It was mid sixties, rural western Central NJ, mid January and we had a huge snow & ice storm. I was the oldest of four w/ a single Mom. I was 8ish & our electricity was out for almost three weeks (I think 20 days, but not positive). School was canceled for the whole time, partially because we were snowed/iced in half that time, the whole neighborhood pulled together. Our old field stone house had a old woodburning stove so we all slept in the living room, and cooked our food on the stove too. We seemed to have plenty of candles, flashlights, marshmallows, hot chocolate, canned and dry food, and sleepover friends and sometimes their families. They usually brought food that was different from our usual and interesting, as well as wood for the stove, batteries for the flashlights, & our only source of current news, a small battery table radio and my 9V transistor radio. I remember it being fun to get the milk from the coolers outside the back door & to constantly find new ways to combine the ice & snow from the yard with Kool-aid & sugar to make delicious concoctions! As a kid I remember it as one great adventure, but I bet it was a lot less fun for all of our parents!
Probably the week and change we had no power after Hurricane Charley in 2004. Fortunately we had a generator running the fridge and the window A/C in my bedroom, which became the common room in the house for that week. And they said I was silly for having my own A/C!
@PooltoyWolf
When Charlie blew through (back when I lived in Orlando), we were lucky enough to be on the same grid as water treatment locally, and they were solid. The power flickered just long enough to stop the movie playing in the DVD player, but didn’t reset the clock.
@Mehrocco_Mole I moved to the Dallas area from the gulf coast; partially to get away from the hurricanes, mostly for a job. My mother still lives in the Pensacola area.
Hurricane Isabel; 2003.
We had no power for 22 days. Fortunately we had city water and city gas, so we were able to cook and make coffee.
For me, besides losing two refrigerators’ and a deep freeze’s worth of food, the worst part of that storm was that I had just, literally, two days before, finished re-roofing my garage. Down to the trusses. New sheathing; new everything.
Two days later I woke up to a tulip poplar sticking straight up out of the roof.
Went in the garage and discovered the trunk of the poplar had landed right between the two cars; nary a scratch on either.
@TrophyHusband Crazy how that happens. We once had a huge piece of a tree limb that speared right through the roof, through the attic floor, and into one of the bedrooms. There was a tall dresser with a hutch on it situated in one corner of the room. The branch came down right in the middle of the triangle made by that piece and the walls. Didn’t hit anything, just came to a stop leaning up against the wall. Four feet over and it could have killed someone sleeping in the bed (which fortunately happened to be empty at the moment).
Five days. Thank goodness for having switched our hot water heater over to gas. I could manage without the air conditioning but it would have really sucked having to take ice cold showers. On that fifth day we finally got to borrow a generator from someone. We hooked it up and he left. He made it to the corner, five houses away, and the power came back on. Literally ran the generator for less than a minute before it wasn’t needed.
Blizzard of 93. I was seven at the time. Lived deep in rural Appalachia. We didn’t have power from March 12th until around the beginning of May. Luckily we had a wood burning stove so we had heat and could cook on it.
I know Fran kept us without power for 5 days in 96, of course that was just weeks after Bertha that we were without for 3 days. Then I moved away from hurricanes and had an ice storm in 2001. I don’t remember how long that took. It was at least 4 days, maybe 5. I know we ended up sleeping at the in-laws the last 2 nights because they had power.
I prefer hurricane power outages to ice storm outages. I could at least take a cold shower in the heat and humidity. I had no way to warm up in freezing temps.
@irishbyblood My parents and brother were in that one. They only lost power for a few hours (and a large tree but it missed the house) but couldn’t go anywhere for 5 days if I remember correctly. My brother had no power for more than a week but he was out in the boonies.
