze and burst, and leave you with a flood when it warms up again. It happened to a lot of people around here. I hope the power comes back soon for you and the weather cooperates.
good luck

 

[dave carver]

Oh, and it looks like I may be off work for a few days - the dairy I work at is in Madisonville KY and pretty much the whole city is shut down. My boss just told me that the city may not get power back to the plant before Monday. I don't think I've ever seen a storm this bad (lots of snow, yes, but the ice in the trees has been a total nightmare.)

....how do you not milk the cows? They don't care if everybody is frozen out, they just keep on producing.

I'm guessing you work in a milk processing plant, never to hear the cows in udder pain

 

[jflis]

I feel for ya... we had an ice storm this winter that knocked out about 80+% of the state (NH), some of it for nearly 2 weeks...

They aren't fun. Not at all...

Pretty though, at least that first day...

 

[AKPilot]

I hate, hate, hate, ice storms. Because of them, and other severe storm issues, we're strongly considering a home generator.

 

[Peartree]

I hate, hate, hate, ice storms. Because of them, and other severe storm issues, we're strongly considering a home generator.

Got one for Y2K and to work on our farm (when we had one) where there was no electricity (like out at the barn). It has saved us (and all our frozen food) on several occasions. Notably the ice storm in Ohio that left us without power for four days a couple years ago.

 

[DAllen]

You know, I will take a blizzard with 24 inches of snow, howling winds and single digit temps over an ice storm any day. Ice storms scare me because they more often than not knock out power for days upon days at a time and lengthen emergency crew response times.

-DAllen

 

[n5wd]

Well, after a little over a day without access, I'm finally back online. ...

We feel for ya, man... the ice storm moved through here Tuesday all day and Wednesday morning... finally got to get out Wednesday evening a bit had got hit by a jerk driving too fast for the conditions. Luckily no real damage. Back to school on Thursday - still have some ice in the front yard in the shade, but it's losing the battle with our 60F high today. Tomorrow's supposed to be even better with a high of 70F.

But, as the weather man said Wednesday morning.. "Hang in there - spring is only 8 weeks away!"

 

[gpoehlein]

Well, I've been living over at my girlfriend's house for a day now, and just found out my power came back on about 11AM this morning (friday). Gonna stay one more night anyway - the cats are just settling in and I don't want to move them back until tomorrow. Besides, with the dairy still down (the boss said yesterday that they likely won't get power back until Sunday or Monday), I'm getting in a little quality time with my lady. Not to mention better food too!

No real damage - just a couple of small limbs down in the yard and the pipes held up OK. If I keep power through tomorrow (the thaw will be here and they are warning about limb snap-back rebreaking power lines) we should be back to normal.

 

[atticus]

"....how do you not milk the cows? They don't care if everybody is frozen out, they just keep on producing.
I'm guessing you work in a milk processing plant, never to hear the cows in udder pain."


Enquiring minds want to know.

 

[gpoehlein]

"....how do you not milk the cows? They don't care if everybody is frozen out, they just keep on producing.
I'm guessing you work in a milk processing plant, never to hear the cows in udder pain."


Enquiring minds want to know.

I'm the QA manager for a milk processing plant. The milk is delivered in tankers from the farms. Because we are down, the milk is being sent to another plant (in this case, it is a plant that powders the milk). I have to say this has been a unique situation - I've been working in or managing dairy laboratories for 27 years and this is the first time I've ever had the plant closed due to inclement weather. It doesn't happen very often - we try to run no matter what the conditions are outside. But you can't run pumps, motors and fillers without electricity.

 

[kelltym88]

It is amazing to me how one part of the country gets inundated with harsh, extreme weather, and another part gets nothing. Living in SoCal, we had our storm season during the holidays when we got about an inch of rain, and that made headline news. Too bad there isn't a way to funnel some of the excess water from back east to the west coast. Global warming, could be.


Hope all is well with everyone affected by the storm.

 

[Peartree]

It is amazing to me how one part of the country gets inundated with harsh, extreme weather, and another part gets nothing. Living in SoCal, we had our storm season during the holidays when we got about an inch of rain, and that made headline news. Too bad there isn't a way to funnel some of the excess water from back east to the west coast. Global warming, could be.


Hope all is well with everyone affected by the storm.

An INCH is headline news?

Jeez, we suck up an inch without much of a thought. I forget the conversion of snow to water but I've got several inches of rain wrapped up in the foot of snow in my yard right now.

 

[MysticalRockets]

An INCH is headline news?

Jeez, we suck up an inch without much of a thought. I forget the conversion of snow to water but I've got several inches of rain wrapped up in the foot of snow in my yard right now.

Brother, I know how you feel.

When I was younger, it took a real blizzard (1979) to close the schools. And if the Governor hadn't closed the roads to all but emergency traffic, they wouldn't have closed them even then.

Now they close them for the whole day and IT HASN'T EVEN STARTED SNOWING YET!!!

We don't get snow like we used to here. We've had one real snowstorm here (9 inches), and a bunch of 1-2 inches ones. Schools have been closed 6 times.

 

[H_Rocket]

I forget the conversion of snow to water

I believe it is 10:1

 

[Uncrichie]

For those inquiring minds, all dairy operations that use vacuum machines for milking operations have quite hefty backup generator systems. The cows would die if not milked! Uncrichie.

 

[Peartree]

For those inquiring minds, all dairy operations that use vacuum machines for milking operations have quite hefty backup generator systems. The cows would die if not milked! Uncrichie.

And because of the, many farmers have back-ups to the back-up systems. One of the guys in our church has a PTO driven generator beefy enough to run the entire milking system as well has the rest of the barn and his house. Its been needed more than once.

 

[gpoehlein]

Finally back to work today - we still don't have power at the plant (at least we didn't last night), but we have some generators running so we can at least pump the old (and by now, spoiled) milk out of the tanks in preparation for cleaning the tanks and getting back up and running when the power does come back. We're hoping that will happen today. (Power is finally coming back up in Madisonville, Kentucky - pretty much the whole town was shut down.)

Remember, I'm talking about a milk processing plant here (I HAVE worked for a dairy cooperative in the past so I know a lot about the producer end as well). We've probably had to dispose of over 50,000 gallons of milk, which is a HUGE expense. Thank God for insurance. I've been off for the last four days, but now, as QA manager, my work is gonna start kicking in.

Of course, until power comes back, no internet at work. So I won't get back in here for at least 10-12 hours (oh no - withdrawal again!!! )