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Oh my goodness! I'm glad you're okay, but so sorry about all the other crap. No power 'til November 22nd? That's awful! I hope that was a worst-case estimate and they get it on much sooner. Good luck!
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Good to hear from you, Treason. Still love Florida, hurricanes and all? And good to hear that things are at least starting to return to normal for your area, even though you're obviously having to rough it a bit. Cold showers and no power until Thanksgiving? ...bbbbbbrrrrrr... Just keep in mind, "I will survive"
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Yay! Thanks guys. I had horrible visions of coming back to Starbuck's today and seeing nobody posted here. I would have felt so abandoned. Thanks for the encouragement! It will get better, eventually. Noemon, I have an electric stove. I've been using the grill on the (non-existant) patio for beans and spaghettio's and such. Thankfully, some of the restaurants are open now so my boyfriend has been bringing home take-out every night. aspectre, I never did love Florida. Bah, heat all the time and hurricanes and 1 week of "winter". Pooh on Florida. Thanks again Noemon, ElJay and aspectre!
Posts: 870 | Registered: Mar 2005
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By the way, how did all the other Floridians fare? Ela lives here too, right? I know there are others. Post here if you can and I'll check next time I get to a Starbucks. Hope everyone is fine!
Posts: 870 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Man, not having a stove for a month would be rough--I feel for you. I expect that supplies are limited right now, but you might try to get your hands on a camping stove. A solar powered oven would probably be better for you than gas, since I expect that getting your hands on gas cannisters will be tricky.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Ohhh, I didn't even know they had solar powered ovens. (For outside, yes? Without buying a solar panel for my roof?) That sounds cool. I'll look into it. Thanks!
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Boon
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You can build one yourself with some cardboard boxes, a piece of plexiglass, and some aluminum foil.
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Yep, they're just for the outside. I've been looking for reviews of different models for you, but so far I haven't had a lot of luck--I've only found one. Here it is. Doesn't sound like an ideal solution, but in a hot sunny area like you're in it should perform better than it did for the reviewer, I'd think.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Here is an inexpensive solar cooker. Looks like a grill or something, but there isn't any real description of it, so it's hard to say.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Boon beat me to it--I was just about to tell you that after doing some digging, I thought that you might as well just build your own. It'll be cheaper, and you'll have it more quickly than if you had to wait for it to be shipped.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Wow. Thanks guys! I'll have my boyfriend (the "I can build that" guy) see if he can build one. Neat!
Posts: 870 | Registered: Mar 2005
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As Adam and JaneX reported, we didn't have power immediately after the storm. It went out about 5 or 6 am. The storm also knocked out our phone, though we discovered late Monday afternoon that the line we normally use for our computer dial-up worked. No one knows that number, except the few people we called to give it to when we discovered it worked, so we got very few calls last week. It's also not listed in our name, but in the name of someone who had it over 5 years ago. My husband once called the phone company to correct the error, but gave up after being kept on hold for over an hour - after all, we only use it for the computer, right?
We were surprised when the power came back on Tuesday night after the storm, at midnight. But the AC started making a terrible noise (at first I thought it was someone's generator) and my husband got up and turned it off. We soon discovered that we had partial power - 110V instead of 220V. This meant that some lights and the refrigerators worked, but the AC, stove, washing machine and dishwasher did not, some of the lights were dimmed, and some of the outlets only had half power. My husband went around with a lamp to test which outlets had full power, and then ran an extension cord from my daughter's room to my son's computer, so he could finish working on his college application.
I ended up having to bail out the dishwasher with a turkey baster after my husband tried to run it - it filled up with water but wouldn't run.
We had a lot of big tree branches knocked down all around the house, but, fortunately, no damage at all to the house. My husband (with a little help from me) spent Thursday cutting and cleaning up many of the large tree branches that fell in front of our house. After unsuccessfully trying to obtain a chain saw (ha!) he unwrapped a very large brand-new hand saw, which had come from his dad's hardware store when they closed it many years ago, and used that. He has spent several more days cleaning the debris off the roof, and in the back yard, and still isn't finished. We will still need to get a professional to prune broken branches off all our trees - which will be a very expensive proposition.
On the Friday after the storm, as I was trying to figure out how to cook the Sabbath meal in a microwave, the power company came and turned off our power again, leaving me with half-cooked pasta and cold (but, fortunately, cooked) chicken. Turns out there was a live wire in the palm tree across the street.