Hurricane Charley, hurricane Francis, hurricane Ivan
hurricane Jeannie living on a sail boat, the marina didn’t have electricity for almost 3 months but we had cold beer and good smoke so I was good… living the life
8.75 days due to major ice store. January with snow too. House was all electric. Fortunately across the street got theirs back about 12 hours later and someone lent me their kerosene heater. Cats tried to hog that. Used my backpacking stove to cook on the tile front door entrance tile (accidentally set a piece of hair on fire when it swept across it while lighting it). No need to worry about spoiling food due to snow outside and I had a screened in porch so could store it and keep animals out of it.
Electric company kept insisting we had power. Nope entire block did not. Finally when they thought all was fixed, and we’d keep calling they kept insisting we had power and we just needed to reset the circuit breakers/buy new fuses. Umm right. What is going on inside our house affects the entire block. Interesting theory. They finally came to look when we all kept calling them around once an hour for almost 2 days. They found a tree across a line. That was 2 days after everyone else in the area had their power back.
Of course I spent almost 300 days a year in a tent for a number of years. No power then either. And the winter up in NW Ontario we no power once it was about zero degrees, had a wood burning stove for heat, kerosene lamps for light, water from the lake under 8’ of ice, outhouses… But we were prepared and that is different than the sudden power outage. Of course I left that winter wanting nothing more than running water including hot water, bright lights and heat that didn’t require getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning to put more wood on the fire for heat.
@unksol With the power outage they hogged the karosene heater. If they were any closer to it they would have been in it. I had a sleeping bag. They also burrowed into my sleeping bag at night as well. I didn’t have cats back when I worked for outdoor adventure. Hard to even have a significant other then due to schedules and being in the boonies.
@unksol I don’t turn the heat down to 45 at night as I don’t own enough blankets and I am not sleeping in a sleeping bag at night at home if I have power (besides the stupid motel style A/C heater doesn’t go that low although there is about a 10 degree difference between the two rooms). I’d imagine if I did I’d have all the cats competing for space up against me.
Midwest blizzard of 1978. Power was out maybe 10 days? 20? As a kid I don’t remember. Seemed like a long time! Our dead end road was buried in drifts up to the second story windows, and no one coming any time soon. Kids took over and made a tunnel system between houses.
There were six of us, a dog, two cats and a litter of kittens in one bedroom, cooking soup over a candle. Listening to Paul Simon’s Slip Sliding Away and Bee Gees Stayin’ Alive on transistor radio loop. My fish tank froze solid.
Our house had hot water heat and the pipes froze, so even after everyone else had power, we didn’t have any heat. Bundled up and stayed with neighbor who had a pot belly stove.
@mottzdman 290 hours without power. Finally got it back yesterday around 3 pm after losing it around noon on 8/10. Thankful for a generator to keep the essentials going.
We had a microburst one summer. Trees were uprooted, houses damaged, tens of thousands were without power. And it was in middle of a heat wave - of course. The basement flooded so we bought a generator to run the sump pump. We got our back after 4 days and were one of the last in our town to be restored. 12 hours later and another storm rolled through. Lost power again and the basement flooded a second time. It was a real kick in the balls.
Hurricane Andrew. 4 weeks until power was restored. My old house, rented out at the time, had no roof left and took 4 months to get repaired. Sold it to one of the contractors just to get rid of it.
i don’t actually entirely remember, but it was hurricane bob in 1991 and it must have been more than a day because i recall my mom being grateful we had a gas stove so she could still cook for us. (my mom rarely cooked so she must have been wanting to take her mind off things, and was in full on nurture mode. if the power outage had just been a few hours or a day, we would’ve just had sandwiches or something.)
Several days during a snow/ice storm in Georgia. I pulled everything out of the refrigerator/freezer and stuck it in the snow to keep from spoiling. Used the fireplace for heat, candles for light and cooked on a gas stove. Indoor camping at its best.
I’m on the grid with one of the local hospitals. So even when others are having rolling blackouts and power outages, we are high priority for getting the lights back on.
I got power back yesterday afternoon but there are still tens of thousands with no power because of the derecho that hit the midwest on Monday. There are trees down everywhere and lots of buildings in the area suffered damage. My house is missing enough shingles that it was raining in my living room Monday evening. So I’d say the longest for me was about 50 hours with no power.
4 days due to an ice storm. luckily, we had a gas cooktop and gas water heater, so we could cook and shower. really not too bad overall. the living room/kitchen had pocket doors, so we closed those, started a fire in the fireplace and slept down there. as for fridge food, we just put everything on the patio in coolers to keep it cold.
Freshman year of college I flew home in just in time for a giant ice storm. We lost power, and the whole house didn’t have heat for 4 days - I flew back the school before the power came on.
6 Days during Sandy and we have well water but we had a portable generator. We were away during Isaias last week which was “only” 60 hours, but no generator so lots of spoiled foods! !
Thankfully, I can’t recall one lasting more than a day.
But to improve my anecdote, two years ago it went out during a winter night, and it kept getting colder and colder. It got to the point that I had to start thinking about having to go spend the night elsewhere! Thankfully the power came back and I survived the super harsh house winter.
@ELUNO I assume you don’t have natural gas than? You can get an appropriate rated indoor propane heater you could run for a bit in an emergency and they should run with no CO emissions but obviously you would require a safe area where no one could mess with it if you have kids. And CO detectors. just in case. Normal household ventilation around doors/windows is plenty but if you have a tightly sealed home you’d need an external intake and vent.
We only lost power for 3 hours with the hurricane. Then this morning, it was gone. First thought was, I hope the power company is done with the hurricane repairs, or we will wait forever. Next problem was, is it just us, or the neighborhood?
Well, it seems that a lumber delivery for a house putting a full second floor on, hit the power line and pulled it down. The lumber was packed too high on the truck.
Everyone came…fire dept, cops, power company, all sorts of neighbors.
We were lucky, they replaced the line in about an hour.
Good thing, it took out a chunk of the neighborhood!
Oh, the question…I’m thinking maybe two weeks. I can think of a few times over the years (I’m old enough to be retired) the power went off for hurricanes or blizzards for an extended time. It only happens every 10 or more years, but in the winter you freeze. In the summer you boil. I am willing to invest in a generator.
In that picture, it looks like all of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and maybe West Virginia.
It’s also the outage’s anniversary!
/giphy happy anniversary outage
@eonfifty yea but what’s new England? Did not get the sarcasm I take it? Then again in 50 years if we sink Florida too…
And happy… Failversery? Unless of course your significant other was prepped for a real one with candles and had a grill on standby. That would be impressive.
@unksol
I did get that, otherwise I would have not mentioned New York and just grouped it in with New England
And upon closer inspection, I believe you are correct regarding the arrow. In that photo, most of, if not all of, New England appears to have power, and I believe it is dated about seven hours after the outage. I didn’t actually read that Wikipedia link I posted, but I think I might.
/giphy sarcastic power outage
@eonfifty@unksol That day back in 2003 was my 15th wedding anniversary, and with no subways or trains running, it took me more than 5 hours to travel 25 miles from midtown Manhattan to my home that night.
The power went out (at least in NYC) at around 4PM, and I got home at 10PM that night. Let’s just say the mood wan’t very celebratory once I did get home…
We lived a half block from the epicenter. It was very strange to see the upthrust in the center of the street (in the next block). I’ve been in lots of quakes. That was the only one that frightened me. I no longer live in an area that has massive quakes (although I’m sure that one will still find me, some day).
Never really happens. Maybe 4-8 hours after a bad storm? I kick out an email to work if I might go offline. And keep working till the laptop battery and UPS die. If we’re doing a critical deploy there’s always the convertor for the vehicle and cell phone chargers for wifi or getting on a call with one of my SEs if they need help
Not really a serious issue because if we get hit with an ice storm… Well… Power is out but I can kick the gas fireplace on high and utilities are in the basement that can’t freeze. You’d have to light the stove burners with a match and not use the oven but. Meh. The well is also under enough pressure you can get water without the pump…
A tornado hasn’t made it this far in years but the “derecho” kicked out some warnings. For tornadoes and vehicle/roof destroying winds and hail. Glad it went around.
I feel like I’ve been without power my whole life.
– Oh, you mean electricity?
It was mid sixties, rural western Central NJ, mid January and we had a huge snow & ice storm. I was the oldest of four w/ a single Mom. I was 8ish & our electricity was out for almost three weeks (I think 20 days, but not positive). School was canceled for the whole time, partially because we were snowed/iced in half that time, the whole neighborhood pulled together. Our old field stone house had a old woodburning stove so we all slept in the living room, and cooked our food on the stove too. We seemed to have plenty of candles, flashlights, marshmallows, hot chocolate, canned and dry food, and sleepover friends and sometimes their families. They usually brought food that was different from our usual and interesting, as well as wood for the stove, batteries for the flashlights, & our only source of current news, a small battery table radio and my 9V transistor radio. I remember it being fun to get the milk from the coolers outside the back door & to constantly find new ways to combine the ice & snow from the yard with Kool-aid & sugar to make delicious concoctions! As a kid I remember it as one great adventure, but I bet it was a lot less fun for all of our parents!
It started Monday a little after 11 am cst and I am currently still in it, so whenever the lights come back on, I’ll have an answer.
@steveswan54 good luck out there.
@simplersimon thanks
Probably the week and change we had no power after Hurricane Charley in 2004. Fortunately we had a generator running the fridge and the window A/C in my bedroom, which became the common room in the house for that week. And they said I was silly for having my own A/C!
@PooltoyWolf that was a shitty year for Florida.
https://www.noaa.gov/stories/4-hurricanes-in-6-weeks-it-happened-to-one-state-in-2004
@PooltoyWolf
When Charlie blew through (back when I lived in Orlando), we were lucky enough to be on the same grid as water treatment locally, and they were solid. The power flickered just long enough to stop the movie playing in the DVD player, but didn’t reset the clock.
@RiotDemon It sure was. We were lucky enough that our worst damage was a slightly bent outrigger on the boat!
@PooltoyWolf Sorry about that. My small house in Tampa wouldn’t have survived so I pushed Charley into Port Charlotte.
@yakkoTDI Our boat was kept in Fort Pierce.
Almost 6 weeks following Hurricane Ivan (sept 2004)
I-10 crossing the Escambia River in Pensacola, FL.
The truck driver didn’t make it.
@Mehrocco_Mole I moved to the Dallas area from the gulf coast; partially to get away from the hurricanes, mostly for a job. My mother still lives in the Pensacola area.
A couple hours, man that was rough.
Actual outage? Four days. Living w/o power? Two months. The four days was harder due to no prep.
Hurricane Isabel; 2003.
We had no power for 22 days. Fortunately we had city water and city gas, so we were able to cook and make coffee.
For me, besides losing two refrigerators’ and a deep freeze’s worth of food, the worst part of that storm was that I had just, literally, two days before, finished re-roofing my garage. Down to the trusses. New sheathing; new everything.
Two days later I woke up to a tulip poplar sticking straight up out of the roof.
Went in the garage and discovered the trunk of the poplar had landed right between the two cars; nary a scratch on either.
All things considered, I think I got off easy.
@TrophyHusband Crazy how that happens. We once had a huge piece of a tree limb that speared right through the roof, through the attic floor, and into one of the bedrooms. There was a tall dresser with a hutch on it situated in one corner of the room. The branch came down right in the middle of the triangle made by that piece and the walls. Didn’t hit anything, just came to a stop leaning up against the wall. Four feet over and it could have killed someone sleeping in the bed (which fortunately happened to be empty at the moment).
