I'm stuck here at work, and I won't be home until midnight or later - but I'm STILL going back out if any of my fuel cans are empty. If this storm is as icy as they say it will be, we'll have a lot of long-term power outages.

Generator: Ready.
Wood Stove: Ready.
Food Supplies: Ready.
Water Supplies: Ready.

Brought down 5 cans to fill today and both the gas stations that were trailer friendly along my way home were closed Luckily I was able to pull in and put a couple G in the truck, and will have to finish filling up on WED since I don't like using 'older' mountain gas for storage.

over at another site a guy said the generators were sold out in his town in Indiana.another comment was about ice building up on roads and trees in some Midwest areas.just cold and fluffy light snow around me.

Good luck to everyone in the path of this massive storm.

A lot of school closings this morning in NE Ohio...we've gotten about 2-3 inches overnight - right now it's clear and in my neighborhood, the roads are well-plowed. But the radio's been saying highways were still snow-covered a bit after 7 a.m.

Forecasts have been saying tonight and overnight, we'll get round 2, with as much or more snow, and quite a bit of freezing rain - so they're expecting ice accumulations and the associated interesting times that that can bring. Supermarket was jammed Monday after lunch - lots of other people saw the forecast and were stocking up.

We get to stay home and stay cozy - for those who have to go out in it, do take care.

Dave

When the storm rolled over us it left a nasty coating of ice on everything. We rarely see that stuff. Sure made the roads ugly.

Now it's a brisk -10F outside. Saturday it was 60F.

Dvd's ready
Hot Chocolate ready
Big comfy sweater ..Oh no...BRB

Here in Chicagoland, we still have light fluffy stuff- 2-3 inches last night into today... Threw it off the driveway and walkways... move it now or move it later.
Anyway this storm shakes out, I seem to be in the crosshairs.
Supposed to deteriorate starting in an hour, then its 24 hours of wind, snowand more snow.
Have my "shelter in place" plans topped off, including a tip from a lady who prepared for hurricanes that may or may not hit:
I got every piece of laundry done, so no matter what happens, we am starting out with a full wardrobe that won't need attention for a while.

It'll be all of 41°F here tonight. I wear layers inside, furnace has been off the past two winters.

I'm currently without power here at work. The cold weather (19F, windchill of 8F) has overwhelmed the power plants so they have instituted rolling blackouts to try and meet the demand. My battery backup is beeping so I need to shut things down soon.

According to the radio reports the power company was taken by surprise by the energy demands of people trying to keep their homes warm. That sort of unawareness by the power company is disturbing...

-Blast

People trying to keep their homes warm during a blizzard in winter? What are they thinking? Just bundle up, drain the plumbing so it doesn't burst and let the house go cold. You may lose a Canary or three and the aquarium fish may need replacements, but NBD . . . Wood stoves are a great invention. It's surprising so few have caught on to this technology.

"power company was taken by surprise by the energy demands " What could they have done on short notice other than rolling blackouts? It's not like they can pull a new power-plant out of their back-pocket on short notice. Importing power may also be a non-starter when the storm covers such a vast area. I imagine blackouts will be fairly typical in many of the areas/states hit by this storm.

Here in Houston, Texas the only problem is the cold, no snow or ice. The power company has a number of "spare" gas-fired powerplants around the city that come on line during the summer when it gets hot and everyone turns on their AC units. They are designed to be fired up and running within an hour once a certain energy demand threshold is met. For some reason no one thought to have these stations manned during this cold snap.

The power has been going on and off all morning, usually off for 1 hour then on for 5 minutes.

-Blast

Got it. Poor planning. They probably have those plants in hibernation and didn't want the expense of bringing them back on line. Rolling black-outs less costly ($$ bottom line). Some efficiency expert probably did the math -- rather than a customer.

If that were true then why have the extra plants at all? The true cost is probably going to be someone's job. We have a satellite office in Austin and they are completely unable to work. Sure they're staying warm enough but this completely shuts down all ability to do business. The money being "saved" cannot equal the money being lost right now.

I'm going to agree with Blast, this is a huge lack of preparation by the utilities.

As Blast mentioned the plants come on line during summer months to provide for air conditioning. They are then probably powered down (put in hibernation) for the season. Yes, they probably can be powered up if the bean counters figure it's good for the utility's bottom line -- not necessarily the customer's best interests. My opinion, no idea how utilities make those types of management decisions, but $$ bottom line will be a major concern.

Potential for another monster north east Boxing Day blizzard late next week on top of the 8-10 (New England) inches this weekend.

http://www.accuweather.com/video/655578741001/two-snowstorms-in-the-next-7-d.asp



NASA snow coverage from the 1st Feb 2011

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...d-snow-ice.html

In fairness, it may not only be dollars. It can take a week or two to take a plant that's essentially mothballed and get it online; you can't bypass the checklist for safe and stable operation. It takes a fair bit of coordination between many utilities to get fuel in and power out. Also, there needs to be adequate "main plant" capacity to balance the inductive vs. resistive loads and keep the system stable. So, it's very different from just spooling up a plant that's already on standby. You can't just fly by the seat of your pants.

Hmm, interesting thought. On a related note, I could swear my cats are growing extra-long incisors, and watching the elephants intently when Planet Earth is playing. Do they know something I don't?

Turns out that Texas had a contract with Mexican power plants to supply us with emergency electricity during the winter months. Unfortunately when it came time to send us power they reneged on the deal leading to our blackouts. Worse, this meant Texas didn't have the power to send natural gas to New Mexico, so they ran out. This left many NM residents and companies freezing.

