Heads Up to People in Northeast

[Buckethead]

We finally lost power for good here at 11pm last night. A check of the area around my house this morning looked normal...very few trees down. Then I took a ride up the mountain....DANG! It looks like a war zone. Branches broken and on wires, wires down, trees down, and trees on houses. Looks like about 150' of elevation was all it took for everything to freeze. North of me is even worse. Power company sez they might have power back around Sunday...or maybe later. The nearest gas satation (with power) ran out of gas...seems like it was a record day for gas can sales.

Got fuel for the generator and wood for the stove....life is good!

 

[Dalmatian90]

does your down spouts drain away or drain into the same system? my neighbor had problems with water and he found out the down spout pipes had collapsed and the water ran into the basement

No gutters, so no down spouts.

House was originally a summer cottage. This pic http://d90.us/fire/winter_pond.jpg is from a few years ago, basically from my front door and that's the 8' deep, spring fed swim pond. When the drains were working properly, they flowed at least 5gpm year round. They drain into the fish pond.

 

[MATTYB11]

nothing but rain here. I was hoping for a big snow storm or something. The news tonight showed a bunch of flooded streets and basements but thats about the worst we got from this storm

 

[Ductape]

Some neat pictures from the newspaper......... notice a common theme : powerlines down !


http://www.unionleader.com/uploads/media-items/slideshows/Dec__11_12__2008_Ice_Storm2/index.html

 

[A. Stanton]

Nice posts of pics to all.

 

[Dalmatian90]

Makes me wish I had a lot of extra wood...

I'm headed up to my sister's house in Worcester shortly with a load of firewood. They have 1/2 the service to their house down, so no 220v and only some of their 110v circuits, no furnace. Brother in law bought some firewood for their fireplace at the supermarket yesterday

I'm pretty certain I'd be able to spend the weekend trucking $100 Ranger loads (what, 1/4 cord on a good day?) into the city, because I'm sure they're not the only ones in that situation. With $1.50 gas, I'd even make some good money.

There's a couple plumbing supply shops I pass going to her house, hoping one is open. My furnace control fried with this basement flood, and my local plumbing supply stores no longer are open on Saturday mornings, grrrrr. Oh well, at least with the woodstove I can still wash up "camping style."

 

[Zodiac45]

Wow those pix remind me of the ice storm of 1997! We had no power for 2 weeks! Lets hope that's not the case for you guys. I'll tell you that the ice will kill allot of trees. I still have some standing tamerack/larch from that storm. They died over about a 4 yr period after the ice storm. I really dodged a bullet up here on the coast. Just south of me, was severe icing, where up here it built too about a 1/4 inch but then warm winds blew in and within the night, it was all melted. Good Luck and this is where you really appreciate those wood stoves!

 

[ktm250rider]

Lost power fri morning. Originally startup was mon/tues this week. The lineman down the road pulled some strings and just got us running again. Generator worked pissah. Had a full house with neighbors and parents who had no power. The only down side, no free wood near by. I lost one tree in my yard. A whopping 6" diameter.

 

[cuttinscott]

Here the freezing rain started Thursday night. 1st power outage at the house was 1:55am friday then the auto start homestandby kicked in then the power was on then off a couple times then it went off for good around 4am and is still out. We had about 1 inch of ice stuck to everything with about a inch of snow atop the ice. Here at the store we lost power for about 4 hours friday afternoon and had a tractor 15K generator running the store. Seeme like we were busy with new chain sales, chain sharpens, Generator repairs and service calls etc. Had about 4 generator come in for repair elcheapo's that had been overloaded and burnt up the windings. National Grid says they have 5000 men and women round the clock fixing the damage but it looks like some area residents will be without line power till tuesday or wednesday. Lots of trees overloaded by ice and downed lots of lines snapped a ton of damage..........

Good news its supposed to be in the high fourty's monday and tuesday



Scott

 

[streeter]

Pepperell

Reminds me of 2 things:

1. The storm that hit Wetern New York 3 years ago.

2. The reason I left Buffalo:biggrinbounce2: It might have been fun playing in and looking at, BUT stunk if you had to work in it

 

[Dalmatian90]

After my sister's, who wasn't hit too hard...top 10' of a hemlock broke off and took down her and her neighbor's services...I drove through Paxton/Leicester way. About a mile and a half and 150' in elevation you got into serious icing. The National Grid crew was down the street, at least one guy catching a cat nap (can't blame 'em).

Listening to the local big AM station, they had no phone lines, were running with one cell phone they requested you send text messages too if you could instead of calling in. They were doing a pretty darn good job.

Paxton, which is a town of about 5,000, said it would be Monday before the transmission line into town is even repaired, meanwhile crews were working on fixing as much of the main distribution lines as possible but damage was extensive.

I took some digital photos, I'll see if any came out OK later.

All things considered, it could be worse. Monday will be pushing 50º so the ice will go away...my step dad this afternoon was recalling our ice storm in '73. Hit on Thursday, Monday he managed to cut himself a mile down his road to one that was already opened to get to work. Came home that evening, more trees had come down and closed the road once more. He had to leave his car at the end of the road and walk in and out till Thursday when the town finally got the road re-opened.

 

[Dalmatian90]

MARLBORO— State Police divers, with help from Marlboro police and fire and Central Massachusetts Search & Rescue, found the body of the missing Marlboro Public Works employee today at 2:30 p.m. in the Sudbury reservoir along the Marlboro/Southboro line.

Kevin Connolly, a foreman in the public works’ Forestry Division for 19 years, had been missing since early yesterday, when he was supervising multiple crews working on a series of ice storm-related calls.

