How was your weather today?

[Brewdude]

News today said there were 350K customers without power at the peak of the storm yesterday. And many are still in the dark apparently.

I count myself very lucky. 3 fatalities - two killed when a tree fell on their car and one in their home!

:evil: 


No Cheers,

RR

 

[RobJ]

We've been without power since Tuesday around 4:30 pm, so no heat, etc. I really hope they get us back on the grid very soon. Not holding my breath however.

Very sad news about those deaths. It seems we lose a few people every fall when the wind storms start on this side of the Cascades.

 

[Brewdude]

We've been without power since Tuesday around 4:30 pm, so no heat, etc. I really hope they get us back on the grid very soon. Not holding my breath however.

Very sad news about those deaths. It seems we lose a few people every fall when the wind storms start on this side of the Cascades.

Looks like the worst hit areas were up in Snohomish County. That's where you're located iirc Rob. Hope they get you back on line soon. I read today that some areas might go until the weekend!

Hope you have a generator going!


Cheers,

RR

 

[RobJ]

No generator sadly. Yes I'm on the southernmost end of Mukilteo. Inside house temp is 52 right now, the good news is its supposed to be pretty nice the next couple of days, but sleeping is a real challenge. We have 3 cats and are thinking of a motel but I'm not sure how well that will work out.

Anyway, we'll soldier through, we've had worse conditions over the years for sure, once we were out for 5 days during a snow storm back in the '90s as I recall, with a downed tree laying across the roof on the front of our two story. Good times.

 

[Brewdude]

No generator sadly. Yes I'm on the southernmost end of Mukilteo. Inside house temp is 52 right now, the good news is its supposed to be pretty nice the next couple of days, but sleeping is a real challenge. We have 3 cats and are thinking of a motel but I'm not sure how well that will work out.

Anyway, we'll soldier through, we've had worse conditions over the years for sure, once we were out for 5 days during a snow storm back in the '90s as I recall, with a downed tree laying across the roof on the front of our two story. Good times.

No genny? And no woodstove either? Hopefully you have a Coleman lantern and stove or the like. And you're probably on city water so you can at least flush your toilet. If you were on a well you'd be screwed!

I have a small genny that powers the fridge, a few lights, and a space heater that's pretty powerful but it sucks the juice on the genny big time. So for longer outtages I rely on my woodstove. Kind of a PITA to keep it stoked but it's seen me through several long outtages. 6 days in '06 and 3 days a few years ago. And I'm Coleman equipped.

I'd really like to get one of those big GenTran units that are fed on natural gas and come on automatically. A buddy has one and it powers his whole house. Unfortunately that is waaay out of my financial means!

At the least I'll be picking up a larger genny, but the problem there is that I have an electric forced air furnace and the amps required for that would exceed the output of most portable home gennys. So it looks like the woodstove is the answer there for now.

Hope you get your power back soon Rob. It sucks being without.


Cheers,

RR

 

[RobJ]

I appreciate your concern Rande, it's right nice to know folks care when you've hit a rough patch. Power came back yesterday evening approximately 50 hours after going bye bye. Great timing too, we had the season's first heavy frost last night so it would have been a very long cold night without the furnace running. That last I checked before the power came back on the inside temp was about 48 F.

Regarding gennys, yes we are talking seriously about what we'd need in the way of KW to support us for a few days. I can't handle wood smoke at all, even in tiny amounts so the ones we had were removed years ago. but I do have a free standing gas stove in the family room that needs repair but haven't been able to find any parts. So I figure a small genny for a few lights, fridge, and network gear, along with a new gas stove and we should be good.

 

[Brewdude]

I appreciate your concern Rande, it's right nice to know folks care when you've hit a rough patch. Power came back yesterday evening approximately 50 hours after going bye bye. Great timing too, we had the season's first heavy frost last night so it would have been a very long cold night without the furnace running. That last I checked before the power came back on the inside temp was about 48 F.

Regarding gennys, yes we are talking seriously about what we'd need in the way of KW to support us for a few days. I can't handle wood smoke at all, even in tiny amounts so the ones we had were removed years ago. but I do have a free standing gas stove in the family room that needs repair but haven't been able to find any parts. So I figure a small genny for a few lights, fridge, and network gear, along with a new gas stove and we should be good.

Very good to know you got powered up Rob. Apparently there are many still in the dark. And this wasn't even a big wind event in the scheme of things!

Doesn't bode well for the rest of the season. News says that this year's El Nino is comparable to the '06 El Nino when we had the record shattering windstorm that left some without power for 3 weeks!

:silent:


Cheers?

RR

 

[RobJ]

Yes, little to cheer about based on predicted El Nino winds. Snohomish County PUD states the outage from this storm was the worst in many years; about 19,500 are still without power. At its peak there were wind gusts clocked at Pain Field (Everett/Mukilteo) around 60 mph.

I know the winds at our place were some of the hardest I've seen in nearly 30 years in this house. Thankfully we only had some limbs down, nothing big, but up the hill a little there were several downed trees, a couple were in the 100' range height wise and we can still hear chainsaws and wood chippers running. Next time we may not be so lucky of course.

 

[Brewdude]

Heavy rains today/tonight in my area. In fact it could get very interesting tomorrow........

