I've just got a BAD feeling about today and tomorrow here in NYC - I don't trust ConEd to keep the lights on - sigh

Tossed an extra set of CR123s in my EDC bag, and extra battery pack for my HTs, and filled the camelback bladder, which I rarely do. I always carry a 20 Oz bottle of water - but today I wanted the extra whatever amount it is..

Last night, I gathered up the flashlights, reminded my wife where they were, put the extra batteries with them (and discovered that my son broke 2 of my minimags - including the one with the LED head (grumble))

Follow your feelings, prepare and be ready!
(and keep us informed!)

This afternoon I decided to go for a walk to get out of that "conditioned air" office, my eyes were watering and blurry, and I just needed a break. I stepped out into the warm breeze blowing down Broadway and took a stroll. Nearly an hour later, I had covered a big loop around three city blocks, stopped and had two slices of pizza and a small coke, and enjoyed the scenery, as many of the females today must've decided that less is more. When I got back to the office, I felt refreshed and invigorated, and ended one of my better days at this particular assignment.

Once you've been through a Baghdad summer, stateside is a cakewalk. Yeah, there's a little humidity, but the breeze still felt cool on my skin. That never happened in Iraq last summer, never. Walking in the heat there wasn't just uncomfortable, it was painful. Sitting in our connex boxes at night when the power went out, or the bunkers if things got bad, is misery.

Still, I am going to keep my water bottles handy. I do not yet feel it is time for the camelbak, but it is here with me if I decide it is warranted.

I am looking forward to the fall here.

RE Not ready for the camelback

There are 2 main reasons I went with the camelback - the first is it's cheaper than bottled water - and I already carry "Too much stuff", so a full camelback is no big deal, and free. The second is memories of the summer 2002 (or was it 2003?) blackout here in NYC. I got lucky - I was on the subway, but my train was in the station - Times Square in fact. Now, I live in about as far north eastern Queens as you can get - from Times Square, it's a 12 mile+ walk. Not one to sit around (even if I am massivley overweight), I set out for home. About 2-4 miles int the walk, in Queensboro Plaza, I stopped for a bottle of water, and a lifesaver (yes, I carry a 20 Oz bottle EVERY day). LOTS of folks wanted to know where I got the water. About 1/2 mile further (31st and Northern), I got to refill my water bottle, as a NICE company had opened their building front hose bibs. Then I got luck again, as I was walking away, I met my neighbors from my old hose, and they told me that they had called, and were about to get a lift, if we could get to 31st and Broadway.

My theory on this is - if we black out, there is a REAL good chance I've got a 14 mile hump in front of me, with the temps about 100 degs (I know quite a few folks who did that). That camelback will come in REAL handy

We had a small power surge here about 5:00pm - came close to losing it - I can tell - HVAC kicked out, computers all rebooted, and lost lights for a couple of seconds

The BAD news, I HAD four 12volt 7Ah gel Cells - turns out the power strip they were on failed, and they have discharged till dead - grumble. Means I have to lug the 90Ah if I get called out - which I would do anyway

My back is having a bad feeling too... I've been humping people up and down the stairs since monday with 103 fevers and hypotension. Why? According to some economics unknown to me $25 fan or $150 AC is more expensive than a $1000 (at least) ambulance ride.

I'm glad somebody is thinking of being proactive. I salute guys like you who take time out of their busy lives and do the right thing by being prepared. Stay cool my friend we only got few more days to go.

Matt,
Thank YOU guys - not an easy job (and you don't want to carry ME up/down stairs). On top of all us, I do voluntier work - if power goes down, I expect to be out on a ARC ERV or a SA canteen

Con Ed is reporting "many" customers without power. I called in to report low voltage (104), and they said that voltage had been cut 8%...

Can you say "hairy edge"?

We have all the lights off in the house, and have cut back to almost no AC - just 2 on, and they are the smallest ones - 90+ in the house right now. About to power down the PC - see you tomorrow

Sweet light... 104 on a wall outlet? I bet every computer in your region was feeling the pain. That isn't the hairy edge, that's the scary edge.

