Post by papaof2 on Mar 13, 2020 22:17:27 GMT -6
A vignette that's been gathering dust for a number of months.
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That's odd. The power just went off without the usual "off 30 seconds, flicker on, off 30 seconds, flicker on, off to stay" process when a power company circuit breaker is involved. Let's see what the local co-op and the statewide power company have in their outage maps.
Not good, as the co-op has 40%+ outage at most of their substations which probably means close to 100% as the third-party-provided online outage maps are rarely current and their status gets further behind as the outage percentages rise.
Now I can't get the map to refresh? Did we lose the AT&T service? Check the phone - and no dial tone. They didn't have decent backup when we had 7+ inches of snow a couple of years ago and they don't seem to have fixed that. Let's see what the data service on my Tracfone can offer. It's slow, but at least the tower that serves them still has backup power and as does the local exchange that tower connects to. Now what does Georgia Power's outage map show?
The state is red from Columbus to Gainesville. What could cause that much damage in a single event? There are too many power plants of different technologies (solar, hydro, steam, combined cycle turbine) for it to be a common failure - unless something caused a cascade failure but I would expect a cascade failure to ignore county lines. That's very odd.
Time to get out the battery-powered 7" HDTV and set it up. Done. Now to see if any local TV stations are on the air. Start the channel scan on the little TV - and it finds nothing. I expected at least one station to have emergency power up by now. Also odd.
Now to the ultimate backup communications device - my solar-charged, battery-powered ham radio setup. Scan the AM broadcast band for any activity. Nice to have a decent outside antenna that I can tune to any frequency from 500KHz to 30MHz. No local stations. There's an AM talkradio station in Dalton, Georgia that has lots of folks calling in about not being able to contact the middle third of the state except on select cell phone networks.
Let's check the local CB channels. Channels 9 and 19 are continuous heterodynes of everyone talking and no one listening - but they're all mobile units - I guess a lot of people are out running errands on a sunny Saturday in March. Under the current circumstances, I'd hope their buying destinations can take cash and make change as most businesses don't have backup power. If my internet service is out, will the businesses with backup power have internet access to take credit cards? Seems very few of the CB base stations have backup power as I've heard exactly one.
Time to check with my better half. Maybe she's near a working tower.
Ring! Ring! Ring!
'Yes?'
'Where are you, Mrs. Champion?'
'Hello, Mr. Champion. Didn't look at the phone to see who it was because traffic is crazy with the power off and the traffic lights out. The gas gauge is at 1/2 so I planned to fill up but there's a long line at the station on Concord Road.'
'There's a major power outage over the middle third of the state. No power restoration prospects listed on any of the outage web sites. Most cell phone service is out. No broadcast TV in the area. Carefully work your way to the back streets and come home. I'll go set the backup power to run the garage door opener - that will take maybe ten minutes but I'm guessing that's about right from where you are. I'll open the door manually and then mostly close it manually so having power isn't obvious but I'll run the opener long enough to finish closing the door so it will be locked.'
'What about the food for the party?'
'Can Kroger make a sale without power?'
'Probably not. See you soon. Love you, Mr. C.'
'You too, Mrs C.'
Now to the basement and get the solar generator running. It's fully charged and should be good for 16 hours or more at the current temperatures. The battery bank is floating at 13.65 volts which is where the 540AH of AGM batteries should be on a sunny afternoon. I'll go add another 250 watt solar panel on the back drive and for a couple of hours we'll be running directly on solar power (we use very little power when in "Waiting for commercial power to return" mode). If the outage continues into tomorrow, I'll add two 300 watt panels back there in the morning to bring the total solar power to 1100 watts - not something that can run the entire house but we can have the fridge, a few lights, our cell phones charged, the internet for a few hours - IF it comes back - and the freezer plugged in for a couple of hours. The freezer should be OK for 24 hours if not opened but running it a couple of hours twice a day will ensure that it stays adequately cold. With March's sometime fickle weather of 34F one day and 70F the next, we can also run the furnace a few hours if needed.
Panel is in place and the load on the pure sine wave inverter is being totally supplied by the solar panels. Now to the garage. Pull the "Emergency" cord to release the door from the opener mechanism and lift the door.
"Perfect timing, Mr. C."
"Thank you, Mrs. C. Anything that needs to be unloaded from the back of the SUV before I pull the door down?"
"Some things from the farmers' market. Power was out there but that's not unusual - it's only on about half the time. Those who take credit cards always have the paper receipts and the manual machines or the card reader on their phone that can store the transaction until it has service. And of course the older people can handle cash and make change without consulting the calculator on a phone or counting on their fingers."
"Where do the bags and boxes go?"
"All to the kitchen. You can help me peel and cut to size because we'll be canning most of these greenhouse goodies."
"Won't be doing much else today. I had planned to work on the new mantle but staining and varnishing need good lighting and decent ventilation and it's not worth burning stored gasoline for either. Maybe another day."
"Here's an apron. You'll need one."
"I expect so. I'm accurate with a knife but my hands don't always stay over the bowl when I'm talking with a pretty woman."
