Steeldrifter 0 Report post Posted July 10, 2020 Well my trial run of Amish living is finally over, thankfully. Had a storm kick up on Tuesday that knocked the power out for 2 days here. Let me tell you something.....2 days of no AC with 95f temp and 80% humidity is NO FUN AT ALL!!! Was a real bad storm that came out of nowhere. Happens when its this hot for so long, just so unstable. Tuesday it was sunny and hot and then after going down to work in the shop on some rods I heard a loud thunder clap. So came upstairs and saw it was starting to rain. So I went out to bring the flag in and just in the 10 seconds it took me to roll up the flag and walk the 10' back to my door the wind went from 0 to 70mph+ in less than 10 seconds. Never seen wind heavy rain kick up so fast. Could not even see 20ft into the storm for about 5 minutes. Lots of damage around here. My pine tree got uprooted in my backyard and landed on neighbors garage, tree company just left, I'm $2400 poorer. Neighbors tree landed on his house, another had his tree come down and flattened his truck. My poor generator worked its ass off for almost 3 days to keep my fish alive. Had it running 50hrs straight. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cphubert 0 Report post Posted July 10, 2020 WOW glad you are ok! Nature is an assume force kind of reminds us from time to time where we stands in this world. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
niveker 0 Report post Posted July 10, 2020 Good Lord, glad you got through it okay. I've been in the middle of one of those micro-bursts once or twice. Frightening and awe-inspiring at the same time. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skeet3t 0 Report post Posted July 10, 2020 Steve, could have been a lot lot worse. Would your homeowner's policy help out? Last spring, we had a tornado come through one part of town. Tragically it is an area where very few people would have any kind of insurance. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TIER 0 Report post Posted July 10, 2020 oh god. That must have sucked. wow Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mikechell 0 Report post Posted July 10, 2020 Loading that tree on that vehicle like that looks ... unsafe. I don't think it's tied down properly. I'm REALLY sorry to see that beautiful Bonsai garden torn up like that. I hope all the trees made it through. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Steeldrifter 0 Report post Posted July 10, 2020 It's actually not torn up. I took the canopy down before my fishing trip a few weeks ago and thankfully had not got around to putting it back up. The metal frame is just not locked in place so it looks weird right now but thats normal. Trees were still sheltered on a table in the back of the yard from when my Nephew was taking care of them for me while I was gone. So in this instance....being lazy paid off big time! LOL Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cphubert 0 Report post Posted July 10, 2020 Steve the last thing I would call you is lazy if you could stop and learn to do nothing you might get to relaxed but I doubt lazy. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
saltydancindave 0 Report post Posted July 11, 2020 Almost looks like a hurricane went thru the area, only a hurricane knocks out electricity where ever time FPL tried to electrify a grid it usually blew out again from people hardwiring a generator into a circuit breaker box. Running a chainsaw for 8 days straight for cutting up downed trees with no TV nor AC while growing a beard for 3 to 4 weeks in the summer heat & humidity gets that almost Amish lifestyle experience apprenticeship.....but up there should clean up good faster ! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Poopdeck 0 Report post Posted July 11, 2020 Think how many storms that tree on the truck lived through. Kind of highlights the power of the storm you had. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Steeldrifter 0 Report post Posted July 11, 2020 Yep Greg, there was actually just an write up today (shows ya my age lol...was online but I call it write up) anyway, about one of the trees 2 streets over that was uprooted being a 100 yr old tree. Kind;a shows the power of what came through here Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Steeldrifter 0 Report post Posted July 16, 2020 DTE SUCKS!!! power went out AGAIN. Lost it at 8am and didn't come back till just after 10am. Just enough time to make me have to drag the generator out and reroute/hook up all the cords to the aquariums again. No wind, no storm, just a light rain and yet DTE can't even keep our power on for a whole week since the last time it went out for 50hrs last week. I think it's a competition between DTE and USPS to see which companies sucks the worst. Currently, its a tie 🤬 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skeet3t 0 Report post Posted July 16, 2020 Steve, the house up the street is for sale. Photos? The only time this area was hit hard for power outage was the Blizzard of '93. High winds downed lines all over the area. Some rural areas were without power for 10 days. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DFoster 0 Report post Posted July 16, 2020 Hi Steve I’m sorry to hear about this - I can relate sort of. 10 years or so back my wife and I were at our niece’s wedding in West Palm Beach FLA. Our area got hit with a severe ice and snow storm. This was in October and the trees were loaded with New England autumn leaves. Beautiful to look at but they hold onto ice really well. Add in the 60 mph winds and the trees were no match. We came home to 12” of snow entombed in an inch of ice, tree limbs on the ground with power lines lying underneath. Everywhere you looked the trees were devastated. Our power was out for 5 days but we had it easy, I heard some people were out for 5 weeks. We didn’t have a generator and spent the week cooking on a basement wood stove which also kept our house just warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing. Our local power company managed the crisis fairly well given the situation. However another power company north of us responded so poorly that state officials had to get involved. Besides heavy fines (which I’m sure they passed on via rate hikes) new regulations were placed on all power companies within the state mandating staffing levels during weather emergency’s. Anyway hopefully your homeowners will step up for you. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Steeldrifter 0 Report post Posted July 16, 2020 I just wish DTE would do the right thing and update the grid we are on. The city I live in is one of the nicer areas and we pay a great deal for power in this part of the state, yet our grid is so outdated it's not even funny. On average we lose power here 3-6 times per year for anywhere from 1-12hrs, but then you factor into that the times were it's a storm that knocks it out for 2-3 days and it just is unacceptable on DTE's part. A storm is understandable for an outage, that's not something they can control, but then when you factor in the many other times when there's no storm and the power goes out, that's when you just want to stick a wading boot up some DTE bigwig's posterior and tell him to stop lining his pockets and actually update the system we are on. There really needs to be a nationwide push to start running power underground. Power lines on wooden poles is 1800's tech if you think about it. Start running some of the main lines underground and it would be better for customers as well as save the companies in the long run by not having to constantly send crews out all the time. But alas, common sense, that's a thing of the past these days I guess. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites