It’s been three days since PECO provided any power to our house. We have no water, no heat, it’s 42 degrees inside, and we’re running out of firewood. PECO says we will have electricity by 11pm, but I don’t believe them. Our yard looks like Hiroshima or Dresden, with more downed trees and branches than can be believed. I guess we can start burning that wood, but it’s green and covered in ice and snow, and frozen.
What a fun Friday night!
Just called them again and they still say it will be restored by 11pm. They say under 800 people are currently fucked on our little grid.
We’re hopeful that PECO has filled their promises with successful action by now. Your household’s circumstance sounds horrible.
Not everything is politics, but this does bring up one of the many negative sides of putting public utilities into the hands of private businesses. In my California Bay Area, PG&E tore dozens of homes into fiery shreds a couple of years ago through their own profit-obsessed incompetence.
I hope PECO’s stock takes a sharp dive, but I don’t expect it any more. Accountability to customers is for squares; the shareholder is God to the investor class.
Seattle h.as a publicly owned utility. That and Columbia River hydropower (thank you, FDR) result in some of the lowest utility rates in the country. Funny how none of the free market ideologues in these parts want a company like PG&E to come in and take over.
Some Counties in California have started their own utilities and taken the business from PG&E. It’s always a horrible, bloody, expensive political fight. Good use of rate-payers’ money to spend massive money on completely corporate-serving political campaigns, amirite?
same here, it’s past 11:30 pm
–shudder–
Had no problems with PECO but the streets that went unplowed and the intersections that took too long to be measured to get through during my thankfully short sojourn in MontCo aren’t fond memories.
It is winter. It is cold. Without power things are no fun.
Please try to find some moment of fun. In 2007, we lost power in our house in S IL for 1 week. It got down to about 25 in the house. For you, you must find a way to be strong for your child. It’s like winter camping, in your house. You need to be the adult and find a way to have fun in a non-fun situation.
That’s in southern IL. Here in northern IL, this year, it would be zero or below.
We snuggled in under the down comforter and watched Wallace and Gromit movies on the iPad. Of course, we have no running water, which makes things even more challenging, but he seemed none the worse for the wear.
For about $5,000 one can buy a natural gas powered emergency generator capable of supplying whole house needs including a 3.5 ton air conditioner. I was going to do it last year but chickened out. Consider it this Spring. Utilities are getting less and less reliable as they down size for greater profit and corrupt utility boards let them.
Can a small emergency generator run your furnace? Are there any still for sale?
Since this has happened to Boo a few times now already I agree with the suggestions. But you can do it for a lot less if you’re willing to limit your electric consumption during the outage. For about $2.3k (figuring in the installation rates) you can get a 7kW NG generator:
https://www.google.com/shopping/product/10406947626343081012?q=generator+natural+gas&espv=210&am
p;es_sm=93&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.60983673,d.aWc,pv.xjs.s.en_US.3ldMs4GyBFs.O&biw
=1745&bih=904&tch=1&ech=1&psi=Vjr2UqCeGIqpyAGFmoHwCg.1391868504622.3&ei=Xjr2UvvR
AenkyQH-5ICIBg&ved=0CKEBEKYrMAE
Or cut the price in half if you’re willing to go to a gasoline generator – disadvantage is more fussiness about arranging to have gasoline and not letting it go bad during the periods when the generator is not in use.
Many of the men I work with have bought and installed smaller generators. They are appalled that I want a unit that will handle the A/C. They suggest adding up the kw ratings of the refrigerator, freezer if any, furnace and the lights (not much if you’re all CFL as I am). I’m not comfortable working with the main breaker box or the gas line. I could probably do it. I’ve been trained (on industrial electric service) but I’m not comfortable.
I stand on the A/C requirement. Two (?) years ago we had a heat wave with many days continuously above 100 degrees. Many people lost power as ComEd could not handle the load. I’m sure at my age the stress fro heat and humidity would have killed me. I could barely stand to drive home in an air conditioned car.
