Moving Slow, Power.

I'm moving pretty slow today. Was a little dull this morning and took about 1/2 a dose of meclizine. Probably a mistake. No I'm not acutely dizzy, but.

Power is still out 36+ hours later. Cobb Mountain which is well to the north west of us had a windy night. Gusts up to 20mph. Our local mountain Cow Mountain, had gusts up to 15 miles an hour last night. Neither of these numbers strike me as being particularly dangerous.

Edit: I had just filled the generator, which lasts for 7+ hours, when I saw a helicopter overhead very low. It was clearly flying the power lines. Helicopters mean the power will be coming on soon, and indeed it has; 37 1/2 hours after it went out. The outage was scheduled to go for another full day. I'm going to let the generator stay on until it is empty as it has regular gas in it which won't store well average shelf life 2 to 3 months at best. When it is empty I'll fill it with Tool Gas which will last for up to a couple of years or until the power gets turned off again.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Most Popular Tags

alaska - 17 uses
arena - 23 uses
bird - 12 uses
boat - 7 uses
books - 9 uses
canning - 14 uses
cats - 9 uses
chainsaw - 12 uses
compost - 16 uses
cows - 9 uses
dog - 53 uses
echo - 29 uses
family - 20 uses
fence - 41 uses
fences - 9 uses
fire - 18 uses
firefly - 10 uses
garden - 69 uses
health - 37 uses
henry - 25 uses
henry construction - 9 uses
horse - 45 uses
horses - 20 uses
house - 8 uses
how to - 7 uses
howell creek - 13 uses
iris barn - 11 uses
joe - 30 uses
knee - 13 uses
lace - 27 uses
mexico - 8 uses
mom - 7 uses
opera - 38 uses
oracle oak - 8 uses
pasture - 24 uses
ranch - 146 uses
red barn - 39 uses
riparian restoration - 8 uses
road - 21 uses
shetland - 7 uses
story - 23 uses
tractor - 6 uses
travel - 10 uses
tree - 7 uses
truck - 7 uses
ukiah - 50 uses
ukiah house - 13 uses
vacation - 13 uses
water - 46 uses
work - 70 uses

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

kaishin108

I guess your area must seem more dangerous for fire than here as we gusts like that very often.

ranunculus

I don't think it is more dangerous, I think that PG&E neglected their infrastructure so badly over several decades that they started numerous fires, notably the Camp Fire. For the past two or three years they have been running around, much like a chicken with its head cut off, replacing stuff and loudly proclaiming that they are ever so proactive in preventing future fires. In this case they turned off my whole neighborhood. I think that is because they have no way of only turning off the part that goes to the top of Cow Mountain to service the internet and cell towers. I KNOW that line is in terrible shape because it runs past my front door. The pole that is 40 feet from the house has woodpecker holes all over it, including a nest cavity hole. The pole is well past the time it was supposed to be replaced; I know it went on the replacement list 6 years ago because it was in bad shape.

In San Diego, I remember SDG&E being just horrible.

I think San Diego has gotten better in recent years.

PG&E has a long list of horror stories about poorly maintained equipment killing people. The first one I remember was an explosion of a gas main that blew up two houses and killed a couple of people. Not only had they not maintained the pipes, allowing them to rust out, but they hadn't even checked them on their own schedule.
Here at the Ukiah House about ten years ago a wire was broken in my front yard by a falling tree . PG&E was contacted, both by civilians and the fire department. They didn't turn the power off for more than 5 hours. Meanwhile a live wire bounced around arcing against the ground. Thank goodness it was winter.
The Camp Fire was started because their "safety" checks did not notice a badly worn hook that connected high power lines to the pole. Completely preventable. Burned down hundreds of homes. The next year there was a similar fire that thankfully didn't kill as many people or burn as many homes. As far as I am concerned the entire company is just evil and should be taken over by the State.

To think that it burned down hundreds of homes is just horrendous!

agoodwinsmith

Best wishes for a more rapid recovery. I'm also sorry that your event was cancelled. I am really glad your set up withstands the loss of grid power withdrawals, so it is mostly just annoying.

Thanks, I'm feeling pretty chipper tonight now that the medicine has worn off!
Working on making grid power irrelevant by getting batteries and an inverter for the solar system.

twoeleven

Pea-brained Gas and Electric should probably be replaced by something more useful, like a big pile of AAA batteries. :P

Sorry about the dizziness and the medicine's side effects. That sounds awful.

As the medication wears off I'm feeling a lot better. ;)
Fairly determined to get some not-AAA-batteries for my solar setup along with an inverter. Got any suggestions as to brands? I hear that batteries and inverters talk to each other these days.

Edit: As soon as the taxes are paid I'll know how much I have to spend.

Edited Date: 2026-10-17 03:58 am (UTC)

I don't have any suggestions off hand, because large-scale solar power set-ups use different kinds of batteries than home set-ups.

They do talk to each other, but the "language" is pretty standardized. I can ask around for recommendations, since I'm a member of the local solar business group.

The local installer I talked to this summer recommended Sunrun. Looks to me like they do a lot of leasing, which I'm not interested in, and that they may have cut back on providing batteries.
I would appreciate it if you would ask around.

thewayne

We're really lucky as our local power co-op is phenomenal at keeping our system well-maintained. While we still have them, it's rare they last more than a couple of hours. We've had two days of projected 40-60 MPH winds and no blinks even!

Sounds like well maintained equipment, with perhaps more modern wires.

I said yesterday that our winds are high like that often but erm today, a bunch of fires in neighboring countys, sigh.

I hope this is over very soon for you!

This year like last year has been, so far, really good on the fire front. Fire teams have squashed anything that tried to get going and weather has been pretty moderate. I think right now is our highest risk, and I can see the rain coming in the forecast (though whether it will be enough to really damp down the fire risk or not is questionable, it has to be enough to give all the shrubs and trees a real drink.)

My power is back on and I'm looking at batteries for my system.

So happy your power is back!

ranunculus