New England Ice Storm

bobman1235

Surprised not to see any threads about this; sorry if I missed such a thread, I haven't been online in three days and there was a lot to sort through

Thursday night throughout most of southern New Hampshire and Northern / Western Mass, a big ice storm blew through, causing massive amounts of fallen trees and thus hundreds of thousands to go without power.

My house has been without power since Thursday night, and with temperatures in the 20's for most of that period, it's starting to get pretty cold (I unfortunately do not have any kind of alternate heat, ie a wood stove).

Luckily I have friends with power who are putting me up until the lines can be fixed.

Here are some photos I took of my neighborhood and my house (which sustained some pretty heavy damage as far as the electrical goes, as you can see; luckily nothing structural)

http://picasaweb.google.com/bobman1235/IceStorm08#

Here are some other photos from the region from boston.com : http://www.boston.com/news/local/gallery/121208_readersweatherphotos/

phipiper10

Good luck hope the power is back soon. Much of our town (Westford) is still without but we've been spared where I live.

Stay warm!

Ricardo

Hope you and everyone else can get back to normal soon.

Those iced trees look awesome!!

MillerLiteScott

How are you keeping your pipes from freezing?

Are you running the water to keep it from freezing?

Good luck I hope you get your power back soon.

Scott

Wow I just looked at the pictures. That is a lot of damage. The electric company and electricians are going to be busy.

bobman1235

I"m running the water a tiny bit to keep those from freezing, but i don't know how to keep my forced hot water boiler pipes from freezing ; obviously I can't run the pumps.

Luckily my house is pretty well insulated, and even after three days it's just getting into the low-50's in there., so pipes freezing isn't QUITE an issue yet. I'm hoping they have the power back on before it gets to that point.

obieone

I was talking to brother about it yesterday, which was the 1st I heard about it.
My condolences, and good luck.

disneyjoe7

bobman1235 wrote: »

Surprised not to see any threads about this

We're still disbelieve about this.......



It must a Hollywood movie











Wasn't like 8 months ago we where in a “Global Warmer” time, I'm still thinking you should be underwater. :eek:





...

AsSiMiLaTeD

even with all the carnage, I can still tell from the pics that's probably a beautiful place in autumn...

F1nut

That's a mess. I hope for you and all the other folks that things are back to normal asap. I went thru the ice storm BS a number of years back, no power for 5 days is no fun.

ben62670

Ouch! Pics 27-28 suck! I hope that isn't your place. Driving on Ice just sucks. I like the southern winters. Short. I do miss driving in the snow:)
Take care Bob.
Ben

bobman1235

ben62670 wrote: »

Ouch! Pics 27-28 suck! I hope that isn't your place. Driving on Ice just sucks. I like the southern winters. Short. I do miss driving in the snow:)
Take care Bob.
Ben

Unfortunately that IS my place. The worst part is that happened well after the storm. The storm knocked my power lines down, but they were all still CONNECTED, just dangling across the street. The day after the storm, a salt/sand dumptruck came up to salt/sand the roads, and the front of his truck caught on the dangling wire, and he didn't notice, and proceeded to keep driving, tearing the meters away from my house before the cables finally snapped.

So even when they do eventually get power back to my street (which they're saying is another 2-3 days at least), my house will still need some work.

Just checked on it today, it's in the high 40's in there, and temperatures are supposed to hover above freezing for the next few days, so hopefully the pipes are safe....


Thanks everyone for the well wishes.

cfrizz

WOW! That's a lot of damage. Good luck with the repairs and do what you have to to stay warm!

disneyjoe7

Stay safe and warm if possible, sorry you will be without power for awhile. I hope you have some none powered heat sources Kerosene or Fireplace.

Jim Shearer

Good luck w/ the power! We were fortunate to only be w/o power for 36 hrs.--and minimal damage to the trees in our yard.

