So it’s Day 3 of no power here in the Tropics of Michigan.

Current Sitrep:
Generator is keeping our well going so we have not only water but hot running water thanks to our gas water heater. Also our refrigerator, radio and charging electronics. Gas stove so we are having chicken and dumplings for dinner. House is warm thanks to our LP gas wall heater.

Tons of downed limbs. Got some of them cut up and piled buts lots. LOTS more to go. Still assessing damage but the livestock are all good as are we. Preps all working. Mostly kerosene lamps after the sun goes down. We are far better off than most.

My fire department along with every other one in the county ran tons of lines down calls in th first 24 hours. Only 3 medical so far.

Life is good.

More freezing rain predicted for Sunday night in my area, hope you don't get any to set you back.

I got out just in time, left Wed morning and came home. It was low 30s in Michigan, then we hit 85 in TN.

85 in Feb. Can't imagine, yuck.
Glad your set up Brad. Sounds great.

My uncle is at his girlfriend’s in Detroit and they haven’t had power for a few days. She doesn’t have a generator, but does have a wood burning fireplace.

Our electric power went out Wednesday about 8 pm. Got it back 4;30 am today (Saturday). Biggest problem was no internet. We're starting to worry about the stuff in the freezer.

The woodstove kept us from freezing.

This happens every few years in Michigan.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: John Steed,

Brad,

Glad to hear that you, your fam and the livestock are doing well. Sounds like the specifics of your situation are performing well under stress.

My step son in White Lake has a fairly good size generator and has been using it to power his home since Wednesday. Like you described, he says he's got tree limbs down through out his large yard. His chickens made it through the ice storm, but a limb did drop on and damage a portion of his coop :-(

My wife and I and our neighbors in our subdivision are lucky as we have power. A mile north of me, no power. We had about a 1/4 to 3/8 inch of ice accumulation.

Ugh…hope all returns to normal soon for you guys. Sure sucks going without power or water.

Good to hear you're hanging tough. I, too, invested in gas lamps a few years back. I have several with about 20 gallons of lantern fuel. Fumbling around in the dark when the batteries go dead ain't no fun.

quote:

Originally posted by Mark in Michigan:
His chickens made it through the ice storm,

I am continually amazed at the toughness of chickens. Mine sailed right through our stretch of -20F. I did put a heater in the coop, but it wasn't enough to raise the temp more than 10-20 degrees. They still soldiered through, laying every day.

Hard to believe my weather in the Yoop is better than the Lower Peninsula. Beautiful sunny winter day here today. Some of the news reports say it might be next week before full restoration of power.
The outlawing of gas appliances sure looks stupid now, doesn't it?

We were lucky, lost power about midnight Wednesday night, but it was restored about 7:45pm Thursday. Consumers Power had projected the restoration to be 2:45pm Sunday.

I talked to my other uncle in Brighton. He and my aunt are doing well. They have a whole house generator. I checked PIE&G’s outage map and it looks like Presque Isles County is doing well.

I sat up Wednesday night listening to the soothing sounds of trees breaking, transformers popping and occasional thunder. My hood lost power around 1am Thursday, only it wasn't out, we still had 70 VAC available to the outlets and lights. Not good. Have a few LED lamps that still worked dimly, so that was nice. My neighbor told me their refrigerator was still working "sort of". I strongly recommended that they unplug any appliances that they care about. Trying to run a major appliance on 70 volts just didn't seem like a good idea to me. 36 hours later power was restored. I'm just thankful that all of my appliances seem to have survived the sustained brownout.

quote:

Originally posted by Mark in Michigan:
My wife and I and our neighbors in our subdivision are lucky as we have power. A mile north of me, no power. We had about a 1/4 to 3/8 inch of ice accumulation.

We were even luckier than that. There were large swaths of outages to both our SW through NW and SE through NE, the borders of which weren't but 1/4 to 1/2 mile away.

We were amazed we kept our power.

Our power went out Wednesday night at around nine. First thing Thursday morning I went on a quest for a inverter generator as the twenty-plus year old one we have caused us some issues the last time we used it four years ago, yeah, put off today what you can do until tomorrow.

So Harbor Freight third stop. Got a friend with a truck to bring it home for me. House has a transfer switch already wired in. Around seven last night power came back on.

My complaint was with the utilities outage map and reporting. We reported the outage, around five hundred customers on Wednesday but the outage map said it was reported Thursday morning. So I kept checking for updates and yesterday about mid afternoon some houses in the outage area were back online. But suddenly the time our outage was “reported” mysteriously changed to around noon Saturday with a restoration date of Monday.

The conspiracy theory part of me wonders if the date changing was an reporting a error or a intentional fudging to keep the MIchigan Public Service Commission off their backs.

Brad,

Good to hear you've weathered things well. Last experince I had was in 2013 with Winter Storm Atlas. Three plus days where there was no power or movement. In an all electric home a fireplace was the only way to heat inside. And food was all cold ready to eat. FWIW I subsequently bought an Iwatani 12k btu propane single burner and fuel for emergencies. Thankfully haven't as yet needed it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bald1,

Happy that all SigForum members in Michigan are OK, and weathered last week's storm without too many difficulties.
Here in Ann Arbor, we were lucky that we didnot lose power in our neighborhood, so, I invites 2 friends and their families to come and spend time at our house. It was a bit hectic, cooking for two extra families, etc, but, we all weathered the storm and its aftermath OK.

sidss1,
Looks like you are in the freezing rain right now and it is headed my way.
Good luck.

Now in Day 5 without power at home. Store has been up since Thursday morning.

Current restoration time is noon today but with driving rain and some new ice accumulation, I doubt that will hold as well as the last estimate did

quote:

Originally posted by Appliance Brad:
Now in Day 5 without power at home. Store has been up since Thursday morning.

Current restoration time is noon today but with driving rain and some new ice accumulation, I doubt that will hold as well as the last estimate did

I hope they get you going soon.
We were without power for 5 days a few weeks back and it sucks donkey balls.