It's a complex world, folks. Probably too complex...
-Blast

I just caught a news article that some Dallas hospitals, including a trauma center, were caught by rolling blackouts even though they should have been spared since they are classified "critical infrastructure". Somebody goofed on that one. Emergency generators are no substitute for mains power in most hospitals.

Yeah, there's going to be hell to pay about the Dallas hospitals. Meanwhile, they did manage to keep power on at the football stadium for some big event there tomorrow.

There was 1/4" coating of ice across Houston this morning which led to many high-speed cases of bumper cars. They closed my workplace until Monday so I'm safe and sound at home.

-Blast

Southern Arizona also got screwed with thousands of homes without natural gas. Best guess is Monday or Tuesday before they can get them going again, lots of frozen pipes. I expect the lawyers will have a field day.

That's interesting. I forget the technical term, but I thought I read somewhere that the pumps used for high pressure natural gas pipelines often used natural gas and don't require grid power to operate. Guess that wasn't the case there.

Where I live, El Paso Electric lost 90% of its generating capacity during the cold snap. It dropped all the way down to 1 F here. Plant cooling systems froze solid and critical sensors stopped working. News footage showed large pipes and valve pedestals split like they were cloven with axes. Apparently, the city is now importing most of it's power from Palo Verde (In Arizona) which El Paso Electric owns a piece of.

We also had rolling black outs. Occasionally, the switching gear essentially froze in the off position and some areas were without power for more than the planned 45 minutes. Resultantly, pipes froze and houses flooded.

I escaped essentially unscathed. Only an irrigation anti-siphon value failed (I should have drained it but never have needed to before). Others in my office lost all water or had pipes break. One had his furnace fail. I feel very lucky.

The worst part, my new backpack shipment was delayed, nothing like getting home expecting new gear to find out it was delayed by a storm

Long story, but here goes:

Cowboy's Stadium is fed from 4 different grid sections, coming in from 4 different directions. These feeds were purpose built new from long distances. This was done to prevent an accidental power outage during an event. Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue if 104,000 + folks found themselves in the dark unexpectedly? Not a pretty thought. These four differing feeds make it inherently difficult to drop the power to Jerry World, BUT. . . .

The four feeds had nothing to do with the power staying on in the UFO. Three things kept the power on:
1) Atlanta
2) NFL
3) DHS

Atlanta:
In 2000, the Super Bowl was in Atlanta, GA. Atlanta had an ice storm, and was less than prepared. The NFL has since eliminated Atlanta from consideration when NFL host cities are discussed.

NFL:
The NFL has become something bigger than it should be. They basically sent a message, "Power NEVER GOES OUT IN AN NFL SUPER BOWL ARENA UNLESS POWER GOES OUT EVERYWHERE FIRST!"

And the REAL REASON?

DHS:
The Department of Homeland Security called ERCOT (Electrical Reliability Council of Texas), and advised them that continuity of electrical service was a matter of national security, and that any controlled reduction/elimination of service would be handled by federal law enforcement as such. Discretion being the better part of valor, and the fine folks at ERCOT not being interested in free room and board at the slant bar motel, the power to Jerry World did not go off.......

Now to the Hospitals:

Parkland is an absolute ALBATROSS!

It was originally built as a small hospital, in a smaller sized, large town. It has since continually grown, one step at a time, without one thought to what came before and what will come after. I have had more experience with Parkland’s telecom infrastructure than I ever cared to have, and I still don’t get it. Parkland has triple redundancy for both copper, and fiber telecom from the local exchange carrier. This has to do with it being a major Civil Defense (now DHS) hospital and command center. All the telecom links come from different telco central offices, and from different directions, making it harder to kill all communications to the facility. One minor detail:

THEY ALL ENTER THE BUILDING FROM A SINGLE MANHOLE, INTO A SINGLE BASEMENT, AND INTO A SINGLE IT ROOM.

I sure hope the expected problem that all of the redundancy was planned to prevent, does not happen in one of the choke points where all the redundancies come together.

Since the folks that planned Parkland’s telecom infrastructure throughout history, also planned the electricity, I am sure there are multiple paths to multiple sub-stations to protect Parkland power. Of course all of those sub-stations are probably fed from one power generating station. When it takes its break, then so does Parkland.

My only question?

Why is Parkland not upset with itself? After all, don’t they have emergency generators as required by common sense and probably LAW?

After WWII, we moved to Dallas where my Dad was on the faculty of Southwestern Medical School, adjacent to Parkland, their teaching hospital.

I have memories of a genteel brick building that was then the hospital - is that structure still in use?

Yep, it is still there, attached to all the other buildings that are now "Parkland". As I understand it, there is going to be a new "Parkland" built, and the old one will also be a part of the overall PARKLAND.

One must remember Parkland is attached to all of the other hospitals, and if you are not a veteran of the Hospital District, you better have a guide. The map is useless.

Even Rube Goldberg would be confused. . . . . .

Looks like El Paso is having trouble with all this unusual sub-freezing weather. Their water distribution system seems to have "sprung a leak," literally. It sounds like residents have been asked to only use water for drinking, and also issued a boil order.

Supposedly, our 'Boil Water' order will end tomorrow and reservoir levels are back to normal levels. It struck me and others here as a half-hearted order since water officials continuously said the water was OK but boil it just in case. I drank a lot of bottled water which I already had on hand but otherwise, it wasn't much of an inconvenience.

Embarrassingly and because the water emergency happened after all the cold weather had passed and on a weekend, I didn't even know about it until an out-of-state relative called to ask me about it. The last news story I had seen after the storm had passed said that the water system was fine and the water was fine unless your immediate area had a service interruption -- in which case you should boil your water.

The upside was that with all the schools and government offices closed because of the water and power shortages, traffic to work was very light.