Matt, Pete, and everyone else, take care of yourselves and just remember that it should be over in a few days. And then a few weeks of more normal temps, but I don't think we are out of the woods quite yet.

That majorly sucks.
I'm soooooooooooo glad i don't have ConED up here.
national grid seems to be fairly well on the ball

What is 104?

Is that some part of the magic of electricity?

Sue, electrically challenged beyond hope of fixing <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

104 volts.

Standard household power is 170 volts at the top of the hump, or 120 volts on average (mean), which is your effective voltage. Most meters will show your mean voltage, you need a logging meter or an o-scope to see the 170, which really doesn't matter much unless you are a geek.

If you're getting 104 (kc2ice, please tell me that was your RMS!) on either of those, it's not good. Over simplified, it means there is a lot of nothing mixed in with the electrons. Motors whine, lights complain, computers barf. Just not pretty.

I love it! grreat turn of phrase!

Yeah, that was RMS - on a true RMS meter - did NOT dig out the OLD Tektronix to measure the peak/pk-pk - I'll multiply by 1.414 if you want <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Nah, I can do that on my own. Calculus isn't involved, I'm fine. <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

If I lived in NYC I would have a bad feeling everyday! <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Just to let you know, average and RMS give exactly the same readings if the waveform is a sine wave.

Oh, it's not so bad. It is a good thing to consider the possibility, but a little preparation and some proactive thinking and it is easy to develop adequate contingency. Bad things can happen anywhere, so preparing mentally for it, we have the ability to reason and to solve problems and utilize elements of our environment to get by. It is no different for me here than it was in Baghdad, or up at elk camp in the Cascades. You just do what you can and learn to live with it. If the SHTF, then you do the best you can and hope your number ain't up, but if it is, then it is, like Gunny Highway said.

correct - true RMS and averaging are identical for a pure sine wave - at one time, the ONLY way to actually get a TRUE RMS reading was to power a resistor, and measure the heat given off, and is actually still the most accurate way, as all other methods actually use a sampling of the area under the curve - the more samples the better - but of course, this is just someone who has done some metrology speaking (calibration of instraments)

BTW did I mention I was an electronics tech for 12 years, before the military electronics field went bust on Long Island?

Oh, I assumed from other statements you knew the difference between an inductor and a capacitor. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Eli the Ice Man

Now I haven't heard THAT since I was a freshman in college. :P

Should I grab my Horowitz and Hill off the bookshelf <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

As for omeone else commenting on living in NYC, he'd have a bad feeling every day - yeah, I can understand that, and have spent, oh, 10 years trying to convince my wife to move out. NOT happening - sigh

I'm prepared everyday - I carry WAY more gear with me on public transit than most folks keep in their car - and you don't want to see the back of my truck. I have caches at home, work, parents, friends, local, distant etc. WAY more gear than I really want to think about, particularly when those folks are like minded, and some of them are multi generational family friends that are "family" in all but blood - you know when you dad and their dad started hunting together before WWII - and kept it up until one of them died, and now we hunt together, their grandson has joined us - my son is too young....

Anyway - back on topic, I stay prepared constantly - but sometimes the "hairs on the neck" feel worse than usual - and that's when you go up a level or two. As much as I like Jeff Coopers "white, yellow, orange,red" - it's not subtile enough for disaster preps

Let's say we have
0 - unprepared - way too many people here
1- minimally prepared
2- basic preps ready
3- call it 2 plus - probably where most of us are - "batteries charged", aware of what is going on, a long term maintainable state
4- hightened preps - when you put stuff that is NOT maintainable into gear - carry extra gear, storing perishable gear, etc - aka a higher op tempo - a non long term maintainable state
5-disaster ops

wehn I say "I have a bad feeling" - it's time to go from a 2 or 3 to a 4. I'd say right now, I'm back down between a 2 and a 3 - I have to replace, and/or repack some gear I used last week - clean the water bladders, dry and store, replace canned/dried food that went into the truck, rotate truck water supply, move some gear from their "immediate use" locations back to "stored" locations - aka, back to op tempo 3