First, I want to apologize to everyone who saw no installment of What's for Dinner last night. It was my turn to post it and I failed to do so. Perhaps this diary will explain why.
As many of you know, Kentucky was hit by a severe winter storm last week. The last that I heard was that there have been 11 deaths (so far) as a result. Fortunately, I was not amongst them, nor were any of my neighbors. Over a million were without electrical service. Unfortunately, I was amongst them. Here is the story, with pictures.
Monday (26 January) a winter storm system moved into the area. It had gotten quite a bit of press, and I was ready for it. I had plenty of food, plenty of water, and had just finished drying my thermal underwear, figuring that it might be likely that the power would be lost for a day or so.
Tuesday afternoon I put of load of clothes (shirts and pants in the washing machine), intending to dry them after they got done. They are still in the washing machine.
At 16:45 (4:45 PM) Eastern on Tuesday 27 January, I lost electrical service. No big deal, I thought. The bottom line is that my power was restored today, 01 February, at 16:15 (4:15 PM) Eastern, exactly 30 minutes short of six full days. It was a challenge. Here are some pictures from around my house taken on Tuesday before the power failed. I was going to send them to Mrs. Translator and the boys, but was unable to do so since I had no computer, no DSL (the telephone line was OK, except for about one day, but no power for the DSL interface).
The picture above is my Weber kettle grill Tuesday afternoon. The temperature was just below freezing, and the precipitation was liquid that apparently had supercooled whilst falling, thus freezing on contact with any source of nucleation. (Hey, this is Pique the Geek, you did not think that you could get away without science content, did you?) Those icicles got longer, by the way.
Here is a picture of ice on a twig, with my thumb as reference for thickness. Since it was a very small twig, you can see that the ice, not counting the twig, was about 2.5 cm (1 inch) in diameter. Assuming a density of 0.89 g per cubic centimeter, one meter (about 39 inches) of this would have a mass of 1.75 kg (3.9 pounds in weight). Since this little twig probably has a mass of only a few grams per meter, one can see quickly that is was not designed to bear such a load.
Hence the power situation. Kentucky is very rural, and power lines run under lots of very large trees. There was massive damage, and the utility companies could not get to some areas because of roads being blocked by downed limbs or whole trees. The utility companies are not in the road clearing business, and the county crews who do this were overwhelmed. The Governor stupidly only activated a small portion of the National Guard to assist them (he finally activated every available unit YESTERDAY), so the utility crews were fighting uphill, and still are.
White ash is a wonderfully supple wood, when it is green. It gets pretty brittle when dead, but live ash is very flexible. Here is a picture of a limb from an ash tree covered with ice over my deck in the back. Normally, I would have to use a ladder to touch it. Although I do not have a picture, it eventually touched the deck itself. Now that we have had the big thaw, it is way over my head again.
This was all novel and not so bad on Tuesday. But after the power failed, things got ugly. My next door neighbor, a firefighter, farmed his family out to relatives who had heat, and stayed at the fire station himself. (By the way, those are his trees, and I will get to that later). I called the fire station and left a message this afternoon that his power was restored, and they have come back home.
The first night was not too bad without power. It did not get frigid, and the waterbed was still warm. The house is pretty well insulated, so I did fine. Not having light is annoying, so I brought in my Coleman lantern (I know, you are not supposed to use them indoors, but I do. Just do not close up a small room with one). This product produces excellent light, and a bit of heat as well. Tuesday night was fine, and I was confident that power would be restored Wednesday.
Then I heard the bombs. Well, not really bombs, but tree limbs crashing. Remember back to the calculation that I did for the twig, then add that mass to big limbs with diameters of, say, 15 cm (about 6 inches). Now the extra load becomes, assuming a 1.25 cm coating (half an inch), about 11 kg (24 pounds) for each meter (three feet) of limb. The bigger the limb, the more it gets stressed.
Here are a few pictures from my back yard after the limbs came down. I do not think that they need much explanation, except to say that the only real damage was the bent top rail on the fence. That is easily repaired, for little cost, since I have a spare one on hand.
The light end of the branch fell on it slowly, not a problem.
The fence was not so lucky, but it will be fine with little effort and no money.
After that first night, I knew that I was going to get cold. As luck would have it, I happened to have a catfish (or turkey) fryer and a full 30 pound tank of propane in the shop. I brought that puppy in, hooked up the gas, and turned it on for warmth. The anemic, yellow (carbon monoxide) flame caused my heart to sink. So I took the burner off and started brushing, tapping, and cleaning.
After about two hours (and it was COLD), I had restored the burner. After cleaning the orifice, I fired it up and got a roaring, clear blue burner with the proper amount of air to burn the fuel to carbon dioxide. Now I was in business! Hot coffee every morning! And the chill knocked off of the house.
The first night without power I checked in on my across the street neighbors (they are older, and like it warm). They were OK, and their house was warm enough. The next morning I checked again, and he was going to his farm to get a kerosene heater. That is what jogged me into thinking about the catfish fryer, and, lo and behold, I had a full 30 pound bottle.
I did have to get my empty 20 pound bottle refilled, and had to trade the 30 pound one for a newer model (with a modern filling valve). I spent the 20 pound one the past two days, but the 30 pound one is full. I will keep it for future needs.
I am going to publish this now, even it is not complete. As I answer comments, and cook my first authentic hot meal, I will update with text and pictures.
As always, comments, criticisms, questions on any scientific or other technical topic, and off the wall stuff are all welcome. I learn more from input from you than I could possibly teach.
UPDATE: I really appreciate the response to this poor post. I will finish up the short series tomorrow, with more pictures. I regret that one commentor attempted to marginalize the suffering of the eleven (at current count) who died. I will never respond one way or another to his comments: he is dead to me, and I hope to you as well.
Warmest regards,
Doc
