We still have no power!!!!!!

Man, this sucks! nfire: nfire: nfire: Gov Christie is going to complain about JCP&L to the utilities commission if everyone's not back on by tonight. Yeah, I'm real excited about that. This is enough already.

OMG! I am so sorry!! Are you using a generator right now? I'm hoping your Jersey weather has been decently nice like Pittsburgh's lately at least.

Do you have kerosene heaters or anything to stay warm?

Keep us updated!!

Oh no hun that is just awful I am not suprised you are angry.I really hope that it gets sorted soon.x

OH NO hno: This is NOT what I was wanting to hear this morning. I am just fuming nfire: that nothing has been done to get your area up and running! Laurie, I am really, really sorry and I feel so bad for you and Gary. I am sure the furkids are fine, of course, all they need is you and Gary. but YOU need your power. What about all of your food? They need to reimburse you for that too :stomp:.

Please know I am so concerned for you two. This just really sucks - bigtime ......

Don't know if this will help - but Loads and loads of warm and tons warm and sunny vibes to you :sun::sun::sun::sun::sun::sun::sun:

That's ridiculous!   I'll send you warming vibes and your governor a kick in the pants until you are up and running again!

:lol3: If NJ power companies had to reimburse people or businesses for food destroyed by having no power they'd have been bankrupt decades ago. I think people can make claims on homeowner's insurance, I don't know. Fortunately our refrigerator doesn't require electricity to run - a big advantage in an RV. :nod: It does need the battery power to START the propane when it runs on propane, and we're having a problem with that. We need new deep cycle marine batteries.

Our heat is propane, and also doesn't require the electricity per se. It also needs the batteries to start the propane and to run the blower. But like I said, we're having a problem with our batteries.

We use the car to jump start the generator, and we run it a few hours here and there in the day/evening. We then overheat the RV with the ducted heat, and then stay warm with a camping heater that runs on little one pound propane canisters. It was in the low 20s last night and we needed to use six of them in 24 hours to keep it about 65 in here. Not so bad, but expensive (the issue is you have to keep it ventilated to use it, so somewhat self-defeating LOL).

No power, of course, for people on well water means no water. But the park put up a generator at the pump. They run it at various points during the day/evening, so that's nice.

So while we're frustrated, we're not nearly as bad off as people in homes without generators... though most people around here have them. The power is just too unreliable up in these parts. A lot of people were out for 11 days during Irene, and the power goes out frequently when there's a bad rain or snowstorm - though not usually for this long.

That's a nightmare, even though it does sound like you've pretty much got everything under control. Why in the world can't they put the power lines underground? It would be expensive to do it, but think of all the repairs that could be avoided.

Our town had it done back in the mid-eighties, and we haven't lost power for more than 3 or 4 hours since then, and it's really rare.

Well that's what everyone's asking - when they have these major outages where literally THOUSANDS of miles of lines and HUNDREDS of poles have to be replaced, why aren't they just burying them instead of replacing them?

We have no answers to that one.

WE HAVE POWER!

Now let's hope it stays this way - KNOCK WOOD! :lol3:

LDG said:

Well that's what everyone's asking - when they have these major outages where literally THOUSANDS of miles of lines and HUNDREDS of poles have to be replaced, why aren't they just burying them instead of replacing them?
We have no answers to that one.

Click to expand...

Yeah we do. 

There is no one that prefers above ground powerlines, as they are aesthetically displeasing.  

However, I've seen estimates that underground powerlines cost 10-12 times as much per mile, and that cost is passed right on to the consumers, and so is generally only used in affluent areas or when there is no viable alternative to overhead equipment.    And before you suggest that underground powerlines are safer, they are not.    Underground lines can be damaged by drought or flood when soil shift can cause rocks to sever lines, tree roots, and inadvertent severing during digging/construction, which is particularly dangerous when dealing with high voltage.    Unlike above ground lines, diagnosing where the failure is and servicing that line is again many times more expensive than overhead and leads to much longer downtime where people are without electricity, and can cause significant damage to nearby structures if a sidewalk or other lines are nearby from the heavy digging equipment.

If you don't mind 36 cents a kwh (that's how much it costs my relatives in Germany where a significant portion of lines are buried and that's w/ far greater population density than the United States) vs 9 cents a kwh (my cost in Texas) out of your own pocket, then surely everyone could have underground lines and it would be far more attractive.

I don't know about you, but I'm not made of money and prefer cheaper electricity with lower downtime, and invest in an inexpensive backup generator in the rare instance of catastrophic weather.

Edit: BTW, that downtime is unacceptable, but I would put good money on that not being an issue of overhead vs underground wires, but of poor service by the power company.    They likely have only a handful of union labor guys working at a snail pace.   We have the same problem here in Texas with roads, which can take months to complete what in Japan or China would take days.

We have an Onan Marquis 7000 watt (RV, gasoline) generator. We just need new deep cycle marine batteries to run the 12V system that turns it on. :lol3:

Glad you guys got power back!!  Everyone must be so relieved!!

We have had underground electrical service in the three houses we've bought.  The house we built has above-ground service, and it is subject to outages, etc.

And that underground service is in Texas.

LDG said:

WE HAVE POWER!
Now let's hope it stays this way - KNOCK WOOD!

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Bless you! I'm so glad you have power finally!

I was talking to my GF in CT yesterday afternoon and they FINALLY got power, too! On Saturday afternoon. It took workers from South Carolina to get them plugged back in. She said that a lot of it was from those heavy trees and branches snapping and falling onto the lines. But she lives in a condo complex and everytime somebody from the power company would come into the neighborhood, they would see that the first several buildings had power.....and they wouldn't go up the hill to check on anybody else!!! So they would think the whole neighborhood was OK!! What a bunch of.....well, grrrrrrrr.

Yay for power!!!  I'm so glad for you!

We have our lines underground from the pole along the road to the house. But all along the roads, all the wiring is above ground, so at the slightest drop of a feather, we lose power.

After the morning meeting we ran out to take care of some errands. We saw an ARMY of utility trucks from OH on their way home - it was like the entire highway heading west was OH utility trucks!