<p>Just got power back…now bracing for the Nor’easter…I’m tired, very tired.</p>
<p>momof3sons, I’m very glad to see you but more sorry about what you’re going through.</p>
<p>We are semi-roofless today. Plywood up on one bedroom, nothing on the other. Stuffed towels in the AC hoses because it was cooling the whole house. Found out that our house is determined to be “uninhabitable” until we get roofs up. :eek: </p>
<p>I kept the builders warm with hot chocolate as they worked. Brrrr, it was cold out there. </p>
<p>I dread this upcoming new storm. Ugh! It’ll be messy and if it snows, our leaves won’t get picked up until the spring. Oh what am I thinking. Nothing will be "back to normal’ until at least the spring.</p>
<p>lima, anything I could say right now would just be entirely inadequate. Please stay somewhere safe and warm.</p>
<p>lima – dkitty – what should we call the nor’easter – Son of Frankenstorm?</p>
<p>limabeans, my sympathy. The last thing you need to worry about is leaves.</p>
<p>Just to chime in on the incompetence of the power companies administration, I will share our local experience. We live about 7 or 8 miles north of Long Beach LI. No flooding, tons of old trees that fell, exploded transformers etc, literally was a rooftop 4-5 hour lightening show of blue green explosions the night of the storm.
We just got power back a few hours ago, 8 very long cold days without heat/electricity.
On our street, 8 houses lost power, by one line to a house, circuit blew us all off service. LIPA told us last Friday we were VERY low on priority list got a date of November 11th-17th. After that last phone call, LIPA turned off their communications. One could not reach anyone by phone, just a continuous busy signal. Local village police told me they had the same response, no information/response from authorities at power company</p>
<p>Today, four Wisconsin(shout out to Wisconsin line workers) line men drove down our street, my neighbor BEGGED them to just look at what was preventing us from getting our service back. They told us, do not let LIPA know they were there, they said they were prohibited from going outside the work order, yet they were sitting for HOURS since 8am this morning with NO WORK TO DO. Got their ladders, fixed the line, went up the pole thru the switch, all 8 homes powered up under 45 minutes. They got money from all of us, bottles of spirits, coffee, sandwiches. They told us to forget they were even there if asked by LIPA, the drove around the block powered up another 25 homes out of work order. Now everyone in our village is looking for the famous Wisconsin line workers, to just do the work our local power authority is too incompetent to assign workers.</p>
<p>The first thing we purchase when things quiet down is a propane powered generator. I will NEVER go thru that again. Thankful it could have been much much worse, know many families who lost everything, even 2 dads who drowned horrible deaths, about 20 of our teachers at HS who have no homes left.</p>
<p>Locally, it was a shambles, complete incompetence at every level. </p>
<p>I was speaking to a NYC police officer that works in Manhattan, he was reassigned to one of the hard hit ocean communities for several days he said outside of NYC the preparedness for an event like this is pathetic. He said things were stored (evidence destroyed,weapons etc.) on ground floor space in precincts that were 2-3 blocks from ocean.NYC PRACTICED for this several years ago, knew it was possible, had plans in place and were as ready as they could be. </p>
<p>Don’t get me started on the gas situation. LI has ONE tanker fueling station functioning on GENERATOR POWER. Generators getting stolen out of peoples yards, people trying to siphon out of parked cars.</p>
<p>To those living and experiencing worse, my sympathies, I can not imagine. This past week and a half has been very difficult for everyone in the affected areas.</p>
<p>So glad you got power. My parents just got it yesterday. Our friends are still out. I think it is also due to tree down resting on power lines. I think the power companies are working very hard, but I think they are very disorganized.</p>
<p>I’m a sports radio junkie, and so I usually have WFAN on in the car. Mike Francesa has become the voice of outrage about the inadequacies of some parts of the relief effort. (I was never a big fan of him, but like Christie, he’s really risen in my estimation with his storm coverage.) He has singled out LIPA as being much, much less responsive than most of the power companies in the area. (Mike as of yesterday didn’t have power yet either.) That story, samiamy, is ridiculous. You should call in to FAN and tell that on the radio; they’d love to hear it.</p>
<p>Class - more like Spawn of Frankenstorm!<br>