Mr. Connolly, 50, leaves a wife and two children.

Authorities are trying to determine what led to his death. His truck was found at the edge of the public works parking lot at 135 Neil St. near a swollen creek. Mr. Connolly had diabetes, which could have caused him to become disoriented, have a seizure or black out, police said yesterday.

I saw a pic of his pickup -- the "edge" is actually down a steep bank. I don't know if it was a medical/disorientation, slid on ice, or backed up too far on a dark and stormy night...but you could see how someone trying to get out of the truck once it was stuck would've slid into the stream below very easily.

 

[STLfirewood]

They are saying a 1/4 inch of ice for the St. Louis area. Part of me hopes it doesn;t happen The other part would like for it to. I have the chipper and saws ready to go. A good ice storm can mean a lot of money doing clean up. But I hate to see good trees go own like that.

Scott

 

[Wood Doctor]

They are saying a 1/4 inch of ice for the St. Louis area. Part of me hopes it doesn't happen The other part would like for it to. I have the chipper and saws ready to go. A good ice storm can mean a lot of money doing clean up. But I hate to see good trees go own like that.

Scott

'Tis the season for ice storms. I hate these monsters. Give me rain or give me snow, but please don't give me ice. :censored:

 

[willsaw4beer]

'Tis the season for ice storms. I hate these monsters. Give me rain or give me snow, but please don't give me ice. :censored:

+1

 

[fishercat]

I went up to Worchester today.

it was unbelievable! higher elevations really got hammered.lot's of dark neighborhoods and streets. very few people out and about.saw a lot of cars smashed in driveways,lots of trees fallen over roads,many trees in the lines,uprooted and bent over.those white birches ain't happy.most of the trees i saw broken or split had never had any trimming or maintenance done.many swamp maples which should have been taken down long ago.strangely enough,the white pines seemed to have faired the best.

what amazed me is,i didn't see one house damaged.not saying there weren't any but it was crazy seeing all the close calls.

i saw one tree guy out working,no cops,and one utility crew.

was quite a sight.my heart goes out to many folks up there.we stopped and help a couple folks move some limbs out of the road.i won't forget the experience for a long time.

 

[fiasco]

mess in Lyndeborough, NH

Have my friend's little Honda 2000 watt generator running (what's left in) the fridge, have all my battery powered lights (two) on chargers, have my DSL modem hooked up and the laptop going. Just brought the furnace online by dropping it off the supply line and tying in there, so it's isolated. My Vt. Castings Encore is doing a good job keeping the house pretty warm, but the cellar was down in the mid 40s so I started getting worried about pipes. Sure wish I had a larger unit so I could hook up to my generator box and run the well pump! That's what I get for being too cheap...

Lines got ripped from the house down to the meter...but I cleaned up the offending tree already (more or less). Also been helping my brother in law keep his furnace and sump pump going last night and today while he stood in line and was one of the lucky 20 recipients of a 5500 watt generator from the local Tractor Supply. Fortunately the water only got a few inches up the cellar, and he's in business now with heat and sump pump.

Outside...wow. I'd say roughly 20% of my trees are going to have to come down on my 2.75 acres. I won't be wanting for firewood or pine to try out my little beam machine on! Need a woodshed anyway... =) . Good thing my father has a 43 hp Kubota just 10 miles up the road, I think that'll be coming down here in a week or two for some skidder duty. But it stinks that a lot of my privacy trees are probably not going to make it.

Speaking of skidders, a neighbor came through and finished opening up the road with one today, but not before my buddy came up with his Subaru WRX, a motocross helmet and an old Stihl, followed closely by others, most of whom stopped at the lines down in front of my place. The fire department came through today and moved the lines up out of the way.

I'll see about some pictures soon...it's going to be a wild few days, I could be without power for a week judging from the mess on the roads.

Good luck everybody!

 

[woodbooga]

We lost power around midnight on Thurs. eve in the Alton, NH area and it just came back last evening. And we are among the lucky ones. There's folks in the most populated areas of the state (greater Manchester) who might not be back on line until late in the week.

Heard that crews are working around the clock and our own workers are being helped by folks from Penn, O, Md., Mich, and even Canada.

Now is not a good time to be a birch tree or a white pine in NH.

Funny thing is that the roads never got that bad. By 11am on Fri., I felt comfortable taking the 2WD Ranger to the grocer. The main danger was downed trees and power lines. Supermarket was a mob scene, though everyone was very civil. Not a slice of meat to be had. Or dairy. Or anything perishible. Generator there was only enough to power lights (dim) and the registers. All the meat, etc. there went into the dumpster.

All in all, no biggie for us. No structural damage. Wife, kids, and I "camped" downstairs closer to the woodstove, which kept us warm and kept us fed.

 

[Dalmatian90]

Here's the pics I took on Saturday in Paxton, MA. These are about 28 hours after the precipitation ended.

There was a lot of shots I *wished* I could get, but there was no safe place to pull over to take them.

Top damage:

Pine tree in the center lost it's top -- which is now impaled into the ground 75' away (to the right)

Icing on a white pine. This was a nor'easter -- north and east facing trees took the brunt since the rain was being driven by the wind from that direction, and there where a few more protected spots I passed that you'd see one side of valley with heavy icing, and the other looked like any other winter day.

Route 31...still spots where they had just made the road passable but hadn't cleared it yet.

 

[Booshcat]

Just got back last night from a Friday midnight run up to Raymond NH.
At the top of the road (about 2 mi. from the house) wires were down that I just managed to sneak under. The whole upper crossarm had snapped off of the top of the pole. Well they don't look like they will have power till the end of the week. The road looked like a forest trail with all of the tree debris and pine needles.