High winds

[Don_P]

We just got home a bit ago. We were at the job last night with our homeowners and getting ready to come home when the winds began to build very fast. We lost power and dashed around in the dark closing it up. I was guessing over 60 mph at the time, when we got to the weather radio they were saying over 80. It passed fairly quickly, we said our goodnights and started home. There's about 2 miles through the nat'l forest to the blacktop, we went around a lot of debris and finally were stopped at a fair sized red oak crossing the road. I suspected there were more ahead so we turned around and spent the night on the nice porches. With daylight we went down and cleared out. There were 4 trees across the road in that stretch. One rip through the woods was a long series of dominoes, one tree hit the next which fell and hit the next, etc. A good bit of timber was on the ground. I've heard there are about 2 million out of power in the mid atlantic states this morning. Richmond had a bad blow earlier this week. This heat is really kicking up some strong storms although none of the moisture made it over the mountains.

[Rob_O]

I heard about that storm this morning. My girlfriends parents are stuck in WV because they can't get the fuel they need to get home

[devildog]

we lost power last friday and just got it back yesterday(thursday). Ive never seen a wind storm like that without rain. trees and powerlines down everywhere.
there was a scramble for people to get generators because the morning after the storm everyone sold out. i put my name on a list at HD and got mine sunday when a shipment came in. now the powers back on and they have way overstocked.
it was very hot we were able to run our fridge a window a/c and a tv. we lost alot of our meat, although it was coolto the touch, it was completly thawed. we did manage to grill some for burgers.
I felt like i was back in florida during hurricane season.that was one of the reasons I left. im glad its over.
But it reminds me how spoiled i am to have all these ammenities and then whine and moan when there gone.

[Don_P]

We came back on last night after a big meal with friends out of our freezer of salmon and shrimp, we were losing good temp control as we were going to work, etc. Sunday we saw one of our summer friends gate was open, we built that house a couple of years ago and stopped in to make sure all was ok. The lobster/hamburgers/ freezer party was in full swing and everyone gladly made room at the picnic table. It's been rough but I guess we'll have to start the diet next week  .

We got knocked out in storm #3 Sunday about noon. I heard it over the sawmill and blower, shut down and scooted to the house. I don't think I've run the genny since the ice storms of '93 and had just put it away. It took the next morning to clean the varnish out of the carb and get it spinning, a good love tap apparently reseated the brushes and it made power. I need to put it away nicer this time. We have a twin cylinder onan from the motorhome that I should really send in for a good going over and set it up as a standby, we can't run the well on the little unit so relied on friends for drinking water. The creek provides plenty of untreated water and we could disinfect in a pinch but I'd rather not. I had finished the last of the meds for the c. diff that has been recurring since April and this was the first real trial as it was hard to maintain that level of cleanliness without the modern conveniences. Everything going well and I assume I've now repopulated with the full spectrum of gut bacteria.

My heart goes out to the families of those who died. Our area was largely spared, we have some injuries locally. One woman up on the horsetrails in the forest was struck by a limb and was still in the ICU last I heard. A fair amount of property damage, mostly falling trees. One pocket we cleared beside in the forest enlarged with each successive storm. When there is a windthrow it opens up a hole that each successive storm can knock down more trees and enlarge. Our mason will be bringing over a walnut and some oaks that he lost to convert to lumber.

The first real shower in a week was sweet last night