A hurricane blew through a couple years ago; it took five days to restore water and a week for power.
Five days. Thank goodness for having switched our hot water heater over to gas. I could manage without the air conditioning but it would have really sucked having to take ice cold showers. On that fifth day we finally got to borrow a generator from someone. We hooked it up and he left. He made it to the corner, five houses away, and the power came back on. Literally ran the generator for less than a minute before it wasn’t needed.
Six days. Old oak fell right across neighborhood feeder line 30 feet past our house. Too thick for local chainsaws. Hurricane Sandy. End of story.
Blizzard of 93. I was seven at the time. Lived deep in rural Appalachia. We didn’t have power from March 12th until around the beginning of May. Luckily we had a wood burning stove so we had heat and could cook on it.
I know Fran kept us without power for 5 days in 96, of course that was just weeks after Bertha that we were without for 3 days. Then I moved away from hurricanes and had an ice storm in 2001. I don’t remember how long that took. It was at least 4 days, maybe 5. I know we ended up sleeping at the in-laws the last 2 nights because they had power.
I prefer hurricane power outages to ice storm outages. I could at least take a cold shower in the heat and humidity. I had no way to warm up in freezing temps.
@remo28 psst it’s called gas
Longer than a week, but not as long as a few weeks.
@awk Same, 8 days in my case. That was during Sandy. We were out for 2.5 days last week, and it was almost worse, because August.
western Kentucky ice storm of…09? Power out 18 days.
@irishbyblood
I remember seeing that area on a drive from Alabama to St Louis. OMG what a mess!
@chienfou Can still see it in the tree loss.
@irishbyblood I remember that too! Went through there a year later and you could still tell the damage.
@irishbyblood My parents and brother were in that one. They only lost power for a few hours (and a large tree but it missed the house) but couldn’t go anywhere for 5 days if I remember correctly. My brother had no power for more than a week but he was out in the boonies.
Katrina, over a month…every pole near us was down.
Hurricane Charley, hurricane Francis, hurricane Ivan
hurricane Jeannie living on a sail boat, the marina didn’t have electricity for almost 3 months but we had cold beer and good smoke so I was good… living the life
8.75 days due to major ice store. January with snow too. House was all electric. Fortunately across the street got theirs back about 12 hours later and someone lent me their kerosene heater. Cats tried to hog that. Used my backpacking stove to cook on the tile front door entrance tile (accidentally set a piece of hair on fire when it swept across it while lighting it). No need to worry about spoiling food due to snow outside and I had a screened in porch so could store it and keep animals out of it.
Electric company kept insisting we had power. Nope entire block did not. Finally when they thought all was fixed, and we’d keep calling they kept insisting we had power and we just needed to reset the circuit breakers/buy new fuses. Umm right. What is going on inside our house affects the entire block. Interesting theory. They finally came to look when we all kept calling them around once an hour for almost 2 days. They found a tree across a line. That was 2 days after everyone else in the area had their power back.
Of course I spent almost 300 days a year in a tent for a number of years. No power then either. And the winter up in NW Ontario we no power once it was about zero degrees, had a wood burning stove for heat, kerosene lamps for light, water from the lake under 8’ of ice, outhouses… But we were prepared and that is different than the sudden power outage. Of course I left that winter wanting nothing more than running water including hot water, bright lights and heat that didn’t require getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning to put more wood on the fire for heat.
@Kidsandliz yeah but… How were the cats?
@unksol With the power outage they hogged the karosene heater. If they were any closer to it they would have been in it. I had a sleeping bag. They also burrowed into my sleeping bag at night as well. I didn’t have cats back when I worked for outdoor adventure. Hard to even have a significant other then due to schedules and being in the boonies.
