Down for the Cold

How many car batteries can you scrounge up and link into your UPS?

What? It is jsut an idea.

:D
 
Leaving the UPSs with as much charge as possible incase my outage lasts several hours and I need the juice. Areas of South Dallas have been out of power since 5:30am (9:14now) Temps are about 14 degrees right now
 
Were getting murdered over in west texas, this is NOT what I thought texas would be like...
 
14 F? Apparently everything is NOT bigger in Texas. There may be some shrinkage ;)
 
-10F with a windchill of -25F here in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
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This is the first time this Fall that my farm heated basement has been below 75F.
 
Hate to hear about this Heretic...hopefully will pass soon.

....now on the main topic of why isn't our electrical infrastucture in this day and age not about to handle the needed capacity....?
 
I think most of the problems with the electrical infrastructure is that it's above ground where its vulnerable to human activities, weather and wildlife.
In my opinion, updating the technology as the infrastructure is being secured below ground would improve on many problems that we currently have simultaneously.
 
when i lived in Northern NY it got way colder and alot more snow and we never had mandaged outages. Sounds like somthing fubar down there in the country of texas.
 
Can't be good for you guys, hope you are all OK. Speaking of which does anyone know if MIBW is OK, Cyclone Yasi has just the Queensland coast classed as a Category 5 storm:eek::eek:
 
Over here in New England, we are having sub-zero temps and lots of snow, like 2 feet! Had to get more clients running just to be able to heat my room as it was so cold in here!

Nathan_P, I heard of the storm you are talking about, they said that it would have to power of Hurricane Katrina! :eek:
 
COOLDUDEGAMER said:
Over here in New England, we are having sub-zero temps and lots of snow, like 2 feet! Had to get more clients running just to be able to heat my room as it was so cold in here!

Nathan_P, I heard of the storm you are talking about, they said that it would have to power of Hurricane Katrina! :eek:
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Peak gusts have been forecast at 180mph+:eek:

Bit of blurb here:-One very large storm
 
sorry to hear about the crazy weather

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I might go wash the car today :)
 
They have supposedly stopped the rolling blackouts, so bringing the D back online.
 
Normally, we have plenty of capacity here. Snip from WSJ, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703960804576120272556018158.html

"More than 7,000 megawatts of power have tripped offline in Texas, prompting the grid operator, known as Ercot, to order rolling outages for the first time since April 2006. This is only the second time in more than two decades weather conditions have forced such outages, Ercot said in a statement. "

That in combination with the lowest temps we've had in over 20 years and more heating being done electrically now than back then is a problem.

Last time we had weather like this in 1989, the gas system couldn't keep up with demand, and all schools and business had to shut down. It was 75 degrees F last Saturday and Sunday here. Today, 18 F has been the high at my house so far...
 
Nathan_P said:
Can't be good for you guys, hope you are all OK. Speaking of which does anyone know if MIBW is OK, Cyclone Yasi has just the Queensland coast classed as a Category 5 storm:eek::eek:
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Thanks, but I am safe and sound in Melbourne, 1400 miles south. (ie one or two cyclone widths!) It has only been daylight for a few hours, and it looks like it has smacked the region between Cairns and Townsville hard. (lot of sugarcane and banana farming areas - good luck buying a banana for a while).

Not damage on the scale of Hurricane Katrina because Yasi did not hit a major city, but still. No reports of deaths yet, but still Queensland can't catch a break right now, $20 billion flood damage only a few weeks ago, (area the size of France and Germany underwater) and now a CAT5 storm. They aren't subtle:

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But one Townsville shop owner kept their sense of humour:
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Good luck everyone in the cold without power. Not fun.
 
Filter said:
when i lived in Northern NY it got way colder and alot more snow and we never had mandaged outages. Sounds like somthing fubar down there in the country of texas.
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The difference is that New York expects to get snow in the winter and is prepared for it. Texas doesn't have the infrastructure to deal with this kind of weather. I could easily say the same thing about anywhere in the US compared to here; we're having a huge snowstorm that's been going on since last night and for most people, it's still business as usual. Most cities in the US would probably shut down completely if they were in the same situation.
 
Sadly, our electrical infrastructure is just hopeless as it is so inadequate. Not only is there not enough transparency, but it is pretty much running at capacity in many states. Over on the west coast, PG&E even warned a while ago that all they needed was one person on each city sized block to buy a plug in electric car to bring the entire grid down.

Lack of transparency is an issue in my neighborhood as I notice that my neighbor never loses power even when my power is out.
 
Yesterday was a COMPLETE mess. I live in Saginaw (North Fort Worth) and our power went out at least a dozen times yesterday. Lost a Big Adv on the SR2 with the first one and woke up to it working one thread of a Classic WU (83 PpD I think on an SR-2...LOL). My Q6600 would NOT come up gracefully and required reboots on more than one occassion. Sig Rig & second i7 seemed to be ok with the power going on and off.

Seems to be ok today (knock on several pieces of wood).

Really sucked at one point as my wife and I were going to venture out of the house (stupid in hindsight) to go have lunch at Razoo's. (This was the restaurant where we had our first date 5 years ago. Yesterday was a special day for us) The power went out as we were trying to open the garage door. It got stuck 1/4 of the way open. I didn't feel comfortable leaving it like that so we had to hang around till the power came back so we could close it and then go out the front door.
 
capreppy said:
.....so we had to hang around till the power came back so we could close it and then go out the front door.
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Hate to hear that your day didn't go as planned, but it kind of threw me that your garage door can't be manually disengaged so you can shut it or open it without power. I thought they were all able to do that....
 
Axdrenalin said:
Hate to hear that your day didn't go as planned, but it kind of threw me that your garage door can't be manually disengaged so you can shut it or open it without power. I thought they were all able to do that....
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In hindsight, yes it can. I think I was trying to come up with an excuse to NOT get on the roads...:D
 
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