Are you ready for Sandy?

solar_dave

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

crewzer wrote: »

Well, new reports suggest that a lot of people and animals need a bit of help after this storm. We've made donations to the American Red Cross and to the Humane Society.

Regards to all,
Jim / crewzer

I would if I had a damn job, got laid off yesterday after 7 and a half years of service. It is going to be hard to find a job at my age.

BB.

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

Dave--My condolences and best wishes to you and your family--I know there is not much I can say that makes it any better.

-Bill

solar_dave

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

BB. wrote: »

Dave--My condolences and best wishes to you and your family--I know there is not much I can say that makes it any better.

-Bill

Thanks Bill, the wife and I are survivors. We have no debt and a pretty good retirement nest egg, it is just a few years too early to really access it and it really needs that last few years to finish it up. At least I got some severance and about 4+ months of health insurance paid. It is never an opportune time, but we have an signed contact for a kitchen remodel that is about half finished and probably would not have pulled that out of our regular savings if we had any inkling.

CDN_VT

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

westbranch wrote: »

try this one Niel, a bit slow to load even on DSL.

url]

Yes very slow Westbranch , Try Canuk Rudolf's View .


Pick your Times and then hit play. Remember were timed at Mean Grinch , That Dr Zipp.

You can view the entire world , Cdn, Brit, Au/Nz , Indian also.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also sorry to hear S-dave , But now is more time to get things in order.. keep busy & a smile .

VT

Edit add:
Not to be rude , US Nasa : http://weather.msfc.nasa.gov/GOES/goeswestpacusir.html

westbranch

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

VT that is my normal weather site, but the radar version doesn't go too far S of the 49... so it misses out NY and environs...

techntrek

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

Sorry to hear about that solar_dave.

34 hours without power now, we lost it at 11:30 am yesterday. We were one of the first in our power company's area, yay. Looks like everyone north of the eye got the worst of the storm, west and south were mostly spared (excluding the 2-foot blizzard in the Appalachains). We had one tree that snapped far from the house so I don't have to deal with that right now - not bad since our house is surrounded by them. Other than that a few twigs in the driveway, and every remaining leaf is now on the ground.

Running on Prius power right now, I've also used the battery bank and big genset for some of this down time.

waynefromnscanada

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

solar_dave wrote: »

got laid off yesterday after 7 and a half years of service.

Very sorry Dave. That really sucks. Hopefully things quickly take a turn for the better.

niel

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

westbranch,
thanks for the link, but i have a good internet connection to view satellite weather views. forecasts and other aspects of meteorology can't be derived by somebody like me that well even though i sometimes do extrapolate correctly based on in motion sat views. i wanted to hear professional weathermen's opinions rather than the same damage reviews over and over again.

btw, i like the views from weather underground and they sometimes refer to it as wunderground.
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?brand=wxmap&query=pittsburgh+pa&theprefset=15005199999WS&theprefvalue=KAGC

techntrek,
i figured you'd lose it being that close to the eye and if it hadn't pooped out it would've done the same farther west towards me. i guess losing the ocean to fuel it along with hitting the mountains was enough to take out some of the danger further west. it's still quite allot of rain lingering here which, by itself, can cause some minor flooding and loosened some trees of their foothold. any estimate on when things may return to normal over there? it looks like it's still cloudy over your way. did i mention it's still raining here.:grr

crewzer,
that's a good thing to do if one can spare it. kudos.

solar dave,
sorry to hear that as losing your job always stinks.

crewzer

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

solar_dave wrote: »

I would if I had a damn job, got laid off yesterday after 7 and a half years of service. It is going to be hard to find a job at my age.

Dave,

Bad news

Yeah, the age thing is becoming a issue. However, if you've got marketable skills and a good track record, then you're in a good position, IMHO. No mortgage also helps.

Best of luck!
Jim / crewzer

ggunn

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

solar_dave wrote: »

I would if I had a damn job, got laid off yesterday after 7 and a half years of service. It is going to be hard to find a job at my age.

I feel your pain. I suddenly lost my well paid engineering job in semiconductors after 22 years of service in November of 2008 and it took this no longer nearly a spring chicken nearly 3 years to claw myself back into the work force. It could hardly have come at a worse time for me; at least for you the job market is not losing 600k+ jobs a month like it was when I got kicked to the curb. It was a very dark time in my life; at first I was paralyzed by the experience. Another engineer at the same company I worked for who got laid off at the same time as me killed himself a month after it happened.

But you are doing some things right. Like you, I had no debt when my career hit the skids, and not having a house note, car note(s), credit card bills, etc. gave me the breathing room I needed to reinvent myself yet again. Now I design commercial solar systems; I recently passed the 1MW milestone.

