Shit like this is why I shake my head at the city of Milwaukie (a Portland suburb) passing a city ordinance that decrees all new residential construction be built without use of natural gas or propane. That’s all very nice until your power goes out for a week and your gennie can’t run any of your high load electric appliances and you freeze to death. This is the reason why I made my shed house with propane heating, stove and water heater–I live right down the street from a transformer facility and have remarkably stable electricity but the year I moved here most of the city was without power during a monumental snowstorm and people were still traumatized by it–we first moved into a hard hit apartment complex that was all electric with shitty insulation and it really, really sucked for about a week.
Temp drops haven’t been quite as bad as some, but it’s dropped about 21 degrees F since shortly before sundown (46 down to 25) and the wind is going to beat the band. I have no real reason to go anywhere for the next few days so I think I won’t bother. Hose bibs are wrapped and hoses disconnected, last tap in the house is on drip and I’ll do the same for the kitchen before I go to bed. I have a manual coffee grinder and plenty of foods in the house, including animal food and a big bag o’trachea treats that’ll keep the doggos happy if they have to be indoors for a big ice storm, which is mostly what we’re looking at here. I keep five or six battery banks around to keep my phone and tablet charged and I have plenty to read and a crocheted wool blanket on my bed. I’ll be fine.
My husband had surgery yesterday. He had a toe removed because of osteomyelitis. His surgeon made an appointment for Friday morning about 30 min. away from here. That seems mighty optimistic to me, and I’m pretty sure we are not going to make that appointment.
I just really hope we don’t lose power. We have no alternate heat source, and I can’t see myself hiking out to get one. Can’t really afford it right now and most of the indoor kerosene heaters make me nauseous. We haven’t had a major storm in a lot of years. It should be interesting.
If you do this: make sure your water heater refills before it turns back on. A water heater trying to heat without enough water in it is a hazard.
We’re supposed to have a bit of snow, then quite a bit of rain, then a sudden drastic temperature drop followed by a couple of inches of snow, possibly on top of a layer of ice as the temperature drop hits the rain. All or most of this accompanied by wind gusting as high at some points as into the 40’s MPH.
I did errands today; the stores I was in didn’t seem more than moderately busy. The last “here comes the snow” forecast pretty much fizzled and produced a lot less here than predicted, which may have something to do with it. I don’t trust the current upkeep conditions on the power grid much; but am well supplied with firewood, wood stove I can do some cooking on, food, some water in containers plus there’s a handpump (which I don’t feel like going outside and dealing with in a 40MPH wind with ice storm, hence the containers), various battery-powered lights, and a couple of backup recharges for phone and ipad. I mostly message board on the desktop, though, and if power goes off that goes down (as does the modem, but the phone hotspots; though that does eat battery.) One of the errands was the library, and there’s a good supply of cats and puppy wanting patting; plus seed catalogs and other winter paperwork.
Hmmm, a propane heater may be in the budget. At least we wouldn’t freeze. I was looking at corn burners; I’d love to have one, and they are safe for double wides. The cost alas is beyond us. We need a new roof soon, and that will have to be first in line.
here in the high desert of ca we don’t get real snow too often … last time was maybe 3 years ago and only 3 maybe 4 inches … just enough for Xmas pics and a snowball fight How ever the ski places are happy because most of the mountains around us look like the opening of a paramount picture …
Now what we do get is freezing cold and 80 mph winds , which sce says they’ll have to turn off the electricity because of "fire hazards " aka we’ve never replaced our crappy equipment from 1922 so it might burn down the rest of la county …
Yeah, I have one of those, too, but I discovered it’s a useless backup for my coffee preferences. I use a lot of beans and I like them ground fine.
The first time I used the manual, I spent (what felt like) 2 hours cranking a handle around and around and around like some brain-damaged chimpanzee, waiting for a jack-in-the-box to spring forth from its case. Instead when I opened the catchment drawer, there were only a few crumbs of sad little broken coffee beans, barely enough to brew a thimbleful of coffee. I’d have made better progress if I’d used a mallet.
It’s probably just a shitty manual grinder. But since that experience, I’ve found it much easier to just use the ol’ electric unit to whiz a batch or two ahead when it looks like outage weather.
I also keep a few pods of that cold-brew concentrate around to use in a pinch. I boil water and add it to the concentrate. No one would mistake it for the best cup of coffee they ever had, but it’s better than going without when the pre-ground beans run out.
I can endure anything so long as I get a cup of hot coffee in the mornings.
I was born NYE of 1954. Less than a month later, in January of 55 an ice storm cut power to a lot ot our city. The first night my parents put me between them in their bed to keep me warm, and the next morning arranged to take me to the home of friends who had a wood burning stove, and I could be warm in their kitchen. I hope nobody loses power town tonight, with a baby.
Either it’s a really shitty grinder, or quite possibly it’s not adjusted right. Mine has a nut holding the handle on which also adjusts tension between the grinding plates – if they’re too close together it’s super hard to grind and produces only a bit of dust, if they’re too far apart it produces chunks.
But grinding some ahead is also a perfectly good workaround if you generally use a plug-in electric.
That’s what they’re predicting here now too; and, while they’re still predicting a lot of wind, the maximum gust speed expected has come down a bit.
I think the main question is whether we’ll get significant ice at the changeover; and whether the wind will bring anything down on the power lines.
Friday and saturday in Ohio is to be 4-10 inches of snow, which isn’t a problem. Its the winds, supposing to gust up to 50 mph. I hate wind. That, combined with wind chills below 0, I am going to be praying…fortunately, where I’ll be staying has a warming center nearby.
Next time I ask for a White Christmas, I’m going to be more explicit about the date. Not a “White Near-Christmas” or a “White Almost-XMas.” The thing itself.
Don’t go to Costco in SE Michigan today unless you enjoy being stuck in several lines with idiots. I just went to the pharmacy, and it’s a mad house at the checkouts, the gas station, the entrances, and the exits. I slide thru in 45 minutes, but I could see people there for over 2 hours or more.
I’m scheduled for a root canal at 7:00 AM tomorrow and I’ll have to drive through a blizzard, in the dark, at -15F to get there. Does life get any better than this?
Here in southern Ontario it looks like we’re just going to get the fringe edges of this big storm. The weather service is going on about warnings but the only thing they seem to be warning about is potentially poor visibility due to high winds and blowing snow, although the actual amount of snow is not predicted to be more than about 4 cm, or about 1½ inches. The very small amount of snow is due to a weather phenomenon called “Wolfpup once again getting sucked in to a fixed-price plowing service”. I expect the nearly non-existent snowfall to continue the rest of the winter. Right now it’s partly sunny with temperatures above seasonal. Rain is expected this afternoon.
