<p>Now that we’re all going back to work, where there’s electricity and the Internet, it seems like a good time to ask how everyone’s coping with the aftermath of Friday night’s storm.</p>
<p>In my own case, I have learned that it would be really worthwhile to have a fully charged cell phone, at least a half tank of gas, and several days worth of clean, ironed clothing at all times. But I had none of these things, and neither did my husband.</p>
<p>I am mostly worried about a co-worker whose wife had a baby on Friday. I hope they had somewhere to go with electricity and AC when she was discharged from the hospital.</p>
<p>Living in the Maryland suburbs, in a 20 year old neighborhood with underground utilities. Our power was out for 5 hours the night of the storm. We had several friends sleep in our basement and using our showers this weekend.</p>
<p>The storm had incredible lightning, but we didn’t get the 80 MPH winds. Our neighborhood has small branches down, and a few trees down, but not extensive damage.</p>
<p>But older neighborhoods (with their huge, old trees) have many more trees and large limbs down. They also have above ground utilities, and it is a mess. It is clearly going to take at least a good week to get all the power on. </p>
<p>It would be incredibly costly to move utilities underground, but the midAtlantic area has had several major, major disruptions to power due to storms of one kind or another in the decade we’ve lived here. It affects businesses that can’t open without power, creates hellacious commutes, and wastes millions of dollars in spoiled food. People who have generators were having problems finding gas for them this weekend because so many gas stations had no power.</p>
<p>When we bought this house 8 years ago we thought it was a little odd that there was such a big generator on this house. It can run the kitchen, the in law suite, the family room and master bedroom. However, it doesn’t run the a/c. Every year we lose power. Then it didn’t work last year during the hurricane - and we were out of power for 5 days. This time we lost power around 11:30 Friday and got it back on Sunday around noon. And our power lines are underground. Thankfully we had window units we could run off the generator because it was 100. </p>
<p>Our business just blinked off and came right back, it’s in the same town, but across the highway where power rarely stays off long. I don’t know if my employees even have power. </p>
<p>Things we find handy to have extremely accessible - flashlights, charged ipads and phones, cash in small denominations (people sell ice on the side of the street), gas in the car.</p>
<p>We’re not all going back to work. H’s boss called, their office has no power.
I plan to leave for the office in a few minutes, hopefully I do not get a call from my boss as we still do not have power at home and I am looking forward to an air conditioned office.
If we don’t get the power back today we will try to get a hotel room. Talked about that yesterday but many of the neighborhoods near us got power back and we were hopeful…</p>
<p>Here in West Virginia (in which the Eastern Panhandle is considered the DC area, sorta-kinda) it’s been miserable. We were among the blessed few not to lose power but Governor Tomblin declared a state of emergency since most of the state is still without it. Non-essential state employees were told not to report today which was dissappointing to me since I was to start a new state job today. The few filling stations that are open have huge lines and are running out of gas. A lot of stores are closed - the Kroger where S1 works was one of the few open and it was a madhouse. I’m just using my unexpected day off to get things done around the house - stay cool, everyone!</p>
<p>We lost power on Friday night and got it back this morning at 5. We went to our empty house 50 miles away that had power, H took the generator back to the house without to keep the freezer going. He is teleworking today but now the house that didn’t lose power lost AC. Kids and I are sweating it out until the service guy comes. </p>
<p>I appreciate the efforts of all the people to get everyone back on but getting information from the power company is frustrating.</p>
<p>S lives in Glover Park and has been out since Fri night. His office has power, and actually he went in on Sat and Sun afternoons to stay cool, use the computer, and recharge his phone. He’s staying home to sleep so far, but it’s getting more uncomfortable. </p>
<p>Hopefully the power comes back on soon, but we went through this last October with the freak snowstorm and PEPCO is sounding alot like my utility did when they were making predictions on when power would be restored.</p>
<p>My neighborhood has underground power lines. Nevertheless, we routinely lose power for long enough that I have to throw out all my food four or five times a year.</p>
<p>We still don’t have power. Husband and I have been camping out in hotel rooms, irritating each other. But we’re both working today. If only we didn’t have to leave work…</p>
<p>The problems are that the underground lines eventually connect to something else. Those gorgeous subdivisions that spring up on former farmland may have underground lines, but the subdivision lines hook up to very old above ground lines on poles, usually with giant old trees arching over them, that line those country roads. At least that’s what I’ve noticed in our county. Those neighborhoods, and the genuinely older neighborhoods in and very close to DC and Baltimore are still out of power.</p>
<p>S lives in Baltimore, says the power outages are weirdly spotty. Driving down a main road, traffic lights are out on one block, on the next. On his street, houses two blocks down have no power, he never lost it and lost internet only briefly. It’s brutally hot, and the crews are working hard to restore power in nasty conditions–hats off to them all.</p>
<p>Same with mine (she lives in the Eastern Market area), and her office (H and 14th) also has power. I’d call a couple of days before he heads to DC.</p>
<p>The area around American had alot of trees down, but I’d assume the campus itself is OK. S doesn’t live too far from American in DC & has no power. It wouldn’t hurt to call though.</p>
<p>So why are there such problems?
Is the infrastructure just not enough to support demand?
I live with above ground power lines , trees & storms, but have maybe lost power once in over 25 years.</p>
If you have a car you can always go plug it into your car for awhile to charge it up. You don’t need to have the engine running and charging the cell phone battery will have minimal effect on the charge of the car’s battery.</p>
<p>My understanding from talking to guys that do repairs is that it’s fragile in too many places. We have these storms with huge outages and they do the quick and dirty repair and move on. No one ever goes back and checks the work, if power is on its good enough. The cycle just keeps repeating itself so the grid is held together with the equivalent of chewing gum and paper clips.</p>
<p>D lives in apt next to American campus and she never lost power. She works in a restaurant/bar near Gallery Place and I did hear that it was packed. Everyone trying to cool off - good tips this weekend!</p>
<p>We have underground lines in our neighborhood too, and power went out at about 10:30 on Friday night. Fortunately, not so impossibly hot as to drive us from home, but definitely living “old style”. Today I borrowed a camp stove from a friend so I can cook if I feel like it. Living in an all-electric neighborhood with the power down is not fun. </p>
<p>As of this morning still no power, but all of the surrounding neighborhoods are back to life so we are feeling hopeful. My workplace has no power, but H and D both had power all weekend at their workplaces, so their lives are relatively unaffected. My closest public library has power and wifi so I can check in here, read my email, etc. Gas was easy to find today so I could top off the tank I’d filled on Thursday. Enough friends have power so if we don’t get ours back up soon, we will have places to do laundry.</p>
<p>One small advantage of a spouse in biotech: all the ice, dry ice, and frozen-solid freezer packs you could want. Not that our fridge ever has all that much in it to begin with, but the milk, O.J. and yogurts are safe.</p>
<p>S is visiting us in HI for now. He says it was 106 degrees when he left DC! He also said that the airport was swamped because so many planes were cancelled with all the storms, so his flight was packed. Hoping things improve soon!</p>