The linemen from NJ, NY and all over the country are our heroes! The management of the power companies? They have a lot to answer for. JCP&L started saying, before the storm, 7-10 days without power. After the storm? Like parrots “7 to 10 day, 7 to 10 days” They wouldn’t answer phones and would be specific about anything. Their website is a joke.</p>
<p>Glad power is coming up here and there around the areas affected by the storm and hoping that the new storm will be milder than feared. Stay safe, everyone!</p>
<p>well now with the NorEaster, power is once again knocked out. Emergency dismissal of local elementary/High schools going on now. Uggh and the wind has not even kicked in yet. </p>
<p>Snowing at a pretty good clip right now and its sticking
Going to be a long evening.</p>
<p>My sympathies to everyone who is without power or, worse, without an intact roof over their heads!</p>
<p>On the topic of utility companies, I am wondering about ConEd. The majority of our town lost power during the storm. We did not, for some strange reason. The streets on both sides of ours lost power, the houses at both ends of our street lost power, friends in other parts of town lost power. The losses that I know of are linked to large trees down. The street behind us lost power just after I heard a sound that turned out to have been a huge, 300-year-old tree going down. Other people have told me that they lost power just when a tree went down, taking down the wires.</p>
<p>For days nothing happened in terms of power coming back. About 5 days after the storm, some people started getting power. At this point, 10% of our town is still without power.</p>
<p>The excuse for the long outages given by ConEd is that there was extensive damage to infrastructure, the power is out in neighboring communities where feeder lines come through, etc. My question is this: if the trouble really were with feeder lines or infrastructures, then why aren’t we all out? Why is it only people who lost power because of fallen trees?</p>
<p>What we were told by the Wisconsin men, who I would tend to believe versus what the local reps told us,( LIPA told us our substation was damaged by salt water we are no way near water nor is our substation) which was an outright lie. The Wisconsin guys told us, homes at least on LI, were wired together as they were built years ago, so it was like a mouse maze, pieced together in a random outdated fashion. One culdesac near us, 8 homes were wired to a main county road 7 blocks away. Only section in their area that lost power was connected to the power feed to the traffic lights just at that one intersection which lost power due to downed tree.</p>
<p>NYMomof2,
I live in an area that experienced a severe ice storm in 2009. I was one of the lucky folks who got power back in 48 hours (underground lines in my subdivision). However, many folks got power restored in their neighborhoods, but didn’t get their own service back due to fallen trees that displaced their individual lines and tore their own electrical boxes from their house. They had to wait for private electricians to restore the boxes before the power company could reconnect their lines. Is that a part of what your area is experiencing?</p>
<p>Our storm was severe, but what has happened in the NE sounds much more devastating. I hope the area recovers as quickly as possible - good luck to all!</p>
<p>We have underground utilities on our street. The power goes out because of what our lines are attached to…not because of the utility location to our house. If a substation goes, our power goes. Are you suggesting that the substations be built underground?</p>
<p>I am still without power, day 9, or is it day 10? We were promised restoration by 11 p.m. tonight and now it’s been changed to 11/9 at 11:59 p.m. Con Edison is monumentally disorganized and incompetent. I should have done what samiamy did and approach one of the convoy of trucks from out-of-state which was sitting idle in a “staging” lot waiting for Con Ed to get a clue and send them somewhere. I have been far more patient through this than I ever could have imagined, but it’s snowing outside now and probably in the 40’s in my house. Yes, I know that there were people who suffered really serious losses. I am cognizant of that. I just need to vent. :(</p>
<p>Vent away, Momof3sons!</p>
<p>Oh mom3sons!!! We were out for 4 days after Ike in 100 degree temperatures. I feel your pain. Get another blanket and set something on fire!!! Good luck.</p>
<p>momof3sons, are you concerned about your pipes freezing? Have you taken any steps, such as draining them or cracking the faucets open a bit? Are you living in your house? </p>
<p>I’ve experienced winter outages, but never as long as yours. I feel for you. :(</p>