@Kidsandliz I mean the cats burrow in regardless but they are more… Agressive about it when I turn it down to 45 at night. They make nice heating pads
In Lou of a significant other
@unksol I don’t turn the heat down to 45 at night as I don’t own enough blankets and I am not sleeping in a sleeping bag at night at home if I have power (besides the stupid motel style A/C heater doesn’t go that low although there is about a 10 degree difference between the two rooms). I’d imagine if I did I’d have all the cats competing for space up against me.
@unksol PS you do realize as your cats’ servant they will fire you once they have recovered from being half frozen to death. Right?
Midwest blizzard of 1978. Power was out maybe 10 days? 20? As a kid I don’t remember. Seemed like a long time! Our dead end road was buried in drifts up to the second story windows, and no one coming any time soon. Kids took over and made a tunnel system between houses.
There were six of us, a dog, two cats and a litter of kittens in one bedroom, cooking soup over a candle. Listening to Paul Simon’s Slip Sliding Away and Bee Gees Stayin’ Alive on transistor radio loop. My fish tank froze solid.
Our house had hot water heat and the pipes froze, so even after everyone else had power, we didn’t have any heat. Bundled up and stayed with neighbor who had a pot belly stove.
I’ll let you know when it ends - currently live in Iowa and we got hit with a derecho on Monday - power company is saying maybe 2 weeks
@mottzdman 290 hours without power. Finally got it back yesterday around 3 pm after losing it around noon on 8/10. Thankful for a generator to keep the essentials going.
We had a microburst one summer. Trees were uprooted, houses damaged, tens of thousands were without power. And it was in middle of a heat wave - of course. The basement flooded so we bought a generator to run the sump pump. We got our back after 4 days and were one of the last in our town to be restored. 12 hours later and another storm rolled through. Lost power again and the basement flooded a second time. It was a real kick in the balls.
@karlajoy bring kicked in the balls does suck
About 6 hours.
Hurricane Andrew. 4 weeks until power was restored. My old house, rented out at the time, had no roof left and took 4 months to get repaired. Sold it to one of the contractors just to get rid of it.
a few hours, was not an option. shame.
i don’t actually entirely remember, but it was hurricane bob in 1991 and it must have been more than a day because i recall my mom being grateful we had a gas stove so she could still cook for us. (my mom rarely cooked so she must have been wanting to take her mind off things, and was in full on nurture mode. if the power outage had just been a few hours or a day, we would’ve just had sandwiches or something.)
Several days during a snow/ice storm in Georgia. I pulled everything out of the refrigerator/freezer and stuck it in the snow to keep from spoiling. Used the fireplace for heat, candles for light and cooked on a gas stove. Indoor camping at its best.
I’m on the grid with one of the local hospitals. So even when others are having rolling blackouts and power outages, we are high priority for getting the lights back on.
I got power back yesterday afternoon but there are still tens of thousands with no power because of the derecho that hit the midwest on Monday. There are trees down everywhere and lots of buildings in the area suffered damage. My house is missing enough shingles that it was raining in my living room Monday evening. So I’d say the longest for me was about 50 hours with no power.
4 days due to an ice storm. luckily, we had a gas cooktop and gas water heater, so we could cook and shower. really not too bad overall. the living room/kitchen had pocket doors, so we closed those, started a fire in the fireplace and slept down there. as for fridge food, we just put everything on the patio in coolers to keep it cold.
Several days when Opal came thru alabama
Freshman year of college I flew home in just in time for a giant ice storm. We lost power, and the whole house didn’t have heat for 4 days - I flew back the school before the power came on.
6 Days during Sandy and we have well water but we had a portable generator. We were away during Isaias last week which was “only” 60 hours, but no generator so lots of spoiled foods!
!
Thankfully, I can’t recall one lasting more than a day.
But to improve my anecdote, two years ago it went out during a winter night, and it kept getting colder and colder. It got to the point that I had to start thinking about having to go spend the night elsewhere! Thankfully the power came back and I survived the super harsh house winter.
