So we're in western washington and unfortunately day 4 of no power. We lost power Tuesday afternoon and it hasn't come back on yet. Typically we are pretty good. Usually we're close enough to the city that we never have a problem with storms or snow. But this time we got hit badly with a lot of trees in the area down. A midwest friend said it's like a tornado. We happened to be in the very narrow path and got super unlucky.
I'm pretty sure the tree across the middle of the main road in our neighborhood is the culprit. The electric company and city couldn't even get to it till today. So we are obviously out of luck. I'm writing this from the library for an hour. I had been hoping to get power on before.
These previous days we went for lunch at DH's cousin's house. We ate lunch and dinner with them then headed home. We figured out we have hot water with our gas water heater, but no heat or lights. We can light our gas stovetop but not the oven. Thankfully the weather is only November and not that cold because our house is cold enough. Also fortunately that when we moved in 2017 we took the downstairs down to the studs and insulated and earthquake proof the house. Most 1960s homes were not insulated. We had them maximize the insulation and did new windows. I can only imagine what it would be like if we hadn't.
Our furnance while gas had an electric pilot and thermostat. So we haven't had heat. I'm not familiar enough to know how it all works to explain but know we don't have heat. We also have an empty garage since the door won't open and we could muscle it up I think but I don't want too.
DH left work minutes before his office lost power and his car would have been trapped there Tuesday. I called him and said to come home we lost power at at 4 pm on Tuesday in the middle of my cooking meatloaf in the oven. He managed to finish it on the grill but the winds somehow kept blowing out the grill and it was okay but the potatoes were unevenly cooked. Basically the small potaoes cooked but not the larger ones.
Also fortunately we were to the cousin's house and used up all the ground beef i had bought and made burgers for dinner and bolognese. She said it was interesting having a family of four and a dog in their immaculate home. For which we are eternally grateful. But they were going out of town for the weekend so today we we've been scrounging for power. I managed to leave the leftovers in another friend's fridge who got power and we're headed to another friend's house for dinner, they generously invited us over.
But for now, we haven't open our two fridges. I'm going to guess we'll have to throw everything away but if we get away with only wasting that much food I'll be thrilled! The kids also haven't had school since tuesday. Signing off for now.
We might get a generator but we usually never lose power and to store it. ugh.
November 24th, 2024 at 08:17 pm 1732479445
November 25th, 2024 at 03:44 pm 1732549451
I bought a very expensive "power station," essentially a giant battery that I can hook my fridge up to; since the fridge/freezer only runs periodically, not nonstop, I could let it run a while, then turn the battery off to conserve power.
I bought it several years ago and so fr really had just 1 outage where I had to use it.
Without it, I think the guidelines are 4 hours only for the fridge and a full 24 hours for the freezer, assuming you don't open the doors.
November 25th, 2024 at 03:46 pm 1732549612
November 25th, 2024 at 05:07 pm 1732554433
November 26th, 2024 at 02:45 am 1732589129