Pac NW hit hard by freezing rain stowm

[MartinH]

Dude! Please stay safe, and stay warm. I hope you guys have enough food and water. Stay healthy!

Martin

 

[Brewdude]

Man that sucks. How are you passing the time?

Doing mundane tasks helps. Reading a bit, smoking my pipe, playing my guitar, and keeping in touch with developments.

Our brewery GM located a large generator on a trailer, so one of our staff is on his way to get it. We have a transfer switch for one of the panels at the brewery which powers the Tap Room and kitchen, so hope we can get that running later.

There's lots of food in the big walk-in cooler that the beer is also stored in. And while the beer isn't at risk of spoiling since it's cold out, the food is another matter.

Still no accurate forecast of when power will be restored.

 

[plumbernater]

I feel you man. Back in the summer here in Alabama the tornados came through had the power off 5 days. My grandaughter loved it though, cooking every thing on the grill. Finding things to do with no power. We did run a generater to run the frig, radio, and such,

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Well, if the beer is threatened at all, there'll be no shortage of willing folks to adopt. 8)

Not sure how big your brewery is, but in my old warehouse, I used to ride a bike around the place to keep warm when the power went out last winter, did some paperwork by candle light, felt like Mad Max Ben Franklin with the stuff I had to come up with and the conditions.

 

[Brewdude]

Latest update from the service provider looks like late Tue before restoration. I sincerely hope they are wrong.

 

[Brewdude]

Power back today. Both at home and the brewery.

Starting to get back to normal. Gonna take a couple days. No damage to my house but the yard is a mess. Others not so lucky. This was a bad one.

Thanks for the concern all. I'll post details later. Right now I'm fried!



Cheers,

RR

 

[Kyle Weiss]

GOOD NEWS! :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:

At least rest well now knowing the worst is over... sheesh. What a ride for you all up there, eh?

 

[MartinH]

Power back today. Both at home and the brewery.

Starting to get back to normal. Gonna take a couple days. No damage to my house but the yard is a mess. Others not so lucky. This was a bad one.

Thanks for the concern all. I'll post details later. Right now I'm fried!



Cheers,

RR

Great news! I'm glad everything is okay. Now, after you get things cleaned up and back to normal, I think you deserve a large glass of your favorite adult beverage and a nice bowl of the best leaf you have.

 

[Dave_In_Philly]

Glad to hear it!

 

[dshpipes]

Glad to hear all came through ok for you! I hope many others were as fortunate as you.

 

[jhuggett]

That was an interesting one for sure. The most snow I've seen in the 20+ years I have lived here. Funny how something like that in the midwest wouldn't have even been discussion worthy but it crippled us up here. People were just going insane by Friday. Fights in gas station lines or stores. Just crazy.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

That's okay, Midwesterners wouldn't know what to do with an ocean at their doorstep, either. :lol:

8)

 

[Brewdude]

Now that the dust is starting to settle on this event, here are some gory details-

Got power back Sunday at home and the brewery. Spent all day there yesterday trying to get production back to some semblance of normal.

Gotta say I'm sooo relieved the the power outtage is now behind me. It was a very difficult time for me, but even more so the brewery as we not only lost over 3 days of
retail sales, the kitchen had to throw out much food due to spoilage. Didn't lose any
beer, but am now behind on the brew schedule. Still it could've been much worse.

We located a 25KW diesel generator on a trailer in Eastern WA on Sat, and one of our guys picked it up. The next day power was restored to the area so only had it running less than a day. If we would have found it earlier things would've been much different. 20/20 hindsight of course. It was more than sufficient to power the brewery Tap Room and kitchen and had power to spare.

Actually we've been aware that we need a large generator for some time now, as back in '06 we lost power for 6 days in a record windstorm. Looks like that requirement will be
moving to the front of the line!

Anyway, apart from my yard being a complete mess from all the downed limbs and stuff my house suffered no damage and I coped reasonably well with my woodstove, small gen, and coleman stove & lantern. So I guess I'm lucky as some folks around here don't even have that!

My neighborhood got about 18" snow from a week ago Sun through last Wed. And then the freezing rain came in. So all the snow that had accumulated on the trees now became even heavier and down came the limbs, trees, and power everywhere!

Apparently we get our main power line from Eastern WA state from a hydroelectric dam. It runs west over the Cascades towards Seattle and it was badly damaged so repairs started there. That's what took longer for the crews to restore power, including and especially since at the peak it was reported that 300,000 were without power in the greater Seattle area and beyond.

The news said that 400 line crews were working on the restoration at the peak, called in from out of state and BC. Kudos to those guys. I wouldn't want their job for all the tea in China as they work under very hazardous conditions, despite what they might get paid!

Growing up as a cheesehead I never ever had power outtages in the winter, even in the worst of blizzards. Not even once in all my 30 years there. After relocating to WA state in '90, I found a much different story. Mostly it's the severe windstorms that take out the power during the winter and some of them can be really bad since we have so many tall conifers that aren't exactly deep rooted.

I live virtually under 100' Doug Firs, and will admit to being deathly afraid of them coming down in a wind event. Some years ago, I had a close call with a 100' Hemlock that narrowly missed T-boning my kitchen while I was in it! Too much to go into here, but it gave me a sense of dread that I've never forgotten.

Anyway, I sure hope we can get through the rest of this La Nina year with no more events like this last one.


Cheers,

RR

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Great recap, glad it's behind you...I love the Pac NW, I vacation there often, so I know the wind and trees mixture is an unsettling one. I can only imagine it coupled with freezing rain and snow.

 

[Brewdude]

Forgot to mention that on Sunday after power came back on at the brewery, both my asst and myself started various production tasks. She started brewing and I was doing cellar work.

About that time a moderate windstorm kicked up and we lost power AGAIN! Fortunately it was only for about half an hour, but we had no way of knowing that when it went out.

The Tap Room was also starting to get busy, the kitchen cooking what it could after throwing out about $1K worth of food. So we were NOT amused!!

Being as my asst had about 1/3rd of the mash-in started, we began discussing what should be done if the power stayed off too long. Not real good alternatives actually.

Fortunately it came back on and she completed the mash in, and the brew seemed just fine despite the interruption. Don't really expect any anomalies from the delay either, as it wasn't all that long.

Snow here is melting as temps have been above freezing for days, and just "normal" rainy weather is expected for the next week or so. Don't feel that flooding is going to be a factor on the Snoqualmie River either. Other areas are suspect though. More heavy snow is expected in the Cascades tonight into tomorrow.

Funny how all December and the first two weeks of January were mild beyond normal, and then we got our arse kicked! Sure hope the worst is behind us, but I'm not going to count on it.

Cheers,

RR

 

[alfredo_buscatti]

You have been through quite the ordeal but have come through it so well. You have my admiration.

I echoed your feelings about growing up in real winter weather but having never once lost power as I'm from Chicago but it took moving to the Southeast to experience a freezing rain power outage. The last time we had an outage we were without power for a week. Not fun, not fun at all!