@ELUNO I assume you don’t have natural gas than? You can get an appropriate rated indoor propane heater you could run for a bit in an emergency and they should run with no CO emissions but obviously you would require a safe area where no one could mess with it if you have kids. And CO detectors. just in case. Normal household ventilation around doors/windows is plenty but if you have a tightly sealed home you’d need an external intake and vent.
We only lost power for 3 hours with the hurricane. Then this morning, it was gone. First thought was, I hope the power company is done with the hurricane repairs, or we will wait forever. Next problem was, is it just us, or the neighborhood?
Well, it seems that a lumber delivery for a house putting a full second floor on, hit the power line and pulled it down. The lumber was packed too high on the truck.
Everyone came…fire dept, cops, power company, all sorts of neighbors.
We were lucky, they replaced the line in about an hour.
Good thing, it took out a chunk of the neighborhood!
Oh, the question…I’m thinking maybe two weeks. I can think of a few times over the years (I’m old enough to be retired) the power went off for hurricanes or blizzards for an extended time. It only happens every 10 or more years, but in the winter you freeze. In the summer you boil. I am willing to invest in a generator.
Maybe a few days in 2003.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003
/image firstenergy blackout 2003
@eonfifty in don’t get it where is the power out?
@unksol
In that picture, it looks like all of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and maybe West Virginia.
It’s also the outage’s anniversary!
/giphy happy anniversary outage
@eonfifty yea but what’s new England? Did not get the sarcasm I take it?
Then again in 50 years if we sink Florida too…
And happy… Failversery? Unless of course your significant other was prepped for a real one with candles and had a grill on standby. That would be impressive.
@eonfifty also it looks like you pointed your canada arrow at new Hampshire, vermont, and maine… Not in Canada.
@unksol
I did get that, otherwise I would have not mentioned New York and just grouped it in with New England
And upon closer inspection, I believe you are correct regarding the arrow. In that photo, most of, if not all of, New England appears to have power, and I believe it is dated about seven hours after the outage. I didn’t actually read that Wikipedia link I posted, but I think I might.
/giphy sarcastic power outage
@eonfifty @unksol That day back in 2003 was my 15th wedding anniversary, and with no subways or trains running, it took me more than 5 hours to travel 25 miles from midtown Manhattan to my home that night.
The power went out (at least in NYC) at around 4PM, and I got home at 10PM that night. Let’s just say the mood wan’t very celebratory once I did get home…
@ELJAY
I hadn’t thought of it in years, but the Northridge quake in 1994 brought the power down, and it was finally restored a week later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Northridge_earthquake
We lived a half block from the epicenter. It was very strange to see the upthrust in the center of the street (in the next block). I’ve been in lots of quakes. That was the only one that frightened me. I no longer live in an area that has massive quakes (although I’m sure that one will still find me, some day).
Growing up, summer storms left us without power for 3-4 days fairly often. our house was rural at the end of a powerline
2011 tornado super outbreak event. My neighborhood’s power was out for 9 days.
Does not paying your bill count?
@somf69
Yep… Meets the criteria of ‘power off’
Never really happens. Maybe 4-8 hours after a bad storm? I kick out an email to work if I might go offline. And keep working till the laptop battery and UPS die. If we’re doing a critical deploy there’s always the convertor for the vehicle and cell phone chargers for wifi or getting on a call with one of my SEs if they need help
Not really a serious issue because if we get hit with an ice storm… Well… Power is out but I can kick the gas fireplace on high and utilities are in the basement that can’t freeze. You’d have to light the stove burners with a match and not use the oven but. Meh. The well is also under enough pressure you can get water without the pump…
A tornado hasn’t made it this far in years but the “derecho” kicked out some warnings. For tornadoes and vehicle/roof destroying winds and hail. Glad it went around.
And most are down south… That was a mess
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_outbreak_of_March_2–3,_2012
I feel for you all who got hit hard… But I also probably wouldn’t want to live there. Then again you might not want to live here so. Meh