I don't care much for snow anymore, but I hate ICE! There just isn't much you can do about ice! :mad:

Cheers, Jim

SKsolutions

That's awful. Watch the temp - it's upper 30's here, but I'm a bit lower than you.:p The basement may be above freezing, but elbows in the exterior walls are where it usually happens. All it takes is an area where wind is getting though the exterior (where the meter was?). If there are extended freezing temps/wind before you can get the heat on, shut the water supply side off, and drain the burner down. It can be done with a screwdriver and a garden hose pretty easily. If your exterior is tight, and you are well insulated, you should be OK for now I would think.

disneyjoe7

It maybe a good idea to flow a little water from your faucets so the pipes don't freeze.

danger boy

I feel for anyone who is dealing with the ice storm. We had one come through here about 12 yrs ago. We were without power for 6 days. The only saving grace was that it hit in November.. when the temps were still above freezing.

If it were to hit this week.. many people would die. it's 2 degrees above zero right now. the low next week.. a whopping - 12 below zero.. the high that day. - 4 below zero. :eek:

This week is going to suck big time.

m00npie

WOW! Is there any internal panel damage?

mhardy6647

About half of my little town has been without power since Friday. We never lost power, and I find myself feeling a little guilty!

We lost two big tree branches, which my son (just home from college) and I cut up yesterday.
Charter cable/internet is still down (and/or our modem was toasted when it went down, still TBD).

It is like a war zone from Worcester north.

All in all we were quite lucky.

Fireman32

Those are some shots Bob. Hope the damage is not to bad.

bobman1235

m00npie wrote: »

WOW! Is there any internal panel damage?

There doesn't seem to be any from my untrained eye - the bottom of the meters where the lines run into the house are still tethered to the wall, so I'm hoping they kept anything from being damaged internal to the house.

Being a nomad sure is starting to get to me though.

treitz3

Hang in there Bob, it'll get better. I'm sorry to hear of this happening. We had an ice storm in either the winter of '00 or '01 and let me tell you, it damn sure wasn't a treat. 2 weeks of no power at our house which normally isn't that big of a deal because we have plenty of friends and family in the area. This storm, however knocked out their power as well. Trees down everywhere, pictures very similar to what you have shown were common site.

Since the company I used to work for had a separate power generator, we were all required to show up for work "or be terminated". Those two weeks were the smelliest two weeks I have ever been through at work. My gawd did people reek, including me. There was no way in hell I was going to take a shower when our bathrooms measured a warm 42 degrees and the tap water was probably a degree or two above freezing. It was not uncommon to see employees utilizing a bathroom break to "sponge down", any other time it would have been cause to call the police.

I had to drive 1/2 the state of NC away to finally get a kerosene heater. I ended up waiting 4 hours for an 18 wheeler that was completely full of nothing but heaters. It only took 45 minutes for the truck to be sold out. That heater ended up being our best friend.

I don't miss those days of hell one bit and I empathize with what you are going through. I wish you and your entire area the fastest recovery possible. Ice storms are NO JOKE and at the time, those two weeks seemed like 4 months! It's amazing how such a beautiful ice covering can be so detrimental to the city and life as usual.

mmadden28

bobman, in your pics on Picasa-how did you tag the location? I noticed the map on the right side updated with each pic.

I've always wondered if running water would really help to keep pipes from freezing-sounds logical but in practice for me.....??
I was late closing my pool this year (literally just closed it this weekend). So until I could shut the pumps down and blow the lines out with compressed air, I simply kept the pump on 24/7 (the electric bill is gonna be a doozy this month). Anyway a few weeks ago the flow slowed to almost a trickle. When I removed the filter, one of the 2 inch lines had a huge block of ice forming in the line. Now this is with water running in a 2 inch line at 60gpm at about 30lbs of pressure.

bobman1235

I took all those pics with my iPhone so they were actually geotagged by default (oh noes! People on the internet know where I live!)

But you can also tag them manually via Picasa. Under each album, click "edit->Album Map" and you actually drag each picture onto a map where it was taken.

m00npie

bobman1235 wrote: »

There doesn't seem to be any from my untrained eye - the bottom of the meters where the lines run into the house are still tethered to the wall, so I'm hoping they kept anything from being damaged internal to the house.

