Beryl Barreling Our Way?

[Lonesome Dove]

IMO, not about this. The basic tenet at work is that if there's a problem, you don't want to be a burden to your neighbors.

It's possible to poke all kinds of fun at Mormons. I think South Park did it best. But there's a lot to admire about them, too. Their idea about having some food and essentials tucked away, just in case, is one of those admirable things.

PS - I just realized what I wrote. If this thread turns religious, I will be to blame and I'll clean it up.

All is good

 

[benenglish]

I guess it's ok to write about this now that it's over. This morning was scary.

Here are two stories, one serious and one not so much, about the interesting things I learned as I adapt to the lack of electricity.

First, keep an eye on the frail. Sis told me "I feel like I'm cooking from the inside out." That's a pretty classic utterance from folks in heat exhaustion and one step from an ambulance ride. I started the car, put the a/c on full blast, wiped her down with Everclear, put an ice bag on her head, poured cold water down her throat, stocked the car with ice and water, and stuffed her into the car which was, by this point, ice cold inside. Not that you could see inside; all the windows were totally fogged over.

After a while, the crisis had passed.

Be observant, folks. If I had realized the extent of her problem, I would have never left the house to get supplies this morning. There were more important things I needed to do. But I failed to adequately check on her before I left. I did my usual "check that she's breathing" check but failed to realize the overnight heat actually required that I wake her and observe for heat symptoms.

Lesson two is a bit lighter.

I need to do laundry and the washaterias closest to the house are still out of power. I wound up outside a richer subdivision where the laundry is run on prepaid cards that you must purchase with a credit card. No coin-op is this. To top it off, the place is completely packed.

Since I'm never coming back here, I calculated the exact usurious cost for the load and bought a card for exactly the amount I needed.

Then I found out that the washing machine charges an extra dollar to initiate a new card. I'm going to have to get another new card and be charged another initiation fee when I go to dry these clothes.

Sometimes I loathe modernity.

 

[Lonesome Dove]

Hmmm ... I specifically selected for a house fed by overhead power lines. When a house is fed by underground lines from the transformer, the homeowner owns the underground lines.

Expensive as F* to replace when they fail. Largely 'cause you pay an electrician to pull a permit so CP will unlock the transformer so the electrician can lay cable in the new 36" deep hole you dug.

Cost me near $5k to get this done at a TH I sold. Transformer was in my back yard, 15 feet from my meter. Early entry on my "now that I know" spreadsheet.

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk

Are you still living there?

 

[FireInTheWire]

I guess it's ok to write about this now that it's over. This morning was scary.

Here are two stories, one serious and one not so much, about the interesting things I learned as I adapt to the lack of electricity.

First, keep an eye on the frail. Sis told me "I feel like I'm cooking from the inside out." That's a pretty classic utterance from folks in heat exhaustion and one step from an ambulance ride. I started the car, put the a/c on full blast, wiped her down with Everclear, put an ice bag on her head, poured cold water down her throat, stocked the car with ice and water, and stuffed her into the car which was, by this point, ice cold inside. Not that you could see inside; all the windows were totally fogged over.

After a while, the crisis had passed.

Be observant, folks. If I had realized the extent of her problem, I would have never left the house to get supplies this morning. There were more important things I needed to do. But I failed to adequately check on her before I left. I did my usual "check that she's breathing" check but failed to realize the overnight heat actually required that I wake her and observe for heat symptoms.

Lesson two is a bit lighter.

I need to do laundry and the washaterias closest to the house are still out of power. I would up outside a richer subdivision where the laundry is run on prepaid cards that you must purchase with a credit card. No coin-op is this. To top it off, the place is complete packed.

Since I'm never coming back here, I calculated the exact usurious cost for the load and bought a card for exactly the amount I needed.

Then I found out that the washing machine charges an extra dollar to initiate a new card. I'm going to have to get another new card and be charged another initiation fee when I go to dry these clothes.

Sometimes I loathe modernity.

Ben, may you please explain the wiping with Everclear? I don't understand this.

 

[benenglish]

Cost me near $5k to get this done at a TH I sold. Transformer was in my back yard, 15 feet from my meter. Early entry on my "now that I know" spreadsheet.

I feel your pain.

 

[wbblazer90]

Ben, may you please explain the wiping with Everclear? I don't understand this.

Alcohol evaporates at a lower temperature than water even with 100% relative humidity. When it does, I draws heat from whatever it is contacted with.

