In 1965, we had a blackout that hit Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. More than 30 million people were without electricity for about 13 hours.
In July, 1997, most of New York City was blacked out for almost two days.
In 2003, we had a widespread blackout throughout the Northeast which took almost two days to restore, but some people didn't get their power back for a week.
We live in a somewhat rural area (only 40-miles from DC, strangely enough) and are served by a Rural Electric Co-op. The original co-op was tiny, only had a few hundred subscribers, and was bought out in an altruistic move by a much larger co-op before we moved here. It seems that the former co-op had outages on a weekly basis, sometimes for as long as two weeks at a time. The current co-op has been working ever since to clear up the issues (trimming back trees and rebuilding the line). Living close to the end of the line doesn't help either. (the feeder transitions from three-phase to single phase just a couple of houses before mine.) Makes me wonder why the house was built with baseboard electric heat.
I hear you. We get a thunderstorm and the tornado horn goes off at the fire dept. If the wind is bad, sometimes a power-line will come down and it will take them a couple of days to fix it. Its crazy how much taxes we pay for bad city services around here. no joke. lol
We had a horrible ice storm in the 80s. Everything was frozen. It was the most beautiful Earth I have ever seen. Especially at night when the dim light sparkled on branches and really everything, no matter how old torn worn ugly etc etc............it was beautiful inside ice. The power was out and it was very very cold. I had young children and one kerosene heater. We stayed warm on one floor. I cooked on the top of the heater (you are not supposed to do that, but). It was just camping out at home. They never stopped talking about that. During the 90s we had another ice storm but we were only out of power for 17 days that time. I had bought more equipment; we felt like pros. I even had a shower that worked with my propane stove to heat the water so we even had warm showers. That first time I heated water in big pots so we could have warm tub baths. Oh boy! And now I live in the tropics.
This post was edited by Thriftymaid at September 4, 2017 3:29 PM MDT
Those are some pretty bad ice storms Thriftymaid, and a long time to be without power. I envy you that you live in the tropics now, that must be so great. I always wanted to live in the tropics. It must be really beautiful. ;)
Well, at this very moment I am watching the three-hour updates from the National Weather Service to see if this Hurricane Irma is heading straight for us......it is looking so. I went tonight to try to buy water, bread, and regular storm stuff. Not one loaf of bread or case of water to be found. Seems it was all gone by noon today. But, I did manage..............no one else seems to think of ice. I filled my chest freezer with 10 lb bags of ice....it will serve double duty....keep stuff cold and provide drinking water. I'm still not 100% on staying. I might take off driving North tomorrow night. Hopefully the path will be more clear by then. So don't envy me today.
SpunkySenior 