Water World

[Rye]

My area of New York is going to be apparently slammed by a major hurricane in the evening. We get hurricanes often, but this one is supposed to be bigger for some storm surge tidal moon type reason.

We had optional evacuation, but my parents don't feel like leaving the house. My grandma has mandatory evacuation and she's not leaving either, but she's just obstinate.

It's gonna be WATER WORLD. At least I have a lot of books to read when the power is out for however long.

Topic: What is the longest amount of time you've gone without power in a storm or natural disaster?

[fire_of_avalon]

I've actually been really lucky, even living way back here in the way backs, that the power is generally taken care of even during massive snowstorms (massive for the Southeast, bitches.) I think the longest I can remember going is four days? Maybe five? That was during the big, big storm in 1993.

All you guys out there be safe! My grandma lives in Newport News, VA and she hasn't called so i dunno if she's evacuated or not.

[Martyr]

I don't even remmeber how long it was after Andrew, but it was a long time. Months, I guess.

Now I'm in disaster relief, and was in Texas after whoever it was that pummeled everything down there. I'll be stationed in Baltimore for this cane. I should have units in NC. I hate to be evil about it, but I hope the east coast is out of power for as long as possible. ha-ha-ha.
Not really, but the more power lost, the more work I get.

[Rebellious Eagle]

We've never been without power for long. But New Jersey is listed as very threatened by the hurricane so we're preparing for major damage.

[Pike]

I hope things are okay for you guys over there! D:

The longest I've been without power was something like three days when I was about... seven or eight years old. I don't remember why the power was out for so long, because the weather was fine. Someone hit a power line or something.

Anyways I don't remember many details about it, just that I thought it was really fun because come on, I was like seven, I got to carry flashlights around and play in the dark.

[Shiny]

I'm not/have not prepared for anything. I am very amused by all of the people who don't even live next to a body of water and are freaking out like it's going to be really bad in their area. The worse that could happen is power lines get cut or you get pneumonia because you some how thought it would be a good idea to go outside. It barely even rained here and yet people went out and bought a crap load of things they don't need. The news scared a whole bunch of people because capitalism and news go together like peas in a pod. Hopefully people actually IN red zones, are okay.

[NorthernChaosGod]

I don't ever remember the power going out because of any natural disasters, but California has kind of been plagued by rolling blackouts in the summers because of the heat. :|

[Rebellious Eagle]

I'm in a red zone. And live by a river. My school is literally next to the river so hopefully... :D

[NorthernChaosGod]

Well aren't you just a cheery one.

[Martyr]

There've been some sad casualties already. If you're in a red zone, make sure you're safe (if it isn't too late to say so...)
Where I am, cat 1 hurricanes aren't too scary. All of our homes are made of concrete, and we have good protocol for it, but I know the northerners build their houses out of less wind-proof material (then again, y'all have blizzards, right? Those must suck.)
But this storm seems to be wreaking far more havoc than it deserves.
I like rooting for storms, but when I hear about trees tearing through homes and killing children, it kinda gets me down. During Andrew, a tree tore through my porch, could've been my living room. In the aftermath of the storm, a day or so later, I remember suddenly waking up from a dream. I jolted upright and seconds afterward, a chunk of the roof fell crashing down right behind me, where my head was on the floor only moments before. Hurricanes are deadly. Stay safe if you get hit by it, and I'll turn on your lights soon enough.

[Big D]

After February's earthquake, my home had no electricity or water. The building was structurally sound and we had a decent quantity of supplies on our survival kit, but we evacuated to the other end of the country on the third day, so that we wouldn't be a drain on the emergency services and supplies. Came back to town a couple of weeks later, after it was confirmed that our neighbourhood had the basics for self-sufficiency again.

To everyone who's affected by Hurricane Irene - stay safe, I hope everything turns out ok for you. If your local emergency services and disaster management authorities are giving advice or warnings, please listen to them and be ready to move if you have to. The danger won't necessarily end as soon as the storm passes, especially if the water and electricity infrastructure takes a hard hit.

[Freya]

A friend of mines mom is over there and she just updated me that in Virginia like a million people are out of power now. I was watching the weather channel earlier today and it cracked me up cause they were trying to be serious while people were running around in their bathing suits in the background.

I haven't ever really gone too long without power. When i lived in the arctic tundra, we made sure we had a generator so we wouldn't freeze, so We almost always had power.

