Hurricane Dennis

[AGI1122]

Well hurricane Dennis is on it's way. Heading directly at me too.

Anyway, just thought I would say bye since chances are I will be without internet for a few months. Last hurricane(Ivan), I had no power for 2 months. And no internet for about 1 month after that.

Anyone else going to be to be hit by Dennis?

Anyway, wish me luck.

[mystran]

Two months without power?

I never realized that hurricanes could cause that big power outages.

No offence please, but here in Finland it's a crisis if somebody's without power for a full week. Not that it affects me as I live in Helsinki, where I can't remember when we last had a power outage longer than a minute or so.. (actually, there was one last year (?) when somebody fucked up really seriously.. it lasted almost a hour or so, if I remember correctly)

Wish you luck though.

[AGI1122]

Well the winds get up to be pretty strong. They blow all the power lines down. Heck they even blow down the poles that hold up the power lines. So without the power lines there is no way for power to get to the homes. And until they can all go back up, we have no power.

Of course we have a generator. But that will only stay on as long as we don't run out of gas. And it's not strong enough to run the entire house or anything. Just the essentials, like the microwave and freezer.

Right now the winds are at 120MPH and gaining. It's a level 3 hurricane right now which is what Ivan was last year when it hit us. But considering it's only just now entered the gulf, that means it's still going to get stronger before it reaches here. Even more so than Ivan. Probably level 4, hopefully not level 5(although I doubt it).

[Tora OS]

and i thought not having power for 7 hours was bad....



Anyway...I hope that you dont lose your power or your internet for very long this time.

[mystran]

But really, how can it take 2 months to rebuild the power lines? It sounds like capitalism isn't exactly the fastest possible way to get things fixed, the other possibility being that you don't have enough qualified workforce there in states (but I doubt that).

[Tora OS]

its called "you dont have any other choice so dangit we'll take as long as we bloody want."

[AGI1122]

You have to realize, there is debris everywhere. There where some areas you couldn't even get to, to fix the power lines. So until it was cleared out, it had to wait. I know it wouldn't normally take that long to fix power lines that go down. But we are talking about quite alot of power lines, and alot of debris in the way of those power lines or even on those power lines. So until the debris could be moved not all the power lines could be fixed. Also it was a step by step process. Some area's got power back before others, simply because they had to work one street at a time.

[Tora OS]

sorry...my mistake.


my comment refered to my power company (PG&E) most of the time. They spend forever to fix the simplist thing.

[AR]

Do you get earthquakes? If not, why don't they just ground the cables (phone+power in plastic pipes underground)? I imagine it wouldn't be able to damage them as easily since it'd have to wash away a few feet of dirt before it can affect the lines.

[Oliver]

Two months without power?

I never realized that hurricanes could cause that big power outages.

No offence please, but here in Finland it's a crisis if somebody's without power for a full week. Not that it affects me as I live in Helsinki, where I can't remember when we last had a power outage longer than a minute or so.. (actually, there was one last year (?) when somebody fucked up really seriously.. it lasted almost a hour or so, if I remember correctly)

Wish you luck though.

Well, it depends on the climate too, in Helsinki it's cold, and if you're heating your house with electricity then a full week in a very cold house would be a pretty big disaster.
There was a storm here too, on 9th of January, it hit the whole Baltics, it didn't really affect me much, only that my trashcan went flying around the yard and the backyard little "creek" (or whatever) went 3 meters up from it's normal hight of water. But in the city the things were pretty bad, most of the beach side areas were totally under water and my grandfathers house was completely destroyed by water so he is doing a lot of renovation at the moment. My ineternet was down too, but I had electricity.

The most i've spent without any power in my whole life is proabably half a day, lucky me, eh?

[AGI1122]

Do you get earthquakes? If not, why don't they just ground the cables (phone+power in plastic pipes underground)? I imagine it wouldn't be able to damage them as easily since it'd have to wash away a few feet of dirt before it can affect the lines.

Well none that I have ever seen. But as for why they don't bury them... no idea.

[Tora OS]

We have underground power lines (and earthquakes too for that matter) I think everywhere should have underground power and utility lines.

[AR]

It's not such a good idea in Earthquake areas since you can't see the lines without digging them up, and since earthquakes cause the ground to shift, it is quite likely the pipes will be smashed taking longer to fix as they have to dig up each section.

[Oliver]

I heard on the news that the hurricane is slowing down/not so strong anymore. And I'm not sure if It has hit Florida yet but either way, hope that Chris is alright.

[AGI1122]

It hit here 2 days ago. Everyone is fine though.

But we have no power, I am on a laptop right now, and luckily my internet is still working, since my internet didn't work during the last hurricane.

Luckily at the last minute the hurricane went a tiny bit east of us, so we didn't get all the tornado's and such. So the damage wasn't as bad as it was going to be when it was coming straight on us.