Two days later, on Sunday night, we got back our partial power, and on Monday a week ago we got full power. Seems like each utility guy was a "one-trick" pony. One came to turn off the power, but he couldn't fix the downed line. Next guy came and cut away the loose line so he could turn on partial power, and so forth. Each time the whole neighborhood came out to watch and asked "how come" whoever was there couldn't do the whole job at once.
I spent all day Tuesday doing laundry. I never thought I would be so happy to be able to clean and do laundry. And take a hot shower. We were pretty fortunate that the weather was a pleasant temperature the whole time our AC was off.
The phone was fixed Wednesday night, and I could finally get back online without worrying that I was tying up the phone line. I did have some competition from the rest of the family, though.
Shlomo's school reopened last Thursday. I've been pretty busy since then trying to catch up with tasks that I couldn't do with no power.
And that's the abbreviated story of what happened to us in Hurricane Wilma.
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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quote:We soon discovered that we had partial power - 110V instead of 220V
If I understand correctly, in the US, even in Florida, power comes to your house at 110 V. 220 V outlets have two 110 volt lines.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:We soon discovered that we had partial power - 110V instead of 220V
If I understand correctly, in the US, even in Florida, power comes to your house at 110 V. 220 V outlets have two 110 volt lines.
Yes, and one of the electrical lines serving our house and 6 other houses between here and the corner of our street was severed and dangling in the palm tree across the street after the storm came through. So we only had half the amount of power we should normally have been getting to the house.
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Oh, and Ela its good to have you back in one piece.
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Yes, most residential power feeds are 220V, with a grounded center leg. So you have ground, +110V, and -110V on your three legs. Normal lights, outlets, and other 110V feeds are distributed roughly half and half on these two legs (from ground to one leg or the other), while dryers, air conditioners, and other 220V feeds go directly from the +110V to the -110V legs.
If something happens to one leg, like a short to ground or an open circuit, you are left with half the plugs and lights in your building out, a confusing situation. Any motors that run long on half power will burn up if not protected, so it's very smart to turn off the AC or any appliances that have a funny looking (220V) plug, even if they are still halfway working.
Ela, I'm glad your power is back on now. It's great to be able to be clean, isn't it? Every time I lose power, I realize that I don't appreciate it enough during regular times. I think the worst part of being a homeless person for me would be not being able to bathe every day.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: YEla, I'm glad your power is back on now. It's great to be able to be clean, isn't it? Every time I lose power, I realize that I don't appreciate it enough during regular times. I think the worst part of being a homeless person for me would be not being able to bathe every day.
Yeah, I definitely missed hot baths.
Even not being able to wash dishes in hot water felt somehow less clean to me. And I was calculating how long it would be before I would have to brave a laudromat, along with all the other Floridians who had no power in their homes.
And thanks for the great explanation.
We are fortunate that our loss of electricity was for a relatively short time. Some still haven't gotten their power restored.
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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Sorry, Farmgirl, I generated a bit of disinformation earlier. KerryEmanuel has stated: ...we have only been measuring the intensity of storms over the open ocean thoroughly and accurately for about 35 years, so in such a short record, record-breaking events are not that unusual and should not, by themselves, be cause for undue concern.
Which matches the 35year database of the researchers who wrote the paper supporting the HurricaneIntensification hypothesis arising from GlobalWarmingTheory.
My guess as to the cause for that difference from my earlier estimate of a ~50year "extremely strong hurricane database" would be that advances in miniaturization of transistorized circuitry finally allowed the common use of dropsondes to directly measure minimum barometric pressures within a hurricane. Whereas between postWWII and ~1970, I'd guess that most recorded minimum barometric pressures were estimates derived from the actual barometric measurements taken at flight altitude on the HurricaneHunter aircraft themselves. Because of better&smaller electronics, there probably was also an increased accuracy in measurements of maximum sustained windspeed due to improved aircraft position tracking and to the placement of weather-doppler radar onto the HurricaneHunters.
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For Noeman, Tatiana, and Rabbit: shoulda remembered to post this earlier, the Fujiwhara Effect. More later.
BTW: Who deleted? or what the heck happened to? the Katrina thread??? Which is what I was looking for before I became sidetracked rereading the other old hurricane threads.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Thanks for the encouragement! It will get better, eventually.![[Frown]](frown.gif)
I've been using the grill on the (non-existant) patio for beans and spaghettio's and such. Thankfully, some of the restaurants are open now so my boyfriend has been bringing home take-out every night.![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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And take a hot shower. We were pretty fortunate that the weather was a pleasant temperature the whole time our AC was off. 
