New Jersey? Check. Snow storm? Check.
I think your conditions have been met. Enjoy your electric stove.
We had about five inches or so of wet snow that caused a lot of damage to the electricity grid. We lost power for about three hours on Saturday, but people in a neighboring township are still without power, and may not have power until Friday at the earliest. PPL, our local electric utility, has been working to get the problem taken care of, and has brought in crews from out of state to try to speed things up.
Part of the reason why the snowstorm was such a problem here was because it was so early; no one had the opportunity to prepare for it. It’s not like we get a lot of snow to begin with, but we don’t usually get it until at least December.
Still no power (since about 8:45pm Saturday), and no ETA on restoration. It’s not exactly like I live out in the sticks, either. :mad:
In West Hartford, CT–no heat, no power, no fireplace, no sign of CL&P crews. The half of a tree that fell into the power lines on my street is still there. And no predictions of when the power will be restored. I was able to get a tepid, low pressure shower at the gym so that’s something…
PSNH estimates 95% restored in my town by Thursday, 99% by Friday. Got a shower and filled my water cans at my sister-in-law’s, whose power came on last night. I got a 23,000btu kerosene heater today, should keep the house warm.
Thundersnow right now in Boulder, CO.
Northern NJ here.
No power for us for about 25 hours. We now have everything back. However the town is a mess. Downed tree limbs everywhere and power outages at regular intervals. The power flickers for a few seconds and then comes back on. The library’s closed and so is city hall. There’s no school for the third day in a row tomorrow. At one point my block was blocked off in three places from huge fallen tree limbs. A neighbor’s car missed being hit by a tree branch by about half an inch. When I last ventured out late Sunday night we had no town traffic lights.
They also cancelled trick or treating much to my poor daughter’s disgust. We made her homemade chocolate chip cookies to make up for it.
The problem, again, as stated before, was that the trees still had their leaves, meaning they held a LOT more snow, and a LOT more limbs and trees came down, many onto power lines. Here is one in front of my house: http://gallery2.opalcat.com/gallery2/v/Miscellaneous/weather_related/tree_in_power_lines_2011.jpg.html
Central CT checking in. No power since Sat around 9 pm. Been trekking between home and a hotel, but stayed home last night because I didn’t want to leave the dog again and I worry about the house. Will head back to hotel soon to charge, shower and be warm. My elderly parents (from W. Hartford) have been at the hotel with my sister, so they are warm.
Western Mass here- Pioneer Valley. Lost power at about 8:30 Saturday night after a few hours of flickering. I’m in semi-farmland but close enough to the main part of town that I haven’t lost power overnight in the three previous winters here. Til now! It came back on at 4am yesterday (Tuesday) morning. Cable/internet was still out when I went to bed last night but on when I woke up this morning. No work still, as my workplace still has no power.
All in all I’ve been really lucky, it’s been more like impromptu winter cabin camping than anything else. It hasn’t been bitter cold, so the lack of heat hasn’t been a problem (oil furnace, but need power for the thermostat). I’m on town water so no well to worry about, and my water heater is on a self contained propane system, no power needed! Candlelight hot showers meant I promised never to complain about the separate bill again - I’ve always been a little frustrated by having to pay for power, oil and propane to three different companies on three different schedules but now I see the wisdom! We stayed up chatting by candlelight on Saturday with my roommate and her husband who was visiting her on his way to Texas. His flight on Sunday out of Hartford was canceled, so they found a hotel room to hole up and have a little lovebird night with the lights on. We stuck around - went out to Target and bought more candles, batteries and beef jerkey. Shopping in the emergency lighting was interesting. I really felt for everyone loading up on bottled water 
After that just kind of hunkered down for the day, eating up cheese, crackers and veggies from the warming fridge. Luckily didn’t have anything to get stinky. Read books and tried to teach ourselves to play “Go” after dark.
