Power Outtage Season Returns, In Spectacular Fashion!


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Yeah, I remember driving in storms like that while in the Army; you could not see the vehicle in front of you or behind nor oncoming traffic; just the lines on the road and only for a short distance. Everyone should have pulled over; but then that too would have been dangerous. I guess we did slow down gradually .

I try not to drive in the heavy stuff when it is predicted after driving into a hail storm once. No damage since the wind was blowing in the other direction and it was almost as if the hail was falling in front of me and not on top and as long as I kept steady pace none hit the windshield. Then it quit and was just rain and I was glad to be out of it.

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I might have told this before, but regarding driving in hard rain: My sister was driving us home from work in a helluva rain storm. Just as we approached the busiest intersection on the route, going about forty miles-per-hour, the rain began to pour down SO hard you couldn't even see the hood of the car! For all we know the light changed to red, but obviously we couldn't see it. I was scared like never before (though I've been more scared since) and she started ... laughing, hysterically. Maniacally even. Whoa, that scared me even more!

I guess that was her instinctual reaction to danger. Not the way I would go, but ... :blink:

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At first I read that as "I guess that was her institutional reaction and thought you were saying your sister had escaped from an institution , kidnapped you and terrorized you by giggling insanely while running red lights in the rain.

Some pics of the cat and kittens

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  • 2 weeks later...

Wednesday night's storms knocked out the power momentarily. Been rainin' off and on almost daily. Farmers are in an uproar. The small town in MO where my family's from got hit by a tornado. Due to all this rain I've already mowed the lawn six or seven times.

Is it Summer yet?

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Yeah, I mowed the front yesterday and the back needs it again but it is raining again today.

At least this round does not seem to be severe , no big boomers yet.

Had a couple of those "momentary" outages in the last week. Went out with the OL and when we got back the DVD recorder was on (its default recovery from power out) and one (solid state controls window unit) AC was off (its default recovery from power outage) .

So , either the dogs are messing with things they should not or the power was out . None of the clocks is off or flashing though so it must have been brief.

Looking like a nice week ahead; seventies tomorrow and sunny and low eighties all week.

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Been beautiful all week. Low eighties, dry , light winds. Which leads to the inevitable result; the first ozone alert (level orange) of the season. Warning breathing may be hazardous to your health this afternoon if there is not any wind. Refrain from lawn mowing, driving and filling up on gas this morning and avoid exercise and outdoor activity this afternoon.

Ah well , the day is still beautiful even if we are not supposed to enjoy it. Probably will have a massive sinus headache and cough by mid afternoon if the ozone level gets up there.

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We've had gorgeous weather too, and enough of a breeze to keep the air movin', so no alerts here.

I wonder though, it's been comparitively dry so the grass is already lookin' dry too (I never water the lawn). A sign of things to come?

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I never water or fertilize; just mulch and if it fails to decay fast enough I apply some Roebic Septic Tank Cleaner (bacteria and enzymes which break down cellulose) and it soon turns to humus.

We have that low pressure moving in reverse direction (like Hurricanes and Tropical Depressions) from Florida to Texas due in for the Memorial day Weekend. Sporadic showers all weekend predicted, but this type rarely turns severe; thunder and lightening are unlikely just some good rain to keep things growing. Need to mow the front and back lawns again.

Got an invite to a bash sunday with a real band and kegs and barbeque.

Probably will attend.

Might bring some Corn. The local Newflower Farmers Market has fresh first harvest Texas (local grown) corn that is so sweet that I have been eating it raw, no butter or salt needed. Got a great sweet cream flavor.

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Regarding "fresh sweet corn," I grew up in Chicago and we were at a friend's house having a bbq. They had their brother down from (what was then) a rural area. We're eatin' and havin' fun, and he takes me aside (we'd become fast friends) and said, "Man, this corn on the cob is just AWFUL, it's WORSE than feed corn, but everybody's eatin' it up like it's great."

Uh, yeah, it's, umm, awful. Uh-hem. AWK-ward.

As a kid I had spent my Summers on a farm so I knew the difference, but I guess I'd forgotten.

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Same here; and I learned my lesson once at the Farmers Market (which bizarrely does not have any real Farmers from what I can see).

One of the "farm merchants" had some good looking corn at a good price so I bought a bushel and got home only to discover it was feed corn not sweet corn. Edible if boiled all to hell and buttered and salted half to death but not good by any sense of the word.

But I prefer sweet corn nice and fresh.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Nasty Storms = Momentary Outtage.

Lately our local power company (BC Hydro) has been having a series of scheduled power outages for upgrades. I don't mind those too much especially when you're notified before hand.

But, we've also had quite a few un-announced outages.

One of our last outages was caused by an eagle hitting a high voltage line. Zap! :ph34r:

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Big storms yesterday. We got between six and eight inches of rain in 24 hours locally.