Flooding predicted on many area rivers in W. Washington and the Snoqualmie is at the top of the list. Our brewery is literally a stone's throw away from the Snoqualmie river. In fact we're about a mile upstream from the Snoqualmie Falls by the historic Salish Lodge which is situated right overlooking the waterfall. I'm given to understand that Snoqualmie Falls is the second most visited tourist site in the state, next to Mt. Rainier. So we get a lot of tourists.

Anyway, the rains have been very heavy today and the river is significantly above normal levels. I've been monitoring this on several sites and it looks like it will crest at above 52K cfs Wed morning @4AM. That's significant and will affect certain areas in the downtown Snoqualmie area, of which we are a part of. 

I've been part and parcel of several major floods here, and the worst one was ~62K cfs. At that point it came into the brewery and Tap Room, but not by much, fortunately. Power was off to the downtown section for a day or so but we came out mostly OK.

At 52K cfs it certainly gets my attention, as it may put out the power once again, get water into our parking lot, and generally disrupt business. In the past anything over 50K provided great stress.

I'm hopeful that the work the Army Corps of Engineers has done over the past several years on the pinch point just before the Falls will improve the flows. They widened the narrow gap so as to make more flow and reduce the back-up on the town area. I'm hoping that this will make a difference. I'll know more tomorrow when I go in. Fingers and toes crossed!

Seems like I have to go through this kind of crap every so often. Part and parcel of living here I guess!

I hasten to add that I am not intending to be the boy who cries wolf. Equally I've been in this exact position some good few times in the past. And we came through OK in those cases. I hope for the best here as well.

And if you're really interested, here's the site I'm monitoring. The significant reporting station is the one at Snoqualmie Falls Station which is just above the Falls, and about a mile from us-

http://www.floodzilla.com/river/snoqualmie


Cheers,

RR

 

[Hermit]

It's supposed to be 80 this weekend.

 

[MisterE]

Getting chilly here. Nice during the day, but bundle up at night!

 

[Dutch]

Fantastic! I'm in Northern Florida heading south of Tampa. It was around 75 degrees here today.

 

[Brewdude]

Dodged a major bullet today with the flooding, but it was a close thing-

Got into the brewery and had power. Water was up to just a few feet below the brewery, but never made it into the parking lot. No areas of downtown Snoqualmie were flooded.

River crested at 48K cfs and started falling late morning. Yet the overall level didn't appear to change much. From it's normal level there was an 18' rise by the reporting station near the brewery.

Was still raining cats and dogs when I got in but turned to showers late morning. Had one good spike in the power but it didn't affect operations.

Got home and had no power though. In fact all of North Bend up to and including me was out. Got out the genny and found it had issues, so went back to the brewery to borrow the small one we have there.

Got back home and power was back on, at least in my area. Still out in large areas but downtown North Bend was powered up.

Looks like I'll be shopping for another genny this weekend as the one I have is old and clapped out.

What a day!

:x 


Cheers?

RR

 

[DrT999]

Congrats on missing a flood! Something to cheer, to be sure

 

[KevinM]

High 40s and dry here in Central CT. On my daily three mile ramble, neighbors are speculating on when this mild spell is going to end, which, realistically speaking, can't be far away. Just came in from a nice smoke of 10-year-old EMP in a Stanwell billiard. Enjoy it while you have it, is my motto. Sorry to hear of others' travail. I hope you all catch a break. Back in Oct of '13 we had a 10-day power outage. The pics of trees crashing through houses and downed power lines that made the nat'l wires were all taken over on Oak Street which is one block to the south of us. No one wants a repeat. I still remember the concussion from falling trees during the night. One neighbor went to bed, a big oak came down through her roof, and she was fatally impaled by a limb in her sleep. Mother Nature can be a total beyatch.

 

[Brewdude]

Another very trying day. Had power all night but winds woke me up and decided to get up an hr earlier.

Surprised to see that power was out pretty much all the way from my 'hood all the way into and including Snoqualmie, which included the brewery! Had to put together a shipment so used a headlamp to assemble it.

Very slow and difficult using the fork truck when I only had like a 5' area of light from the headlamp. But if we don't ship we don't get paid, so that was a priority!

Mid morning the GM came in and secured a bigass diesel genny on a trailer. Hooked this up to the transfer switch and fired it up. This only powers some of the circuits to the Tap Room. Nothing in production.

Started going through the Tap Room kitchen equipment to see what worked, and then the power came back on! Hallelujah!!!

Salvaged the production day and went forward with a modified schedule. 

Got home later and found I never lost power at home. Huge and unexpected. Plus looked like all surrounding areas now had power. 

Been a very stressful couple of days. Hopefully we can go forward from here.

:suspect:


Cheers,

RR

 

[KevinM]

I hope this uptick in your fortunes continues.

 

[Dutch]

Fantastic weather here in Mobile, AL. today. Almost hot if you were working hard, which I have a policy not to do.

Heading into Gawga in the morning to play in the Atlanta traffic on 285.

 

[Stick]

How's things looking now Rande?
Ten out of ten for resourcefulness and perseverance too mate...

 

[Brewdude]

How's things looking now Rande?
Ten out of ten for resourcefulness and perseverance too mate...

Its been a welcome relief the past few days mate, thanks for asking. Several more storms headed in this general direction but the most impacted areas are away from me this time.

Going out to shop for a large generator this weekend. And it must have an electric start feature. I'm getting too damn old to be pull starting these things anymore!

:!:


Cheers,

RR