Good luck to you and your family. Never give up.

solarvic

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

Niel, I just got a ROKU at Walmart a couple weeks ago. It works very good on DSL. It has a program on it called Tune in that has the wunderground radio and NOAA radio stations. The Roku cost $59.95. First I bought a panasonic smart tv and liked it enough that I bought the ROKU to turn my dumb tv into a smart tv. I am about 80 miles north of you and lost a couple trees in my woods but this time it didn,t cause a power outage. :Dsolarvic

niel

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

i don't need a weather radio as my ham gear could pick that up. i did settle for the local news to give me the updates i wanted, but mine was more of a rant on the weather channel as they would dump their drink to look at their watch. don't ask my reasoning.

some trees fell here too with a few slides as well, but luckily not from behind me. i do need to find a good durable tarp to throw over my pantry roof. i guess i need to venture back there tomorrow to take some measurements to know just how big of one i need.

the reason the power didn't go out is because you are prepared for it. i did see it blink off here today, but nothing during the heavier wind and rain.

speaking of weather, i thought i saw a flurry or 2 early today. it will gradually get colder for both of us as sandy moves further upward. for a change, you and i did not get clobbered with snow as sandy brought in warmer air to us while the front pumped cold air to the south of us.

Blackcherry04

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

One thing about watching the aftermath of Sandy I can identify some of the flaws in my back-up plan. We had a Ice storm that took me out for 10 days a couple years ago and I had to do a lot of Mc Guyvering to get by. One thing I learned is there no way you can count on any Solar PV's unless you prevent them being involved in the disaster, that I don't know how to do. I had the same issue with Fuel, no stations could pump, but I had 50 gallons in cars, trucks and cans. I ended up sheltering another family so I could use their resources and he had a 4 wheel drive and we could replenish from a farther distance away.

I am open to hearing some of your plans and how many days do you plan for.

mtdoc

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

Lots of firewood. More than one generator. Propane storage and ability to run one of my generators on propane (with plans to convert another one to triple fuel as well). And one of THESE to easily transfer gas from vehicles. Food and water. Don't know exactly how many days but hopefully I will never need to find out

techntrek

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

niel wrote: »

techntrek,
i figured you'd lose it being that close to the eye and if it hadn't pooped out it would've done the same farther west towards me. i guess losing the ocean to fuel it along with hitting the mountains was enough to take out some of the danger further west. it's still quite allot of rain lingering here which, by itself, can cause some minor flooding and loosened some trees of their foothold. any estimate on when things may return to normal over there? it looks like it's still cloudy over your way. did i mention it's still raining here.:grr

We ended up getting our power back Wednesday evening, 55 hours total. It was still drizzling today! Looking at the pics from NY/NJ I'm amazed we dodged the bullet.

niel

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

blackcherry04,
not sure who you were asking. if me then i can say with confidence that i am not prepared, but may last for a small amount of time before things are too uncomfortable or get dangerous. circumstances will vary my survivability time.

techntrek,
did your solar come through for you? if you know, were outages down there prevalent or rare? from a weather aspect can you tell us what you saw?

Blackcherry04

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

I have made a lot of changes. Got Honda EU 2000 and a second Inverter with 2 GC-2's @ 12 V that allows me to charge and use the inverter as the spike catcher. I store more water and can use a 12 V pump for pressure. I store more Fuel and Food.

One of the biggest things I did was to install a sewer cut off valve. The city could not pump the sewers ( No Electricity ) and they all backed up into the houses. They finally had to cut the water off because of the flooding sewers. My cutoff was a cheap investment.

Eric L

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

I am open to hearing some of your plans and how many days do you plan for.

We got lots of "practice" a few years ago with hurricane Ivan (about one week of no power) and then Katrina (over two weeks). Our 4KW gen ran our well pump for water, and provided power for a few hours/day, although we couldn't run it longer since fuel supplies were a problem after Katrina. Between the generator and an outdoor cookstove and we were basically set, although it was not always comfortable and the insects were terrible.

If our current solar power system survives another storm like Katrina, and I did my best to build it so that it would, we would now be pretty comfortable once the sun returned. In fact, we'd have all amenities except the electric dryer and electric range. I also now have a much larger organic garden and am better at cooking outside (using a dutch oven in a fire pit and a better campstove) than I was then.

Although the hurricanes of '04-5 weren't my only motivation for all these subsequent changes, they certainly encouraged me. So in that sense they were a benefit.

BB.

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

Heard from my brother in Long Island (a few miles from coast)... They lost a tree and lots of chain sawing to clean up. No power for a couple days, but back up now (I think he had a genset). Filled up the car and lots of gas cans--so they are OK at the moment. Can buy food, etc...

Office is closed because of no power (no computer files/communications). Gasoline is still hard to get and could not really go to customers' sites as part of their business right now anyway.

At the coast, it looks like bombed out cities from WWII in some areas.

-Bill

Cariboocoot

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

Right now I'm feeling mighty lucky to live where I do. Okay, we have to put up with -40 Winters and snow up to our waists sometimes and maybe the place will burn down during forest fire season, but on the whole we don't suffer like you poor folks out there in the paths of hurricanes/tornadoes/earthquakes/et cetera.

solar_dave

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

Cariboocoot wrote: »

Right now I'm feeling mighty lucky to live where I do. Okay, we have to put up with -40 Winters and snow up to our waists sometimes and maybe the place will burn down during forest fire season, but on the whole we don't suffer like you poor folks out there in the paths of hurricanes/tornadoes/earthquakes/et cetera.