Top that off with tens of thousands of lightning strikes and seventy mile an hour winds and there were over 500,000 customers without power yesterday and still 120,000 this morning.

Mine was out for over six hours.

They said this is one of the top three outages on record (I guess they are referring to in North Texas) . They have 2600 technicians hard at work repairing lines.

I saw a line down about a quarter mile from my house where a tree had fallen on it.

It rained so hard that when I took the feral cat we caught to get fixed my truck somehow sucked water into the gas tank and would not start after I stopped it. Ran the battery down trying to get it started and had to get a tow home so I could drain off the water, add some non alcohol based gas conditioner to remove any left in the tank and buy a new fuel filter and recharge the battery.

I am going with it either has a seal leak on top of the gas tank or a crack in the filler hose or it sucked water in through the vapor recovery canister when the sudden cooling of the tank as cold water splashed on it caused the vapors inside to contract.

Flood waters are draining off quickly; but it now becomes apparent that the Army Corps of Engineers report that the flood control system for the Trinity River is inadequate in light of New Orleans and Katrina is well founded. We already have pump replacements and upgrades for pumping stations scheduled and budgeted but that takes time. As for the recommended levy improvements well not sure what they will decide on .

I wonder if this is a sign of the El Nino pattern beginning to reform; as this is definitely unusual for this time of year in Texas except when we are having an El Nino in the Pacific (then we have more rain and cooler temps than normal ). Normally this time of year there is a high pressure system that settles in over Texas and diverts all moisture and cold fronts until it gets busted up by either a hurricane or a major fall cold front. But in El Nino years we get this sweep of moisture up from the Pacific off Baja Mexico and through Texas and the south west.

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Pete, I saw those storm on the radar, they looked nasty. They passed South of my particular location but hit downstate, apparently undiminished (six to eight inches of rain). I did get a power "hiccup" that didn't even trigger a glitch in my most sensitive equipment (which would be the digital alarm clock I built back when I was in High School -- I didn't know how to 'condition' the incoming power back then, and, apparently, I didn't know enough about battery backups as those circuits never did work).

How did you "know" the problem with the truck was water in the tank? You make it sound like that knowledge just appeared out of nowhere. Are you a car-whisperer? :D

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Cranks, has spark (spark tester) check engine light lights and goes out but no fire.

Only thing left is fuel. Pull the filter and water comes out .

Also this is not the first time I experienced water in the gas (got bad gas from Murphys and from Racetrack in the past) and I know what it sounds like.

My alarm clocks use 9v batteries to maintain time when the power is off. The only problem is they do not maintain, they gain. I forget how much it gained this time but it was between fifteen minutes and half an hour probably. I remember because I saw the time was almost seven and I started setting my reminders on cable and seven came and passed and the program did not change and reminders did not pop up; so I checked my atomic clock radio sync clocks and realized that the regular clock had gained and not just a minute or two.

It gets annoying since even a brief on and off causes it to jump a minute.

More storms west of here last night; but they missed us. Just hope that they did not damage the Parker County Peach crop. Thems some good eatins.

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Strong storms last night. The power went out momentarily (at least) twice (that I know of). EVEN STRONGER storms went through a few minutes ago: Raindrops hitting the windows had ice cores, the wind was blowing in several directions at once (circular motion?), the local tornado sirens went off (it's not Tuesday, 10:30 am, is it?).

Even with all that the worst of it must have missed us as reports stated this storm had 60-80 mph wind gusts and large hail. Whew! (But more severe storms are on the way ... all day today, AND all day tomorrow).

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What did I tell ya? Bought a generator after two 30+ hour outages last year... Kinda got excited to put it to work yesterday morning, but the outage started about 2am and was fixed before 9. Then we had another pop for about an hour later in the afternoon. I guess all the tree trimming and line maintenance they've been working on since January is having an effect.

Hot dang! Them was some sizzle burger, T-boomin' storms! Just north and west of us they got 6" of rain in two hours.

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Well tomorrow is first day of summer.

While it is a bit late I suspect that the summer high is settling in and we will see triple digits soon and no more rain until September. Not a guaranty , but Texas in the summer tends to be hot and dry especially once the central high gets established.

They have had trains of thunderstorms along the Texas New Mexico border for a couple days now ; but they all move south to north with no indication that they can dislodge the high pressure dome and move to the east.

From what is in stores it looks like the Texas Peach crop is abundant , large , and tasty this year; although it looks like most are from East Texas and southeast Texas which are not quite as high quality as the Parker County crop.

I bought some yesterday , the store had dropped the price from $1.49 to 99 cents a pound due to a larger than anticipated crop. Huge peaches , halfway between baseballs and softballs in size.

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Another "spectacular" (or is it "crap-tacular?") power outtage: Ten Hours.

Severe storms (w/more to come), power went out after I went to bed and was still out when I awoke. When it FINALLY came back on I reset everything -- but the computer, which wouldn't start (see PC Help Forum for questions concerning what I wound up doing there).

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