No Power, No Heat, 36 inches of snow paralyzes the Hudson Valley.

[HudsonValleyNoah]

Battery powered internet connection and flashlights.

Car has half tank of gas and is re-charging flashlights and laptops.

One Car has blown out window from wacko plow driver but I have it boarded up.

GF's car still has a tree crashed on it - no chainsaw available yet.

100,000 people with no power and it might be as much as a week before we all get it back.

20 degrees at night, hope I can keep the pipes from freezing in the house.

Please send Prayers for me and the dogs and those around me who are in worse shape than we are.

man it's cold...

Noah

[Coytee]

Wow. Hang in there. If I were closer I'd help dig you out (I have an industrial backhoe/loader)

Are you on a well or city water? If you really fear the pipes to freeze I wonder if you could turn the water off and drain them over night?

Or...perhaps, leave the water running so it won't just be sitting there?

Sorry to hear about the GF's car, that happened to me once in a storm.

Do you have a fireplace and an ample supply of firewood? If you have the fireplace and no more wood, you DO know that there are several board/feet of wood in any given Klipsch speaker?

[Islander]

Sounds grim! I hope Spring comes to the valley real soon.

[Budman]

be safe noah, hope and pray for you and yours

[USNRET]

Be safe, my friend. At least with a GF you can create some heat. After 3 years in Iceland I don't miss that cold. Just to rub it in, it'll be 70 on the island today.

[twistedcrankcammer]

Noah,

Hope you can go buy a generator soon and wire it into your service pannel. Don't forget to keep the main off while the generator is attached. We use home kerosun space heaters for the pipes in the basement when it gets real cold. With a generator, and we are on fuel oil, we are self contained if we loose power.

Roger

[J.4knee]

Whooa stay safe.

[dtel]

Try not to freeze and hopefully they get your power back quickly. After this is all over you may want to look into a wood burning heater for when the power goes out ?

[jbsl]

After 3 years in Iceland I don't miss that cold.

Hang in there hopefully the weather will improve.

One year in Iceland at Hofn radar station was enough for me to decide that living in a cold place was not for me![:|] The 1 year remote tour was enough for me and finished my time in the USAF and have been in Austin since.

[Coytee]

Just to rub it in, it'll be 70 on the island today

Oohhhh, that was cold! []

[Groomlakearea51]

Just to rub it in, it'll be 70 on the island today

Oohhhh, that was cold!

Guess it's time to clean out the leaves from the pool again for this afternoon...... [H]

Seriously, it's been cold here (lows in 30's/40's which for south Florida is nippy...). Do stay warm and watch the water pipes, etc.

[twistedcrankcammer]

Noah,

How about an update? What's going on with your situation?

Roger

[SWL]

Sending prayers your way. Hang in there.

[CECAA850]

Born and raised in upstate New York. Too cold for me. I did have to mow and edge today however[:$].

[Arky]

Hope he's ok, probably ran out of gas.

[HudsonValleyNoah]

Storm has passed.

36 inches in 30 hours.

Power is back on!

Heat is back on.

House got down to 38 degrees despite my best efforts.

I am thinking pellet stove.

Dogs started sneezing when the temp dropped below 42 (what's THAT about?)

We are all FINE now ( [] )

Thanks to those who sent prayers and to all those who contacted us on and off line.

When the chips are down, when sharks smell blood in the water, it's easy to tell who your friends are and who the low-life's are.

We had some attempted brake-ins and an attempted robbery but (as another thread asks) "Got Ammo?"

Plenty.

Funny how the sound of racking a 12 gage pump makes the low-life type's jump.

And run.

Yes, we had some interesting times during the last few days.

But for the moment, things have calmed down.

Thanks again to those who stand up for what's right.

Thanks all.

Noah

[twistedcrankcammer]

Noah,

Glad to hear everyone is OK! []

Would like to hear your stories when all the important stuff is taken care of...

Roger

[RT FAN]

Sorry to hear about your troubles, Noah. Glad you and your four legged friends made it through ok. Good luck filing the insurance claims on the GF's car and your window. I'm sure the town will just rush over with a check for you. []

[jacksonbart]

Being stuck without heat in winter is one of my worst winter fears. Usually keep wood for that specific senario, but not sure the fireplace for a long period of would work in cold enough weather. Was up in North NJ for work until Thursday afternoon, bad driving until the PA border, then 5 hours later we got hit, not to your scale. Glad it worked out.

[Islander]

House got down to 38 degrees despite my best efforts.

I am thinking pellet stove.

Don't pellet stoves need power to drive the pellet feeder? Don't know if one would work during a power outage.

As for security, during the big ice storm in eastern Canada in 1998, when power to some areas was out for weeks, I believe a few generators were stolen. I didn't read of any more serious crime than that, but there were 15 thousand of Canadian Forces personnel helping out, which may have been a factor.

