For Safety Sake – Be Patient and Use Common Sense

I’ll admit, patience is not one of my virtues and anyone who knows me will likely say that I’m one of the most impatient people they know. However, when it comes to safety, even I realize that haste can lead to poor decisions and being impatient can get you injured or killed. 

At the end of February, we had a storm that brought extraordinary (and unexpected) winds that gusted to over 90 mph. The storm resulted in significant damage that rivals the damage from the ice storm of 2009.

 

The reason for this blog entry isn’t to talk about the storm, we have storms all the time, but rather to share what I witnessed this a.m. Impatience, ignorance, and blatant stupidity that could have got some people hurt or killed.

 

I saw some cruiser lights down near my friends’ house at about 06:00 and was concerned that a tree might have fallen on their house or another friend’s house who lives next to them. I tried calling them and didn’t get an answer on cell or home phone, so I jumped in my truck and went down the road to check on them. There were trees and wires down everywhere and it looked like a tornado came through the area. Neither friend’s house was damaged, but the road was impassable and dangerous. The cruisers that were there previously put some yellow ”caution” tape up across the road, but an impatient, ignorant or blatantly stupid driver drove right through it and after they turned around, didn’t bother to fix the tape!

 

After I checked on my friends, I witnessed at least 4 cars go past the caution tape on the ground and drive over the power lines that were across the street (and clearly visible in the pic to the left) only to get to the part of the road 20 yards further that was littered with debris and impassable, then turn around. I tied the tape back up across the road and no sooner did I get it back up when a car came ready to break through it again. I explained to them that the trees and wires were down and the guy started arguing with me and told me he had to get through. Grrrrr…good luck Pal…

 

Wait…it gets better… 

 

There’s probably a 1/4 mile between my house and where the road was blocked. Since people were still heading down there and turning around in my friends’ driveways, one of my friends brought some cones up to block the road to prevent people from coming down there. To the left of the cones was a lake sized puddle (to the right in this picture) and to the right was a curb and grass. It didn’t take long before a car came down and a woman got out and started to move the cones. I yelled out and told her the road was blocked with trees and wires and she yelled back at me (wasn’t to tell me how nice my hair looked this a.m.), got in her car and headed down the blocked road. About 5 minutes later, she came back and gave me that “you were right, but I’m not going to admit it” stare. Over the next 30 minutes, about 30 cars went over, around, and moved the cones (see how the cones have been moved in the picture so they could get through). People were even willing to take the risk of driving through the lake sized puddle! Even more troubling, 90% of the cars that went through the cones didn’t bother to tell any of the other cars going through the cones that the road was blocked! Everyone was in too much of a rush to use common sense or even have common courtesy toward each other.

 

One more before I get to the real point, one nice guy got out of his truck and fixed the cones that someone ran over. He stayed for a few minutes to advise drivers who still insisted on going through or around the cones that the road was closed. Within minutes, a woman in an SUV came back from the debris field, got out in a huff and moved all 4 cones and started yelling at the guy. After some colorful language, she stormed off and almost hit another car in the process. 

 

Why am I sharing this? My intent is to compell people to exercise patience and common sense when these kinds of storms hit (or any disaster for that matter). For your safety, your family’s and others, please don’t make assumptions about why a barrier is up or whether a wire across the road is live or dead or whether a tree leaning on wires is going to fall. Is a detour that inconvienent that you are willing to take on such great risk? For many people this a.m., it apparently was. Ironically, their pause to ponder whether to go past the cones, then their insistence to head down the impassable road ended up costing them more time than if they turned around and took the detour.

 

Some common sense tips that sometimes we (the impatient) forget: 

 

• If you see a barrier across a road, don’t go through or around it – even if you see others doing it!
• If you see wires across a road, don’t drive over them – even if you see others doing it!  
• If you see a tree leaning (like in the pic below), don’t assume you can get by it before it falls – even if you see others doing it!
• If you see a large puddle, don’t go through it unless you are absolutely sure it’s shallow enough to get through and not stall your car.  
• If in doubt – don’t!!! We have a 6th sense that warns us of danger and we need to listen to it! 

 

Be well. Be safe. Be prepared. 

 

p.s. I’ve included a couple pictures from my neighborhood below. The first one is about a 40 foot pine that got uprooted and fell on the wires (take note of the telephone pole bending). This isn’t the section of the road I mention above, but will surely be in the same boat sometime today when that tree takes the telephone poll and wires down. I was just advised that the city finally closed the road so they can fix this before it hurts someone.

 

I’ll post some videos I tool of the people I mention above as well. You have to see it to believe it. 

 

I got the power!

I’ve been in my house for almost 13 years and have only lost power twice for an extended period of time. The first time was during the Ice Storm of 2008 and then it happened again recently in the February storm that I wrote about in another blog entry. One could say that losing power twice in 13 years isn’t too bad, but when you consider the consequences of an extended power outage (GT 24 hours), the ROI of a generator (or other alternate power sources) becomes crystal clear.

I have an old house with a fieldstone foundation. Like many, I have a sump pump that gets a lot of action in the spring. It’s a workhorse that pumps hundreds, if not thousands of gallons of water out when called to action. There’s no worse situation than a power outage during a storm with torrential rain (except one during the winter when you don’t have heat as well). Not only do you have to deal with the lack of heat, lights, and a growing cache of refridgerated/frozen food that has to be thrown out, but have the added stress of a growing pond in your basement (sump pump doesn’t work without power) that presents all kinds of other problems.

 

This recent drenching we’ve endured over the last couple of days convinced me that it was time to get a generator BEFORE we lost power again. Although I planned on getting an electrician to rate my house and recommend the appropriate hardware, I didn’t want to delay and went to Lowes to get a Troy-Bilt 6200 portable generator. This machine should provide enough power to take care of the the essential utilities, if not most of the house power. I also got a transfer switch (highly recommended) that is connected to the breaker panel. This allows you to connect one cable from the generator to the house instead of running extension cords everywhere. 

 

If you want to do it right, have an electrician come check your house and advise you of the appropriate generator for your home. Have them install a transfer switch that will allow you to easily switch over critical circuits (you pick which ones) to generator (picture on the right) and be sure to have an outlet installed outside the house (middle picture). The 6 circuits on my transfer switch cover the burner, sump pump, kitchen, office, living room and bedrooms. When the power goes out, you simply wheel the generator out, connect it, push the start button, then go down and switch the buttons from grid to generator – 10 minutes to end hours to days of misery! This unit can run 13 hours on a full tank of gas!

 

 

Even with all of the circuits I have connected and all the electronics running, I was drawing under 3000 watts. If the furnace and sump pump and other utilities were all running, I’d probably surge to 6000 max, which is well within this generator’s capabilities (6200 watts with a 9000 watt surge).

 

Whether you go with a portable or full failover centurian type generator depends on many factors. If you have young children, are caring for elderly parents or those with other special needs, you may want a full failover centurian type system that’s connected to your gas line and will run for days/weeks without much maintenance. If you don’t have any critical life/safety needs, but don’t want to retreat to a hotel or shelter or throw out hundreds of dollars of food, a portable generator will work.

 

Generator – $900

Transfer switch – $350

25′ cord – $100 

Electrician – $400

Having power, heat, and kitchen utilities – priceless! 

 

Be proactive – don’t wait til the next crisis to get prepared!