NW USA weather

[Peter W. Meek]

I hope all our friends in WA, OR and Northern CA (I know there are quite a few) are surviving the onslaught of winter weather this weekend.

Stay safe, and don't drive through any water, especially if it is moving.

[Andy Velebil]

A good reason to stay at home and crack a bottle or two of Port

[Glenn E.]

We lost power yesterday morning while getting ready for work (though oddly the cell phone towers in the neighborhood were still working so I could browse the internet on my phone). That made last night interesting... it was 59 degrees in the house when we got home. We turned on the fireplace (thermoelectric switches for the win!) and lit our gas stove top to cook dinner by candlelight and flashlight. We then curled up by the fireplace for a couple of hours, me drinking a 2001 Warre LBV and Kari drinking a Malbec, before heading off to sleep.

The power came back on some time between midnight and 2 am, so things were mostly back to normal by this morning.

[Roy Hersh]

Interesting to hear of Glenn's timing as we live 3 miles apart.

The lights and power surged several times on Wed. but only temporary outages. Yesterday, early a.m. we had our lights at half power which was really odd. A half hour later, all gone. Phone lines worked until about 9 a.m. and then even land lines were dead. Internet off. We all got a lot done during daylight hours wearing jackets around the house. My wife is a candle freak and put a few dozen around her office so by the time they were lit and it was dark, her office was quite warm. We were able to cook on our gas top range fortunately. I had decanted a nice bottle of Dao red and LBV while we had a fun time playing board games after dinner. But having lost all connectivity, lights/heat, it sure made me pine for the moment electricity and warmth would come back. 5:15 this a.m. I was awakened by an alarm going off in another home and noticed a light on in our bedroom closet. The thermostat read 44 degrees, INSIDE our home. We had six days of snow in a row, by far a record since I moved here in 1996. Not a ton of accumulation but enough freezing underneath that our cul de sac is impassable ... still.

But who is complaining, the lights and heat are working and although sipping Port in a candlelit room with my family was great, I am happy that the creature comforts are back in order.

[Glenn E.]

Yeah, we had the half power thing going too at about that same time. The power blinked off briefly, then came back on at half power at around 7:30 am. We turned off the computers and other electronics and left for work while the power was still at half.

I thought about that hill going up to your cul-de-sac - you'd need a fully tracked vehicle to climb that in this weather! Hopefully you'll be able to get out tonight or at least tomorrow.

[Peter W. Meek]

Just for reference: your cable TV and broadband, your cell phone repeaters, your telephone local substations all have battery backups. How long they will run after losing power is dependent on how well they were specified in the first place, and how well they have been maintained since then. I typically lose cable/broadband after about a day and a half, and landline phone after about 2-3 days. I haven't lost cell coverage by 2 days, but I didn't have a cell phone back when we lost power for 4 days, so it might have happened if I had had one then.

BTW, you may still have cable-broadband and landline phone service, but not be able to use them because you have no local power for things like cable modems, routers, and electronic phones. Know where the phoneline comes into your house, and keep an old Bell line-powered phone around for just such an emergency. You will need a source of emergency power for your cable modem (and router if you need it) to be able to use a laptop to connect to the internet. At least until the cable company's battery back-ups run down.

We should all think about exactly how dependent we are on things like our internet connections, and at least give some thought as to how we would get information about what is happening during emergencies that cause power to be out for more than a few hours.

[Roy Hersh]

Amen, I gave LOTS of thought to that while sitting around, literally in the dark yesterday.

That said, I had two "landline" phones with cords, the old school way. I had phone service and was desperate enough to hook up my laptop with the dreaded dial up ... that those of us idiots still on AOL can get on line with, in emergency, (or for those poor souls in areas with no broadband). I was amazed that soon after getting everything hooked up, even the phone lines went dead.

I am assuming that like the power outages, the phone lines (still on poles here) were taken out by falling tree limbs or trees themselves.

In a showing of the stupidity of local government: the local "parkway" a couple of blocks away (virtually one lane each direction) that curves along the 12 mile length of Lake Sammamish, had a major chunk torn up and widened, repaved and new phone lines put in two years ago ... but somehow the phone and power lines were not buried ... installed on brand new wooden poles.

My choice: or this