<p>Sorry, dietz, but I agree with Lergnom on this one . . . everybody should own a generator? And if you don’t have one, run out quick this evening and buy one? Are you kidding???</p>
<p>I have wood and I have food and water, and I’ll do just fine if I need to. But I also expect my local power company to have their act together and be prepared to deal with an outage if it occurs. If they do their job, I shouldn’t need a generator. (And, yes, if you see a blizzard coming, that might mean getting extra work crews ready ahead of time - but that is what I’m paying for, isn’t it?)</p>
<p>Trying to be nice to Dietz, but seriously … that you live in an earthquake area doesn’t mean I do. Extrapolating from your circumstance and using that to imply something bad about me reflects poorly on you. Feel free to lecture your children, but stay out of my life. </p>
<p>Yes, I live on a boat and I’m really glad someone called to remind me to close the porthole in a hurricane. Because I really need to be reminded to be RESPONSIBLE.</p>
<p>Got up at 5:30 AM and it is already snowing!
Already did everything yesterday so we are all set, plenty of gas for generator and snowblower too.
Hope we do not need the generator…</p>
<p>Our neighborhood loses power fairly regularly. Most of the homes are newer and have gas fireplaces. We can’t rely on a gas fireplace to keep us warm. It puts out very little heat. I can’t stand being in a freezing cold dark house for days. Only a handful of our neighbors have purchased generators. We haven’t.</p>
<p>We were without power last fall for 3 days when Sandy blew through. Fortunately we didn’t lose all the food in our freezer, just things like ice cream. It was completely full. Some people were without power for a week. Our power company has a terrible reputation for taking so long to restore power after storms.</p>
<p>We put in a generator when we built our house 10 years ago.What that means, of course, is that in those 10 years we’ve never lost power for more than 15 minutes!</p>
<p>We also lose power regularly but have a wood stove, no generator. Had to cut some extra wood as we are down to the bottom of the pile. I have a turkey in the oven as of 6:15 this AM =). That oughta keep us fed! Good luck all … it’s game day!</p>
<p>Hugcheck, glad you have a wood stove. They are fantastic. When we had a blizzard in December our power was out for about 12 hours and I was able to use mine to heat the house to a warmer temperature than I have ever reached with the furnace! I always put a saucepan of water filled with cinnamon sticks, cloves, and bay leaves on top to add moisture to the air and make the house smell good. Even my kids said they enjoyed living the prairie lifestyle for a day.</p>
<p>Good luck to everyone out east today. Here in the midwest we mostly got a sloppy, wet mix that made the roads bad but only added a couple of inches to the snow we already had. So maybe the storm won’t be as bad for you as they are predicting.</p>
<p>In case anyone is curious why this storm is named Nemo, the Weather Channel decided to use Greek and Roman names this year. It is not named after the Disney character!</p>
<p>Nemo: A Greek boys name meaning “from the valley,” means “nobody” in Latin.</p>
<p>Looks like D’s flight is still on (Atlanta to balmy Cleveland) – I guess so far she’s not in the path of the storm.</p>
<p>Deciding whether or not to go to work in Manhattan. I keep checking the hourly forecast on weather.com – I think if I leave by 3 I’ll be ok. I can work from home, but if my employees show up, I feel like I should…</p>
<p>Half-day for S’14 (school lets out at noon). So far, it’s just a few flakes.</p>
<p>Hope no one loses power! And for those that do, may it be short lived.</p>
<p>I see that whole house generators can cost between $8,000-$14,000. I think we’ll pass. If the power goes out for a prolonged period of time, it’s cheaper to go stay in a local hotel.</p>
<p>Add no maintenace, no noise. I’ll pass, too. We had an hour of blackout during Sandy, about 10 hours during Irene. The last blackout before them was about 10 years ago for 2-3 days. I don’t understand the hype about a generator.</p>
<p>Yesterday they were predicting the snow would be heavier west of Boston, but that appears to have changed. Boston is now in the bulls eye. I’m actually a bit surprised that they closed schools in Boston because there will only be about 2" of snow by 3:30 pm today. The blizzard warning is in effect until 1 pm Saturday, but Boston may continue to get snow showers until 7 pm.</p>
<p>Only a few people in our neighborhood actually purchased generators. They are the portable type. Most will only power a small appliance and several household items. It’s not going to heat your house.</p>
<p>Neighbor across the street has a natural gas whole house generator. They have 4 young kids and did a huge renovation to their basement, and can’t have sump pump off-line. He’s a partner with a big NYC law firm, so they can afford it. It sounds like a jet engine in the distance, just white noise. They are very generous with anyone that needs help - they ran extension cord to next door during Sandy & I did a load of laundry.</p>
<p>Given much of our town was out for Irene, Sandy & the Oct11 freakstorm, many of my friends & neighbors have bought portable generators to power sump pumps and a few essential things. Most of us have steam heat, so a generator is sufficient to power the furnace’s electronic ignition. </p>
<p>Just keeping my fingers crossed that it’s not too bad in NJ.</p>
<p>It is possible it gets worse and we will lose power more often. If that happens, I may reconsider. The noise alone would stop me from getting one for a long time.</p>
<p>It’s not snowing at all yet in Boston. Schools probably could have done an early release, but I’d guess people are concerned about the weather getting bad very quickly and causing traffic nightmares. You don’t want everyone trying to drive out of the city at the same time while a blizzard is starting and public transportation has just closed.</p>
<p>My workplace is closed as well. They were originally thinking they’d probably not close today but likely close tomorrow, but I think the warnings of the mayor and the fact that everything around here is closing led to them closing as well.</p>
<p>It’s raining in Cleveland…flurries later but air travel that doesn’t involve the east coast to Ohio should be fine. My son’s flight to Phoenix left on time this morning.</p>