I’m with you. I did start to look into solar powered attic fans a couple of years ago but the damn things were always sold out; perhaps a clue to buy early in the season, haha. I have 4 skylights and when the weather is hot I can exhaust the house pretty effectively by opening them up; they take the house down 5 degrees in a matter of an hour.
I’ll have to look into them. The backyard side of my roof points South.
I was curious too until I read this discussion on the relative merits. I think I’ll stick with the old-fashioned wind powered vents I have, even though they require lubrication a couple of times a year or they squeak horribly – so badly one time that the neighbors complained.
I just can’t believe that in my case. The soffit vents are ample sized and the eaves are always shaded. The ceiling may not be hermetically sealed, but the cracks, if any are much smaller in area than the soffit vents.
That’s a personal choice. I’ve not lived in a climate that gets hot and humid for a very long time – and where we currently live we don’t even have A/C. So perhaps I’m not the best to judge whether it is worth the extra $$$.
I do recall surving some really nasty, hot summer nights in my youth with showers and fans – but I appreciate the point about extreme weather being more difficult as you get older.
No A/C when I was a kid. Maybe rich people had it. Cadillacs and Lincolns had it. I too remember sweating at night while completely nude. Movie theaters did a big business as people would buy a ticket just to have a cool evening.
I really do fear death when the temperature is over one hundred. You always hear on the news about old people dying in Texas when the temperature is over one hundred.
breathing air warmer than body temp is very weird
I hope that you have power back soon, BooMan.
Get yourself a cheap hotel/motel room and spend some time out on the town somewhere.
Be careful with burning green/wet wood in a fireplace, as it can put out a lot of smoke.
Good luck and stay warm!
Excellent suggestions! Be sure to close the entrance water valve, turn off the water heater and open all the faucets to drain the water. Flush all the toilets too.
Yeesh! Stay warm, man. Do you have neighbors who can give you some extra firewood?
I think BooMan needs some music. Any takers?
OK, first crack at it. I’ve been on an XTC kick lately:
Favorite verse:
“It seems you would say I was too soft-hearted,
If you made a dunce-cap I’d don it!
People will always be tempted to wipe their feet,
On anything with ‘welcome’ written on it.”
It was minus 15 here Thursday morning and all I could think of was if our little cooperative electric co could handle the load and if my house was going to keep going. You guys must be ready to go postal in your circumstances, sounds like its 2 days past an inconvenience and now downright dangerous. Time for a couple of Newfs to move in!
I’ll throw another Neil chestnut in the fire to try to keep BooMan warm:
NBC site reporting that PECO’s Fred Maher as saying “We are preparing some customers for the fact that they may be without power for the weekend”.
That’d be it for me. I’d find a reasonable hotel and go there.
Soo true. Course there’s always the frozen pipes consideration and hotel rooms may just be all taken. It’s a rotten situation
they don’t want to pay overtime?
The pr oblem is that they don’t tell which customers to prepare to be without power into next week, stringing them along with promises of restoration by 11 pm every day that are then dashed at 11:01 pm.
We went out and spoke to the crews fixing the damage causing our outage (multiple poles poles down in a half mile stretch of road), and they were able to share that they would be knocking off at 7:30 pm, and not to expect power up until tomorrow.
PECO is still claiming 11:00 pm. I believe the road crews.
-CG
I wish you were in our neighborhood. I’d bring you a load of firewood.
“PECO-An EXELON Company”
That’s what the banner says on top of the PECO website.
Hmmmmm…what’s “Exelon?” sez I. “Sounds suspiciously like a cross between “Exxon” and “Enron,” eh?
Hmmmm….
From Wikipedia“
Hmmmmmmm…
More?
Sure.
Count your ass blessed, Booman. This PermaGov-connected energy theft organization has at least not poisoned your water supply with tritium…they have not yet been caught doing so, anyway. All they’ve done is lowball your services in the name of cost-cutting.
So it goes. Get used to it.
They are well-connected with both supposed sides of the PermaGov…tight with the Obama administration and the Koch Brothers gang too. Of course,,,you are also tight with the DemRats, right? Fire off a note to Brother Barack and tell him that one of his contributors isn’t taking care of business in your neighborhood after an ice storm. He’ll hop right to it if you have served him an equivalent or larger amount of dollars-worth as have the nice Exelon people.