[Madame Adequate]

Never lost power for more than a few hours. The joys of living in a country that is about as safe as it gets from major natural disaster.

[Shiny]

Okay so, apparently we're getting a tornado too now. -_-

So that makes it, hurricane, tornado, locusts, and earthquake. Now all we need is a tsunami and we'll be good.

[NorthernChaosGod]

Someone must have pissed off God.

[Shiny]

A tree fell and I want to ride on it (in a completely non-sexual way) through the water that has now risen.

[Slayer1514]

Our power was out for about a week about 10 years ago in a big snowstorm we had here

[Psychotic]

I was without power for 20 minutes earlier today. First time it's happened in years!

[Christmas]

I always have my hamster to run on the wheel to generate power in case such things happens. :bigsmile:

He is so useful at times like this! :kaoclove:

[Slayer1514]

when it happened to us i took my psx next door to my grandparents house to play, ff8 and the generator that they had at the time sent a surge of electricity throughout the house which blew out every tv, and my psx. I could still play it but after 30 min it would start smoking and cut off. If that did not happen then i would not of gotten a ps2 for christmas, haha.

[Raistlin]

I've never been without power for more than a day or so. We're allegedly in the middle of it here, and so far all is relatively quiet; only gusts of wind and the rain has lessened. A lot of my law school friends who stayed in the area lost power earlier today, so I am laughing at them and enjoying my four day weekend at home.

[Pike]

We lost power at work last week because a transformer went out or something so the entire street was out of power. No traffic lights or anything.

They let us go early since we couldn't do anything, which would have been a lot more exciting if I wasn't twenty minutes away from the end of my shift anyway.

[Martyr]

Oh yeah. That happened during a nasty storm at the restaurant once. The lights went out at, like, 10.30. We had to rush everybody to pay because the back-up power only allowed us, like, 8 minutes to use the credit card machines and the POS units. All the servers were going crazy trying to handle their checks. People were escreaming. The manager was flying off her rocker trying to override stuff. Nobody had flashlights and everybody was using phones to see in the pitch black kitchen. For some reason, all the customers were kinda content, all like, "Lights out. How romantic! Let's casually finish dinner and then have a peaceful moonlight ride home."
What a night. We ended up staying way late because we had to calculate all or sales by hand before the end of the night. Nobody had a calculator. We were servers, you know, not the smartest species of human on the planet, so everything was messed up.
It almost provides evidence that restaurants shouldn't open during tropical storms, but you know what's more important than time? Money. Time is money. Bees make honey. And clowns are funny.

[NorthernChaosGod]

And clowns are funny.
Well now you're just objectively wrong. Clowns are creepy and scary motherfuckers.

[Martyr]

And clowns are funny.
Well now you're just objectively wrong. Clowns are creepy and scary mothersmurfers.

But that was the conclusion to my entire post.
Now everything I've said is totally wrong.

[NorthernChaosGod]

Well I guess now you just have to go back and rethink everything you just said. :colbert:

[Jiro]

When the power goes out, I curl up into a ball and weep until I pass out. Then when I wake up, the power is usually back. If not, rinse and repeat.

[DMKA]

Back in 2000, Oklahoma had a terrible, terrible winter. Everything froze solid, entire trees were encased in ice, their tops literally touching the ground. It was all horrifyingly beautiful. A very large tree right beside my mother's house is still nearly touching the ground, it never really recovered from that storm's effects. I recall weeks later when everything thawed, you could go outside and it sounded like a warzone, with trees breaking everywhere in all directions non-stop.

We were out of power for a good 36 hours. It sucked so bad. But fortunately our telephone, water and gas somehow managed to work without incident. There were other people in the area who lost all of those, some for weeks. Many local businesses actually began giving food away because it was all going to go bad due to such a long lack of refrigeration.

I really hate mother nature at times.

[Shiny]

Semi-funny story. A tree fell on my neighbor's house last Saturday. Since she is belligerent and ghetto she went outside barefoot with a white tank on yelling about how the cops were "discriminating her" because they went to evacuate people out of an old folks home that was experiencing heavy flooding before they helped her. "Y'all inscriminating! Y'all inscriminating!" Then her son decided it would be a good idea to park his car on the lawn and it sunk right down. We spent most of the day trying to get it out. I just...ugh. "Y'all inscriminating!"

[NorthernChaosGod]

You still helped them? You're a saint.

[Jiro]

Can you imagine if she didn't help them? "Y'all inscriminating!"