Don’t do it while smoking a cigarette or 2

 

[dartsinsa]

We lost power right after the eye went over us, and was restored on Wednesday afternoon.....about 52 hrs or so. My fence is being replaced now (these guys do good work) and no other damage, except for a complete loss of fridge and freezer. Heck, we just took the opportunity for a complete deep clean of both, and I made a quick run to the store for some items. My biggest issue is the wife has COPD, and the heat was making things very difficult, so I finally found a hotel room Tuesday night where she could do her breathing treatments and be in AC comfort. This has been an incredibly expensive year, and I figure I am out about 5K from Beryl, but as my neighbor and I were talking last night, we are incredibly blessed. No real damage, and everyone is ok.
Wife wants me to start looking into whole house generator, and with her condition (and my 93yo FIL here) it makes sense, and what the hell, it's only money.
I am a lucky man.
Everyone stay safe, I feel for the folks without electricity and hopefully things will be repaired quicker than predicted.

 

[benenglish]

Ben, may you please explain the wiping with Everclear? I don't understand this.

Any alcohol works. My family has always kept gallon (nowadays sub-half gallon) bottles of Everclear for a variety of medicinal uses.

When you slather alcohol on the skin, it evaporates quickly, working like your natural process of sweating to cool you except much faster.

Try it the next time you're hot. Even basic rubbing alcohol will demonstrate the principle. Put some on a cloth and wipe down your arms and legs.

The cooling impact is immediate and stunningly obvious.

 

[FireInTheWire]

Alcohol evaporates at a lower temperature than water even with 100% relative humidity. When it does, I draws heat from whatever it is contacted with.

Don’t do it while smoking a cigarette or 2

Any alcohol works. My family has always kept gallon (nowadays sub-half gallon) bottles of Everclear for a variety of medicinal uses.

When you slather alcohol on the skin, it evaporates quickly, working like your natural process of sweating to cool you except much faster.

Try it the next time you're hot. Even basic rubbing alcohol will demonstrate the principle. Put some on a cloth and wipe down your arms and legs.

The cooling impact is immediate and stunningly obvious.

Thank you. This is new to me, and I will keep that info in my back pocket.

 

[Younggun]

Thank you. This is new to me, and I will keep that info in my back pocket.

and now you have an excuse when the safety guy questions you about that bottle behind the seat.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

and now you have an excuse when the safety guy questions you about that bottle behind the seat.

And smelling like alcohol....

 

[FireInTheWire]

And smelling like alcohol....

No officer... I'm just trying to cool down

 

[glenbo]

At 10:43, the 100 hour mark of being without power, I was able to get through to centerpoint and report our outage. It’s going to be easy to see how long it takes them to get us power.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

At 10:43, the 100 hour mark of being without power, I was able to get through to centerpoint and report our outage. It’s going to be easy to see how long it takes them to get us power.

Our power went out at exactly 0630 Monday also...

 

[Dred]

Are you still living there?

Nope. Power strung on poles in front of my house. So CP is financially responsible to my meter.

New SS entry from Beryl though. Fallen tree smashed some pipes at my community well. So, they snatched my water away for a couple hours worth of repairs yesterday. I'm not ready to restore service from an old well on my property though.



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[sucker76]

I spoke with my dad, their power is out but he’s got a generator going with plenty of gas. The lady across the street had her tree blown down.

I hear Angleton got hit pretty bad.

I live near Missouri City, I lost power at about 5:30 this morning. Looks like there’s some roof damage. Luckily no downed trees. I haven’t done any exploring yet, my next door neighbors had their gutters torn off.

We came out damn good. Fence blown down is all. Power came back last night.

 

[sucker76]

Centerpoint outage map in link.
Give it a chance to load completely.

CenterPoint releases new map they said is meant to show restoration progress

After we posted a link to the map Tuesday, we heard from many of you, saying the map is still inaccurate.

www.khou.com

That map is a joke. Badly behind.

 

[sucker76]

Day 4 of the generator humming along at $30 a day. We got the electric bill in the mail today.

I ran the numbers on my 24kw Generac. At 100% load (I was never at that load) it consumes 306 cubic feet per hour of natural gas. At centerpoints current rate plus fees and all it will cost $1700/month to operate. At 50% load it will be about $1100/month.
I ran numbers not including g the outrageous line service fee and thought not so bad. The extra fees is where it gets you.

 

[sucker76]

Well power came back last night. My generac held up just fine. Our friends still don't have power and they are 4 blocks away. My cousin doesn't expect power for another week. His side of town has lots and lots of trees down on major electric lines. Slowly but surely it's coming along.

 

[Moonpie]

Day 5 with no power
Wite unit is beginning to crack.
It started raining again and she started crying and yelling. Houses directly across the street have had power for 36hrs now.
I went to Kroger awhile ago. Store up and running like normal. After gathering some things i went to the check out line. Every last person glided thru the process. As the cashier was finishing up scanning my last few items THE FVCKING POWER GOES OUT. Power came back on in afew seconds.
So I try to pay with my debit and the damn thing won’t scan. I don’t have enough cash to pay. The cashier and them some doofuss manager literally did not know what to do. I stood there for like 5 minutes and they were clueless. So i told them to keep their groceries.
Drove down the road to HEB and bought groceries there. No issues