Being a nomad sure is starting to get to me though.

I still can't get over that picture. If you have not done so already, go to your panel and flip the main breaker off. It’s doubtful you have juice running to the box when the power comes back on but I would not take any chances. If you need me to send you some new Sabathia sweatshirts to keep warm, let me know

bobman1235

m00npie wrote: »

I still can't get over that picture. If you have not done so already, go to your panel and flip the main breaker off. It’s doubtful you have juice running to the box when the power comes back on but I would not take any chances. If you need me to send you some new Sabathia sweatshirts to keep warm, let me know

I did shut the main breakers off, but only in anticipation of when they come to fix things - there's no way there is power running to the box as the drop from the pole was completely severed. The only power going to that box is through induction

obieone

I'm repeating what's already been said, but make sure you crack all the faucets. I'd hate to see your finished basement get RUINED! And that goes for your neighbors(if any) too. The pics make it look like a multi family, so....

HHStuart

Our power went out Friday morning in Massachusetts. I shaved via the light from a flash light. By Saturday the house was down to 47 degrees. By Sunday it was 37. I ran the fire place all day long and got it up to a balmy 41. I'm sure that letting a faucet drip makes it much less likely to freeze unless it is really cold. Unfortunately, since my water comes from a well, the pump doesn't work without electricity. Luckily it warmed up and we finally got our power back today (Monday). I'm going to have the house wired so I can use a generator. No heat and no water sucks.

Systems

HHStuart wrote: »

Our power went out Friday morning in Massachusetts. I shaved via the light from a flash light. By Saturday the house was down to 47 degrees. By Sunday it was 37. I ran the fire place all day long and got it up to a balmy 41. I'm sure that letting a faucet drip makes it much less likely to freeze unless it is really cold. Unfortunately, since my water comes from a well, the pump doesn't work without electricity. Luckily it warmed up and we finally got our power back today (Monday). I'm going to have the house wired so I can use a generator. No heat and no water sucks.

You don't really have to have the house wired, All you need to to do is put a transfer switch out by your meter. We have one out here on the farm with a PTO generator hooked up too it. Its just a big throw switch that switches from the powerline to neutral to generator and the generator plugs into the side of the box. When its on generator it bypasses the main powerline. Or you can just run a cord out of the box to plug into the generator.

Just make sure you get a fairly big generator and have it on 240 of course....

I-SIG

bobman1235 wrote: »

Unfortunately that IS my place. The worst part is that happened well after the storm. The storm knocked my power lines down, but they were all still CONNECTED, just dangling across the street. The day after the storm, a salt/sand dumptruck came up to salt/sand the roads, and the front of his truck caught on the dangling wire, and he didn't notice, and proceeded to keep driving, tearing the meters away from my house before the cables finally snapped.

File a claim with those clowns. They should know better. It's not like the ice storm hit Miami or something.

Wes

danger boy

HHStuart wrote: »

Our power went out Friday morning in Massachusetts. I shaved via the light from a flash light. By Saturday the house was down to 47 degrees. By Sunday it was 37. I ran the fire place all day long and got it up to a balmy 41. I'm sure that letting a faucet drip makes it much less likely to freeze unless it is really cold. Unfortunately, since my water comes from a well, the pump doesn't work without electricity. Luckily it warmed up and we finally got our power back today (Monday). I'm going to have the house wired so I can use a generator. No heat and no water sucks.

HH, glad you got your power back on.. Yay. The only thing that saved us when we had our ice storm was the year before we installed a free standing gas fireplace in the main large room of the house. Once the power went out.. it still ignited since it has a pilot light and we were able to keep the house in the low 60's overnight in most of the downstairs. IT was radiant heat, so we also placed some pans with water on top of the fireplace and had hot-ish water for coffee and other things. 6 days we lived like that.

Some times mother nature can play some cruel jokes on us.