I well remember the 2000 ice storm. Power was off before I got home from work that night, had to use the gate to the barn and drive thru the pasture to get to the house, high line wires were down across my driveway. We are all electric, brought in the butane fish cooker for heat and to heat water. Had water the whole time, we are on the farthest away and lowest point of the county water system, we would have water until all the lines went dry. Coleman stove for cooking. Hurricane lamps for light. First full day of no power, I'd heard Lowes was getting in a truck load of portable generators but BH said we'd be fine. Day 10, BH says we gotta do something. Called the electric company to get an estimate of how long they thought before we'd get power back - 2 weeks to 2 months. Went shopping the next day. No generators anywhere by this time. I bought a diesel welding machine with a built in generator and bought a hundred gallon fuel tank, didn't want to tote fuel. They had to order the welder and it took 3 days to get it. Went to town and got the welder, the fuel tank, filled it up and brought it home. Backed the trailer up to the carport and unloaded the generator, then went in and made a sandwich and to read the book on how to operate the generator. Noticed a bucket truck had showed up at the end of the driveway and saw they were raising the lines up out of the driveway. Went down and talked to them and thank them for getting the wires up out of the driveway. They were from Georgia and told me my power would be back on in about 30 minutes. Sure enough, it was, and that's the how I got my new welding machine story.
We've used the welder's generator a few times when the power has gone out for more than 3 or 4 hours the last 22 years, but it's no good if the power goes out and we are out of town for a few days. We lost a fridge and a freezer full of food once We put in a standby generator this summer that will run the whole house. It has come in handy a couple of times since we got it. It starts automatically If the power goes out and shuts back down when power is restored. We should be good. It was high, but in hind sight, we should have put it in sooner.
The temperature is still above freezing here at 11 PM and all the pink on the radar on my phone app keeps turning green as it gets here but remains pink with whats going above and below us. The future radar looks like maybe between 2-3 AM we might get something here. It looks like more potential after 6 AM but that is as far ahead as it showing right now. Since retirement I really don't have anywhere to go either, but if we get ice, I'll go ride around after my morning coffee, against BH's wishes just to see how bad it is. I ain't skeered of it.