[edit] Impact

Many power lines broke and over 1,000 pylons collapsed in chain reactions under the weight of the ice, leaving more than 4 million people without electricity, most of them in southern Quebec, western New Brunswick and Eastern Ontario, some of them for an entire month. At least twenty-five people died in the areas affected by the ice, primarily from hypothermia, according to Environment Canada.^[4] Twelve more deaths and hundreds of millions of dollars in additional damage were caused by the flooding farther south from the same storm system.

The bridges and tunnels linking Montreal with the South Shore were closed because of concerns about weight tolerances or ice chunks falling from the superstructures. All but one power linkage to the island of Montreal were down for several days^[5], disabling both of the city's water pumping stations.^[6] When power was restored, parts of Montreal remained impassable due to large chunks of ice falling from rooftops and endangering pedestrians and motorists; large portions of Old Montreal and the downtown core were cordoned off by police, due to the dangers of large sheets of ice falling from buildings.

The area south of Montreal (Montérégie) was so affected that the triangle formed by Saint-Hyacinthe, Granby and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu was nicknamed the triangle noir ("dark or black triangle") by the French-language media^[7], and the Triangle of Darkness in English media^[5], for the total lack of electricity for weeks.

Cities such as Ottawa, Smiths Falls, and other Eastern Ontario municipalities, that had never experienced such an amount of freezing rain, declared a state of emergency. On January 7, Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick called on the help of the Canadian Forces, prompting the deployment of more than 15,000 military personnel at the peak of the crisis. In addition to help residents, CN locomotives (CN3502 and CN3555) were moved off the tracks and used to provide power to residents of Boucherville and Coteau-du-Lac, south and west of Montreal respectively. A third locomotive was moved to Boucherville, but never actually put to use.^[8]

The loss of electrical power also greatly affected pig and cattle farmers, as they could no longer provide water or adequate ventilation to their barns full of livestock, leading to the death of many animals. Many barns also collapsed under the weight of the ice, killing the animals trapped inside.^[9]

Millions of trees were brought down by the weight of ice around the affected areas.^[10] As many trees were damaged or fell by the heavy ice, the maple syrup and orchard regions suffered heavy blows and massive losses in the storm; Quebec's maple sugar industry, the largest in the world, was devastated.^[10] As another example, 5,000 trees in Montreal's Mount Royal Park had to be cut, 80% (140,000) of the rest were damaged to different degrees and had to be trimmed, a large number severely.^[10] The mountain park looked more like a logging camp than a nature oasis for many weeks.

Critically, about 1,000 steel electrical pylons (said, in Quebec, to be the most solid in the world) and 35,000 wooden utility poles were crushed and crumpled by the weight of the ice, further damaging power supply and hampering the return of electricity. Teams were brought in from places such as Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, along with teams from the United States and the Canadian Forces, to help restore power to affected homes in eastern Ontario and western Quebec.

Roughly 700,000 of Maine's 1.2 million residents were without electricity, the Maine National Guard was mobilized, and hundreds of utility crews from as far away as North Carolina arrived to help.^[11]

Three weeks after the end of the ice storm, there were still thousands of people without electricity. In Quebec alone, 150,000 persons were without electricity as of January 28.^[12] Estimates of material damages reached around $2 billion Canadian for Quebec alone. Overall estimates are around $4-6 billion US for all the areas affected.^[13] Damage to the power grid was so severe that major rebuilding, not repairing, of the electrical grid had to be undertaken. ^[14]

[edit] Operation Recuperation

A T-shirt sold in Ottawa, Ontario, a region affected by the 1998 North American Ice Storm.

With many roads impassable due to heavy snowfall or fallen trees, broken power lines and coated with a heavy layer of ice, emergency vehicles could hardly move. On January 7, the provinces of New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec requested aid from the Canadian Forces (CF), and Operation Recuperation began on January 8. Over 15,000 troops were deployed. It was the largest deployment of troops ever to serve on Canadian soil in response to a natural disaster, and the largest operational deployment of Canadian military personnel since the Korean War.

CF members from about 200 units across Canada helped provincial and municipal workers clear roads, rescue people and animals trapped by storm wreckage, evacuate the sick, shelter and feed about 100,000 people frozen out of their homes, and ensure that farmers had the generators and fuel required to keep their operations going. CP-140 aircraft from 14 Wing Greenwood, NS conducted aerial imagery of the downed powerlines in Quebec and Ontario. Military engineers and technicians worked around the clock with hydro and telephone crews to repair and replace downed transmission towers and utility poles. On January 13, at the request of the Province of Quebec, CF members assumed the powers of peace officers in the most devastated areas around Montreal.

At the height of this crisis, Operation Recuperation involved 15,784 deployed personnel (including 3,740 Reservists) from all three CF commands; 10,550 in Quebec, 4,850 in Ontario and 384 in New Brunswick. In addition, 6,200 CF members and DND employees working at their regular jobs provided the logistical support required to sustain the operation.^[15]