If not?
Go shiver in the nearest “affordable” motel like the other wonderful middle-class leftinesses here have suggested until Exelon gets its shit together.
Oh.
What’s that you say?
You’re too broke too be renting motel rooms and eating in restaurants for an unspecified number of days?
Oh.
Welcome to the American Dream, v.2014.
What?
It’s all Bush II’s fault?
Wake the fuck up.
You been had.
We all been had.
Luckily, our wonderful scientists have recently decided that shivering is good exercise.
You’re in luck, Booman!!! Just like all the poor people in the ghettos of the north!!! You too can get in shape. By shivering!!! And you won’t even have to pay Exelon for the workout privilege. You kin shiver in the dark!!!
WTFU.
The whole system is falling apart. Be happy you’re not somewhere worse.
Like the Philadelphia you left.
It’s only gotten worse since.
Since what?
Since Obama was elected.
Bet on it.
But you’re still on the team, right?
WTFU.
Cold?
Hungry?
Tired.
Get used to it.
It’s the new black.
Bet on it.
Lights out.
Watch.
AG
AG,
You’re extremely consistent.
BooMan shares that he’s in a difficult circumstance. You tell BooMan that he lost his power because he supported Obama, and you mock him in his extreme discomfort. Apparently Obama is directly responsible for things having “gotten worse” in Philadelphia, too. Didn’t have anything to do with radical corporatist Governor Corbett, who BooMan has opposed with every fiber of his being. Corbett and Obama, part of the same PermaGov to you- exactly the same.
Which Presidential candidate in 2008 and 2012 would have prevented BooMan’s power from going out? Your boy Ron Paul would have told Boo to enjoy this “liberty” the free market has granted him.
Do you know how you appear at moments like this?
I do not particularly care “how I appear,” centerfielddj. Not at moments like this and not at many other moments, either. Appearances can be deceiving.
With any luck, Booman’s young child and his family will not suffer untoward hardships from this little adventure, nor will they pay the dues that millions and millions of inner city and small town rural Americans pay daily because the corporate-owned PermaGov finds them to be superfluous workers. DemRats and Ratpubs alike acceded to the export of almost the entire American semi-skilled workforce and the industries that they manned…factory workers, farm workers and whoever else can be replaced at lower cost…to underdeveloped countries that will work for substantially lower wages. They have done so in the short-sighted pursuit of big profit, and profit they have. Booman steadfastly supports the DemRats even though the state of the country…its infrastructure, its political system and its social and socio-economic systems…have continued to tank during Obama’s reign. Obama talks a good game, but behind closed doors he does what his owners demand of him. Does he do so w/the idea that gradual progress is better than no progress at all? Possibly, but it is quite apparent that “:progress”in these matters is not happening. Does he understand this but continue doing his PermaGov job out of fear of retaliation if he doesn’t? That’s also possible and it is quite understandable, too. But Booman and the thousands and thousands of other low-level political functionaries and media assets? Where is their excuse for supporting a failing political system? Damned if I know. There’ll be no Dealy Plaza for them.
And damned if I will stand around and watch it go down without raising my voice.
You don’t like it?
Lump it.
I will have my say, at the very least.
Bet on it.
AG
Please proceed, AG.
Ignoring the role of robots in job loss to focus on outsourcing is political malpractice. otherwise I think you make some valid points.
Did robots take the cell phone jobs in Harvard IL? Was it robots that transported the entire factory to China?
What Voice said.
AG
Booman,
Distasteful, failure of government, excess of capitalism even to a preventable tragedy as it is.It’s not like this is a new or unheard of event. What surprises me is the short sighted attention span of many in your city.It is to those who can or should have done something to prepare for it to which I refer After all Illinois is 40Degrees N and we are being affected by Anthropomorphic Climate Change!
