If anyone lives in the Northeast Area like I do, and had their power go out I hope you and your family made it all out ok...

dear So So:

We have in finland some minor electricity problems.
All of them are because natural storms and etc.
I think, like president Bush said, you must rebuild your power lines.
If we get that kind of error in our pow.lines, we can circe that, so we don't have long power shutdown in our 400Voltage lines...

It's just you must rebuild powerlines! I f your electricity need grows by 30%
in 10 years, it don't last enought for all of you, it has to been build other powerlines that covers mainlaines.
If one fails, you have another pow.line to take care of electricity coverage.
We done it here in Finland, and we still have some problems ( local ) with our electicity devlopment. But we have another line to take actions if first one fails to deliver power...

Just spend more money to powerlines, so it would fix the problem!

Think, if you had two pow.lines and that first failed you now, you still have power!

Power went out here in many areas of Michigan, including where I live. We have a backup generator so were fine but without phones for a while and without our cable internet access for longer. ;)

Everything is back up and running here now.

Wyv

Yepp I was affected by the blackout but the power returned rather quickly up here. Was there any unrest where you live So so? We had nothing of the kind up here, it was all quiet.

I was just outside of the eastern edge of the blackout zone on Thursday in Springfield, Mass., and flew home on Friday to Grand Rapids, which was just outside the western edge. So the family and I had no problems with power.

Now, all my relatives in Southeast Michigan... they were in the dark [img]smile.gif[/img]

Glad that all seems to be getting back in order.

There wasn't any unrest in my area, but things were to say the least hectic(sp?)...You are so lucky Wyv!!! During the time I had no power I was dreaming of a backup generator... [img]tongue.gif[/img] But I'm glad everyone is okay...

We're certainly grateful that we decided to put in a backup generator! We know that we will always have at least one power failure each winter and again in the summer. They can last for days. With all our pets, the potential damage to pipes, the fact that Jack works on computer etc. was a very wise choice to get one!

Hope everyone's power is back!!

Wyv

I'm also in (Southeast) Michigan and we lost all power for 24 hours with no generator, but it was also kind of fun, neighbors gathered together outside until all hours of the night just talking and drinking. Boy, the stars sure were out in full force and fun to see so clearly.Really glad that it didn't last any longer though. Air conditioning is one of the greatest inventions ever!!!

gee u all make it sound so serious..... how EXACTLY serious is it, coz the only blackouts i experience here in Singapore are the usual ones (power failure, wait for half an hour and POOF! the lights are on!), have not experienced any other blackouts for about 5 years now......
can i say that i'm lucky? :confused:

The issue, LiOnHe@rT, is how long it takes to get power back. If it's just 30 minutes, that's fine.

If it's a day, then you have to be careful about opening up the refrigerator. Anything in there will keep cold for a while unless you open the refrigerator door. When you open the door, you let warm air from outside into the fridge, hastening the food's demise. Unless you like drinking chunky milk... [img]graemlins/1puke.gif[/img]

If the weather is extremely warm, then the whole house will heat up, since air conditioning no longer works. For some folks, that can be life threatening, especially the very young (infants can't regulate their body temperature well until they're around 2, IIRC) or the very old (who may tend to have other medical problems which are made worse by the extreme temperatures).

There are also other large-scale system issues, like whether the sewage treatment plant has enough generator capacity to run. Nothing worse than not being able to use the toilet because there's no place for it to go...

When we lost power for several days back in March, the temperature of the house slowly dropped down to below 60 degrees F. With the weather outside being below 30 degrees F, it was just a matter of time before the house got that cold. If it were just me, I could have handled it somehow, but my kids are 3 and 6 -- eventually, the "Daddy, I'm cold" gets to be too much. Fortunately, we had a hotel room planned in Detroit for a vacation, or we would have been sharing kid-sicles. :D