Homestead mailing list

["Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT gmail.com>]

On 12/19/06, Gloria Morris <gloriamorris59 AT gmail.com> wrote:
> I'll be setting up all over again for black-outs, after I'm done
> moving - double moves are a pain! Seems like there's a big storm where
> you lose all grid power for a few days every year or two around here.

Gloria and I live in the same general locality. The tornadoes last
spring were devastating, but the ice storm we had a couple of weeks
ago may have been even worse. Some people I work with who live south
of Springfield (that's Illinois) didn't have power restored after more
than 7 days -- I think everyone is hooked up again now. North of
Springfield the ice damage wasn't as bad, and I only lost power for a
few hours.

Trees suffered badly -- the ones, that is, that survived the
tornadoes. I am still picking up large branches and will probably have
the two large pines north of the house removed rather than wait for
the next ice storm to see if it gets the rest of the few remaining
branches.

I can do pretty well without power. I have gas to cook with, and a
fireplace insert (and plenty of wood) to keep the house habitable (and
I've cooked on top of the insert), and a couple of kerosene heaters.
I've also got a throw switch for a generator, but I have simply not
gotten around to getting one, idiot that I am (I have an old one, but
I'm not sure I could start it). The recent volatile weather is
threatening to give us ice storms all winter instead of just when the
seasons are changing, so I expect worse weather in the future.

Marie