By Monday the power was back on in the business district, so we went up to get a big bag of charcoal and non-scented candles since the ones from Target the day before were giving me a headache. Also ice for the freezer and cigarettes for the smoker of the house. When I chucked the ice in the freezer I checked for thaw-age and pulled some brats that were going soft. Threw them on the grill with a sweet potato and a pot of beans with onions and had a really good hot meal. Also was able to boil water for tea on the charcoal grill in my Pyrex tea kettle. Was happy about that. For dinner I fired up the grill again and made tomato-basil soup with a package of summer tomato goop and also tuna melts. The melts were a little blackened for my taste, but that nice guy of mine loves them that way so it was a win. Plus more tea. Discovered I had a full charge on my travel DVD player so we got to watch a movie.
All in all very little inconvenience and I was happy to learn how well prepared we were without having actually specifically prepared at all. The one sad thing is the huge oak in the yard lost two huge limbs, each the size of a respectable tree itself. I think it will survive, and nothing got crushed, but I love that tree and hate to think about it getting damaged. I thought my landlord was going to cry when he came over to check it out on Monday.
Exactly. I’ve been living in my current house for about 10 years and been through some big snowstorms, including one two-footer. I’ve NEVER had anything remotely like the amount of live tree limbs that came down in my yard from this 2 inches of snow and sleet.
We lost the huge pine that gave our house shade in the summer last spring, I know how he feels. At my grandfathers summer cottage there was an oak stump 5 feet in diameter. I would have loved to have seen it when it was alive. There are some huge copper beeches at the O’Neil Theater park on Long Island Sound, I hope thye are doing ok, they are massively impressive.
@Opalcat your road looks about like ours, nicely rural. [nice knife juggling, the random pic that popped up]
Sorry, I have no sympathy for CL&P. Instead of paying out huge bonuses and dividends they should start moving their infrastructure underground. They know that there are trees and storms in New England. They should also perhaps consider keeping linemen employed. 10 linemen for eastern CT is a bit absurd.
CL&P is on my “I’m looking at you angrily” list. I’m beyond pissed off.
Our lines are underground but transfer to poles in front of the park next door. We still have outages.
Have you guys considered generators? I just paid to get (it is not installed yet) a generator that would power half of my house comfortably, and once it is installed it will be a great peace of mind relief.
During Irene we were dark for 5 days. With a 1-month old baby. I vowed never again.
Just ordered a generator. We never lost power before, so this was an early shock. It’s a small one, but it will help!
Yup, this. I got a robo-call at lunch today telling me how CL&P was doing the best they could to have everyone up and running and it should be done by Sunday evening, and I almost threw my phone at the wall.
A generator is useless to me, unfortunately, as I’m in an apartment building. A quite nice one, actually, with all of our lines underground. Unfortunately, there’re some pretty messed up lines a street or two away - one semi-major road was still closed for a half-mile portion when I left for work this morning.
The most frustrating part is definitely that several other buildings in the same complex I am in have had power since early this past Sunday evening; they are apparently on the same grid as some major retail/entertainment areas nearby, while my half of the complex is on the poor, pathetic residential grid.
If I had a kid or owned my house I’d be thinking about it, but as it is the cost plus the hassle of keeping gas around outweighs any benefit I’d get. I am casting around for a propane camping stove, one or two burners. My boyfriend says his family has one they don’t use anymore, we might get to snag it. Keeping 3-4 Coleman canisters around is do-able and being able to boil water without lighting up the charcoal would be great. I have a nice big enclosed porch that I could safely run a stove on with the door open. My roommate’s from Colorado and told me that her parents have a battery-operated thermostat so they can have heat when the power’s out, and I want to look into that possibility.
Aruvqan, “my” oak is about 5ft diameter. Last summer my niece and I had fun seeing how many people we needed to recruit to hold hands around it (5 including 2 little ones). The canopy is probably as big around as my house, which I forget and seeing the branches on the ground reminded me.
No generator for us because A) we can’t afford it and B) we rent. Fortunately we estimate we were only without power/water for 32 hours.
I rent, and I have a generator.
Stil no power/heat/water. Day 5.