[Perhaps you can see why I hate the term AGW it is a advertising misnomer. AGW is the process not the outcome]
One wonders why you don’t have a gas bottle and a heater attached in the garage. We’re looking at an expenditure off ebay of less than $50.
When I was moved to the burbs of Chicago some years back it was on my first shopping list in summer, knowing that I’d be there for Xmas.. And yes we
f*ing well needed it.
In fact I gave away 30 at Xmas to our most needy (low paid) employees. While I couldn’t raise their pays Co policy I did have a discretionary fund as part of my position.
In the final analysis much of our problems are of our own making i.e. our priorities. I.e. how many of these poorer families have big color TVs and expensive Mobile phones etc.
I’m not one of those libertarians ( spit…twice)[read me first and FU]
My beef is with a population that is spoon fed a diet of BS consumerism ….Knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing. Sadly Consumerism, capitalism is based on a sophisticated version of the law of the jungle, the luckiest, most ruthless the richest ( most powerful) rule. The rest of us, are merely obedient spear carriers defenders, of someone elses’ self indulgent ideology. For which we are fed a diet of scraps and distractions.
In other states Where I am now the temps are 120ish and wild fires are burning homes and people.
I often get annoyed at public meetings here when people complain about ‘onerous’ building regulations that mandate ‘bush fire safety’. The complaint is that without these regs we’d have more (affordable)cheaper houses!! Really !! and yes more expensive houses means more expensive insurance …when they burn down who picks up the costs? more houses the greater the cost to the community oh yes loss of life.
Now compare that with the US version the focus isn’t on the people but the businesses in your case the F*$#@ electricity supplier.
I’m all for business making a profit but call me what you will some basic needs should be in Public hands and focused there.
Being a realist I got fed up with the Underpinning US culture of business rules regardless ( read misreading/interpretation of libertarian/conservative principles[sic] ) and moved. I have the advantage of an unstable childhood whereby a pace is a place. Home can be anywhere it’s simply a mind set.
Omar Kyam said it well ” I cried because I had no shoes until, I met a man with no feet”.
After the cold you will have warmth and a home the victims of the bush fires and the poor where you are will have neither.
Up here in CT about two years ago, we suffered what some radio wags called “Arborgeddon” over a Halloween weekend when we got struck by an early, heavy, wet snowstorm which brought down trees which still had leaves on them. It brought down trees everywhere and onto everything, with particularly bad effects on the power lines (oddly the phone service never did go out).
Our utility failed totally in the recovery effort. It took them a week to get power back up to most of their service area and they lied repeatedly to the governments of most of the towns they served. Service was always going to be restored within “24 hours” but somehow they always missed their targets and just kept rolling the projected time out. Their response was so poor that the CT legislature had to investigate and pass legislation forcing changes in various practices by the utility.
Did I mention that the utility tried to file for a rate adjustment to make up for revenue lost because of the outages caused by their incompetence? I say incompetence, because the utility had been receiving a special fee to allow for tree trimming to avoid precisely what occurred. Except, for the two years preceding the calamity, the utility had deemed the trimming work to have been sufficient so they simply pocketed the fee. Good luck with getting the political scum now in Harrisburg to look into your utility’s maintenance practices.
That’s what I had in mind when I asked about overtime in my comment above. Was driving through CT multiple times right after that storm. Weeks after the storm large portions of CT were completely dark; convenience stores were still all out of essentials. every day it was some bizarre story about why the electricity was still not online but iirc it was something about being unwilling to pay overtime and iirc workers from out of state wanted to work on it, – can’t remember why they didn’t hire them.
Still no power.
I am sorry, and I am angry on your behalf. Is everyone safe? How are you getting through this?
$100/night hotels. Only thing available.
Hotel bills paid for by PECO??
yeah, right.
Here, BooMan, let Johnny Rotten serve you, yours and these kids of striking coal miners a slice of cake:
Check it out starting at 3:00 if your time is limited.
this has happened a lot recently iir your posts correctly, maybe its time to look into solar and wind
I’d look at a NG standby generator. Enough KW for a critical systems (well, furnace fan, sump, fridge, some lighting) baseload.