Slouching Towards Oblivion

Showing posts with label winter 09-10. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winter 09-10. Show all posts

Friday, February 12, 2010

The Big Storm III

Some of my posts about this last round of snow storms have been out of order.  Here's one that's no exception to that.

The big storm started fairly early Thursday Feb 4, and continued thru about midnite Friday Feb 5.  On Saturday the 6th, a plow had managed to make one pass on our road, so we dug out the Durango, thinking we'd do a little sightseeing and bop into town for something to eat.

Fifty yards from our driveway:



















































Using a couple of bow saws, we hacked thru this one and two others blocking the road.

We did make it into town, but the only places open were a 7-11 and a McDonalds.  More than happy to score a couple of cheese burgers at the time.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

The Big Storm III

No school again today.  Albemarle Cnty Schools have been closed for 9 out of the last 10 days.  The tentative plan is that the year has been extended to June 17; and there's a possibility that seniors will have to be in class for a few days after they actually graduate June 5.

It seems a little silly until you figure the school system can't afford not to collect the bucks they get for having as many kids in class as possible for the full 180-day calendar.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

the Big Storm III

Winter 2009-10 #3 from Mike Roberts on Vimeo.

The Big Storm III

I've also figured out how to embed the video from Vimeo (it's really easy).

Winter 2009-10 #2 from Mike Roberts on Vimeo.

Video Link

Blogspot has a really crappy video utility, so I've started putting the movies up on Vimeo.

Here's the link: Vimeo Link

eg:

Winter 2009-10 #1 from Mike Roberts on Vimeo.

The Big Storm III

The latest Big Storm didn't quite measure up.  Looks like we got 2-3 inches over night, tho' there was some pretty good wind, which is supposed to continue thru today and tomorrow.  So the probability of losing power again is still high.

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

The Big Storm III

The destruction of the forest:

The Big Storm III

The view from the Master Bath window.

The Big Storm III

Got power back at about 530 yesterday evening.  Of course, this was less than 10 hours after I scored one of the last 3 generators at Lowe's - they got a short shipment of a couple dozen in at 7, opened the store at 730 and were sold out by 10.  But I don't care.  I'm so fucking tired of this Post-Apocalypse bullshit I could spit bricks thru a car door.

The phones came back maybe 15 minutes ago, so I needed to grab some webtime and post some of this before the next storm starts in earnest.  The phone issue has been very annoying.  Losing the land line is bad enough, but the power outage also took out our local cell tower, so communications has been difficult as well.

It's already been flurrying a bit off and on all morning.  Forecasters are saying we'll get 4-8 more inches tonite.  Given the sorry state of the grid to begin with, and the simple fact that lots of trees are bent and damaged and ready to go, it shouldn't take much to put us back to where we were 3 days ago.

But at least I've got enough juice now to run the Reefer, 2 space heaters and various lights and appliances.  I also scored 2 more Jerry cans, so I can run for 30 hours if we're a little careful.

The main thing is figuring out how best to heat the joint.  If I didn't hafta run the space heaters, I could stretch the gas out to several days.  Nick and Luke have been scavenging from the woods, but trudging thru 2 feet of snow across the open ground before you get to the woods is a real chore. Plus, you gotta load up the little sled and drag it all back to the house.  Once back at the house, we can use the electric chainsaw, I've resisted buying the gas-powered version, thinking I'll convert a couple of the fireplaces to some other fuel once this is all over.

The other thing I'll be working on is figuring out a way to take the whole subdivision off the grid.  We have a gas main that runs pretty close, and we've been approached once before to see if enough of us wanted to convert from propane to natural.  The attempt failed, but it might be a really good time to ask again.  I'm thinking we could do a mid-sized fuel cell generator and stop worrying about the power going out every stinkin' time more than 11 snow flakes get together.  Distributed Power Generation is something that'll probably have to happen at some time anyway because the traditional grid system is aging badly and becoming ridiculously expensive to maintain.  It's stupid to go on pouring billions into a system that won't be able to keep up with us.

Schools have been closed 6 out of the last 7 days.

Challenges remain, but we're working the problems one at a time, hoping to turn a couple of them into opportunities.