"You goof!"
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That's odd. The power just went off without the usual "off 30 seconds, flicker on, off 30 seconds, flicker on, off to stay" process when a power company circuit breaker is involved. Let's see what the local co-op and the statewide power company have in their outage maps.
Not good, as the co-op has 40%+ outage at most of their substations which probably means close to 100% as the third-party-provided online outage maps are rarely current and their status gets further behind as the outage percentages rise.
Now I can't get the map to refresh? Did we lose the AT&T service? Check the phone - and no dial tone. They didn't have decent backup when we had 7+ inches of snow a couple of years ago and they don't seem to have fixed that. Let's see what the data service on my Tracfone can offer. It's slow, but at least the tower that serves them still has backup power and as does the local exchange that tower connects to. Now what does Georgia Power's outage map show?
The state is red from Columbus to Gainesville. What could cause that much damage in a single event? There are too many power plants of different technologies (solar, hydro, steam, combined cycle turbine) for it to be a common failure - unless something caused a cascade failure but I would expect a cascade failure to ignore county lines. That's very odd.
Time to get out the battery-powered 7" HDTV and set it up. Done. Now to see if any local TV stations are on the air. Start the channel scan on the little TV - and it finds nothing. I expected at least one station to have emergency power up by now. Also odd.
Now to the ultimate backup communications device - my solar-charged, battery-powered ham radio setup. Scan the AM broadcast band for any activity. Nice to have a decent outside antenna that I can tune to any frequency from 500KHz to 30MHz. No local stations. There's an AM talkradio station in Dalton, Georgia that has lots of folks calling in about not being able to contact the middle third of the state except on select cell phone networks.
Let's check the local CB channels. Channels 9 and 19 are continuous heterodynes of everyone talking and no one listening - but they're all mobile units - I guess a lot of people are out running errands on a sunny Saturday in March. Under the current circumstances, I'd hope their buying destinations can take cash and make change as most businesses don't have backup power. If my internet service is out, will the businesses with backup power have internet access to take credit cards? Seems very few of the CB base stations have backup power as I've heard exactly one.
Time to check with my better half. Maybe she's near a working tower.
Ring! Ring! Ring!
'Yes?'
'Where are you, Mrs. Champion?'
'Hello, Mr. Champion. Didn't look at the phone to see who it was because traffic is crazy with the power off and the traffic lights out. The gas gauge is at 1/2 so I planned to fill up but there's a long line at the station on Concord Road.'
'There's a major power outage over the middle third of the state. No power restoration prospects listed on any of the outage web sites. Most cell phone service is out. No broadcast TV in the area. Carefully work your way to the back streets and come home. I'll go set the backup power to run the garage door opener - that will take maybe ten minutes but I'm guessing that's about right from where you are. I'll open the door manually and then mostly close it manually so having power isn't obvious but I'll run the opener long enough to finish closing the door so it will be locked.'
'What about the food for the party?'
'Can Kroger make a sale without power?'
'Probably not. See you soon. Love you, Mr. C.'
'You too, Mrs C.'
Now to the basement and get the solar generator running. It's fully charged and should be good for 16 hours or more at the current temperatures. The battery bank is floating at 13.65 volts which is where the 540AH of AGM batteries should be on a sunny afternoon. I'll go add another 250 watt solar panel on the back drive and for a couple of hours we'll be running directly on solar power (we use very little power when in "Waiting for commercial power to return" mode). If the outage continues into tomorrow, I'll add two 300 watt panels back there in the morning to bring the total solar power to 1100 watts - not something that can run the entire house but we can have the fridge, a few lights, our cell phones charged, the internet for a few hours - IF it comes back - and the freezer plugged in for a couple of hours. The freezer should be OK for 24 hours if not opened but running it a couple of hours twice a day will ensure that it stays adequately cold. With March's sometime fickle weather of 34F one day and 70F the next, we can also run the furnace a few hours if needed.
Panel is in place and the load on the pure sine wave inverter is being totally supplied by the solar panels. Now to the garage. Pull the "Emergency" cord to release the door from the opener mechanism and lift the door.
"Perfect timing, Mr. C."
"Thank you, Mrs. C. Anything that needs to be unloaded from the back of the SUV before I pull the door down?"
"Some things from the farmers' market. Power was out there but that's not unusual - it's only on about half the time. Those who take credit cards always have the paper receipts and the manual machines or the card reader on their phone that can store the transaction until it has service. And of course the older people can handle cash and make change without consulting the calculator on a phone or counting on their fingers."
"Where do the bags and boxes go?"
"All to the kitchen. You can help me peel and cut to size because we'll be canning most of these greenhouse goodies."
"Won't be doing much else today. I had planned to work on the new mantle but staining and varnishing need good lighting and decent ventilation and it's not worth burning stored gasoline for either. Maybe another day."
"Here's an apron. You'll need one."
"I expect so. I'm accurate with a knife but my hands don't always stay over the bowl when I'm talking with a pretty woman."
"You goof!"
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Sheesh, I'll be reading into the next decade! And loving it. Thank you so much for sharing.