Yeah ditto. We have to put up with 110-120F heat mid summer and perhaps a monsoon blow with some hail every now and then but it nothing like the coastal areas.

niel

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

coot,
you don't get quakes where you are? well, even if you don't all it would take is a major eruption of one of the volcanoes around you and then you've got trouble.

solar dave,
it seems there have been some minor quakes around you. i'm looking at google earth's quake designations.

Cariboocoot

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

Niel;

Not too close to the volcanoes here either. And so far they haven't so much as burped. That quake in the Queen Charlottes (also far from here) didn't do too much damage really either.

I lived in NY near Retsof when the salt mine there collapsed. That was noticeable and did do a lot of damage, some of which has yet to occur according to the geologists.

niel

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

coot,
you don't need to be close to a volcano and if the wind blows your way you could have troubles. the gas does not have to be that thick either to start reflecting sunlight away from your pvs.

Cariboocoot

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

niel wrote: »

coot,
you don't need to be close to a volcano and if the wind blows your way you could have troubles. the gas does not have to be that thick either to start reflecting sunlight away from your pvs.

That's what we get with the forest fires.

niel

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

case closed as things happen up there.:D

RandomJoe

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

I've always said I'd happily take the natural disasters here in Oklahoma over what you find on the coasts! So many I've talked with say they'd be terrified of tornados, but really they are a "point source" of damage when compared to hurricanes, earthquakes, and such. Yes, with a large enough one complete devastation where it hits but a block outside that things are still standing and a mile away completely untouched. We're also so saturated with storm-tracking tech here that you know a tornado is coming well in advance. (I'm always amazed at the step back in time when I go on trips and see weather reports in other parts of the country. I get so used to the bleeding-edge gadgetry they use here.)

Of course, things have gotten a bit more "extreme" over the years. We now seem to get several storms with huge hailstones every spring, I know some people who have had to replace their roof 3-4 times in the past five years! We even had a series of earthquakes not long ago - think the largest was 5.8? Not particularly large, but quite an experience for those of us who'd never felt that before! And the every-few-years ice storms have left large swathes without power for extended periods.

Still nothing anywhere near the scale of the east-coast hurricanes and California-style quakes!

niel

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

joe,
i guess the point is there's always going to be something somewhere at some time that is going to be bad to whatever degree. hurricanes are not normal for pittsburgh, but once in awhile the remnants do hit us and cause major flooding.

i'm also a bit confused as to sandy's status when it hit the coast as i was under the impression it was still a 90mph hurricane that fizzled quickly as it moved further inland. they are calling it a superstorm. isn't that what hurricanes and tropical storms basically are? the actual designation is important though for those who need to prepare and i've heard some insurance companies would require the hurricane designation or they wouldn't pay out. if a hurricane is just a few miles off shore packing hurricane force winds, i would certainly think those winds would be impacting those just a few miles inland with hurricane force winds. once the eye hits landfall it will lose its umph (strength) to one degree or another, but to those just a few miles inland it still looks the same with bad results.

what do i know?

mtdoc

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

Cariboocoot wrote: »

Right now I'm feeling mighty lucky to live where I do. Okay, we have to put up with -40 Winters and snow up to our waists sometimes and maybe the place will burn down during forest fire season, but on the whole we don't suffer like you poor folks out there in the paths of hurricanes/tornadoes/earthquakes/et cetera.

Similar for me. Reaistically the worse case natural disaster here would be a forest fire. My solar and generators would be useless in that scenario as we would likely evacuate... Fortunately the forest here is mixed cedar, hemlock and doug fir and is wet enough that big fires are rare. On the other hand it's wet here because of lots rain - not so good for solar

Earthquakes I don't worry too much about. I lived through several earthquakes in California. In a woodframed house (built to code) you're pretty safe. A large enough earthquake could generate a large tsunami that would take out the Grid here - and gas stations- and grocery stores - but we're at 1900 feet so our place is safe.

Eric L

Re: Are you ready for Sandy?

I've always said I'd happily take the natural disasters here in Oklahoma over what you find on the coasts!

Similar for me.

Well, I guess we all will take the devil we know.

As long as I'm not in a flood/tidal surge zone, I'm o.k. with hurricanes, having now been through a few of them. We're about 10 miles from the coast and out of any flood areas. The only hurricane I would truly fear is a Hurricane Andrew-type situation where you have Category 5 winds going several miles inland. Then there's nothing to do except hope you survive. Otherwise, they're big mess and the power's out for a while, but as long as you're reasonably prepared, it's basically a forced camping trip. And you do usually have several days' warning.

Forest fires and earthquakes on the other hand -- no thanks. We have a small place in northern Colorado that was near the High Park fire this summer, and I felt completely helpless -- even if I had been up there, there would have been nothing for me to do. And earthquakes can devastate everything in minutes with zero warning.