# Yesterdays storm experience in East TN



## cqp33 (Apr 2, 2012)

So yesterday we had storms blow through here, 80MPH winds uprooted trees everywhere, cut our power out at around 10PM. 

When the hail started beating down pretty good we (wife, son 18 and myself went into the basement. When the power went out I lit our Natural Gas lights I have installed in the basement. We have a fridge, 2 deep freeze freezers and a wood stove (much other items) in the basement. So keep the freezers closed, the fridge in the basement is for beverages only. The kitchen fridge/freezer we don't open when the power goes out, if it's out for more than 4-5 hours I start thinking generator. I can isolate 'line' power with a manual transfer switch and plug in my generator to power critical circuits. Critical circuits are fidges,freezers and blower for the wood stove and 6 power outlets for charging phones/batteries/staying sane.

I fetched my portable police scanner and my weather radio and heard we had a 2-3 hour break between storm lines on the weather radio but we stayed in the basement because we have the gas lights there. My son and i were engaged in a game of pool on the pool table. So over the scanner my wife tells me there is a tree across our road about 1/2 mile away and that a sheriff deputy is basically trapped because there are several trees across the other routes. So my son and I headed to the barn, grab chain saws, gas, oil and extra chains then hop in the truck and off we go.

When I arrive I am amazed at what I find. I see the fire department (volunteer) with a chainsaw that can't start (20" stihl that they can't remember the last time it ran). I begin to survey the tree, 30" red oak and its in a precarious position, I hop over the tree and see 2 additional chain saws....STUCK IN THE TREE! So I began my cuts relieving the tension on the mighty oak tree, I call for my son and told him to go back to the house and bring the tractor so i can push the remnants into the ditch and just get the road open. There was a power company truck trying to get to where the power lines were down....no chain saw! WTH

30 minutes later I had the road cleared, the saws freed. Fire department, sheriff deputy, power company....oh I forgot about the railroad truck guy! None of them could clear a tree from the road!

What the heck do people learn now a days? I am not an old dude (42) or some masterful outdoorsman but dang people! Most of these people were my age, some older and not to mention all the folks sitting there in their cars waiting for someone else to do something for them. I just wanted my power back on and that road is the only way in/out still 30 hours later due to trees across the roads still. My power was back on quickly, the power line guy drove by while i was checking my fence and he told me he made sure my power was restored quickly for helping them out, wow!


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## LastOutlaw (Jun 1, 2013)

Glad you are safe... how far from Nashville area are you?


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

And this is why we had to extend the police academy by 6 weeks, to teach the newer generations things the rest of us came on the job already knowing. Even then there are things we don't or can't teach them that their generation is also lacking.


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## jimLE (Feb 25, 2015)

glad things worked out for yall cqp33..our power went out at 7:45 pm..and didn't come back on untill 9:35 am...we didn't have the issues yall had.but no power is a issue for my mom,due to her health,and she cant handle the heat or humidity so well any more..other then that.no issues here..

those people need to learn how to do for them self's. and learn how to use a chain saw.


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## Country Living (Dec 15, 2009)

East Texas/West Louisiana were slammed hard yesterday evening/night. Over 100,000 customers are without power because of downed trees and power lines. Carthage and Longview were hit hard as well as parts of west Louisiana. Rumor has it a substation in Carthage had a direct hit with lightning and it would be two to three days before it's fixed and power to those customers is restored.

We had over an inch of rain, wind gusts that would knock you off your feet, and lots of lightning. One of the meteorologists drew a little square on the weather map and the computer showed 6,000 lightning strikes in 15 minutes. It was a rocking and rolling night.

Our power went out at 7pm and the generator, we just switched from a Generac to a Kohler, came right on and it still running almost 15 hours later. Since this is a new generator for us, we checked the oil level a few hours ago and were pleased to find we didn't need to add any oil (we never had to add oil to the Generac either). I am so glad we got the 1,000 gallon tanks last year (lesson learned from the propane shortage several years ago in the midwest and not wanting to get caught short in case there is an event).

Our electric water well pump went out last night as did our landline (the phone line usually goes out in bad weather). Some of you may recall we put in a Bison in-line pump a few years ago so we're not out of water, we just have to pump a bunch of times to put water in the holding tank so it can flow through the pipes. We could just pump into a bucket; but, what fun would that be?

I logged on to AT&T and completed an out of service request. Then I called the well guy - he'll be here no later than tomorrow.

Interesting side-note. I made a run to town around 5:30am (more like a slow saunter because of heavy fog and not knowing what could be laying on the road). I wanted to pick up a few things that had been on the list for a week and I just didn't want to go later in the day when there would be a run for water and other essentials/non-essentials. 

I walked into Wal-Mart and saw a guy walking out with a new 5-gallon gas can. One. Only one. I wanted to stop him and tell him one can just won't cut it; but, maybe it's all he could afford. Or maybe it's all they had available to sell. I cut through automotive and they had about 25 gas cans. We've told people time and time again to get gas cans when they don't need them because if there is a power outage and gas is available, there may not be any gas cans in which to put the gas.

There are a lot of people who have damaged property and a lot of people who will be without power for some time. We're grateful we were spared those problems.


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## jimLE (Feb 25, 2015)

maybe 1 gas can is what he needed to add,to what he already have/has..
but your correct on stocking up on gas before hand..i had to drive 30+ miles each way once.and all because power was out,in the town im outside of..lesson learned here.."ALWAYS" stock up ahead of time.when you know a storm is blowing in.and you know that the power might/will go out..


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## Country Living (Dec 15, 2009)

This is a [URL="http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200484467_200484467] 30 gallon Gas Caddy [/URL] that used to be made by Handy and now they're called Roughneck. We have one of them and about 10 5-gallon gas cans plus some smaller ones that are easier to carry around the property. We draw from the Gas Caddy, add the gas from the gas cans as soon as five gallons will go in the Gas Caddy, and refill the gas can as soon as one is empty. We put Sta-Bil in the gas cans as soon as they come back from the gas station. As convoluted as this sounds, the circular process works well for us.

We bought our gas caddy about 10 years ago and didn't pay anywhere what they are now asking. Ours is metal. We've had to replace the hose twice and the rotary pump (round silver thing with a handle) once - it came with hoses.

Last week I had one of those "uh oh" feelings and bought new 5-gallon gas cans to keep in each car. I had the strongest feeling those gas cans would come in handy sooner than later. You just never know......


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## JayJay (Nov 23, 2010)

We have 10 (5 gallon)gas cans..bought on sale some, stocked when we could catch a good buy.
Yep--I watched gas cans price soar; about doubled in the last 5 years or more.


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## bacpacker (Jul 15, 2011)

Yeah Saturday night was interesting. We lost power around 10:30 until sometime Sunday morning. We lost 4 trees at our place, but no damage to house, shop, or chicken coop. Just plenty of clean up to get done.
We got out a little the last couple of days and I am amazed at how many trees are down. Some up by the roots, some broken off at various point up the tree. Lots of roads closed in the area that have since been reopened. It seems that the road and power crews were prepared and ready around here. My hats off to the for the hard work they put in.


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## Pessimistic2 (Jan 26, 2017)

*Bad storms.....*

Glad everyone is OK. Some of these storms are getting pretty wild, and it promises to be a bad tornado year. I can hear the "Libs" now..."global warming, global warming!"


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## Pessimistic2 (Jan 26, 2017)

*Just moved in...*

Peaceful and calm one minute, and now the sirens are going off, and the wind is really howling....lightning all over the place. Looks like we're about to get a small taste of what y'all got, and according to the radar, there's more on the way.
https://radar.weather.gov/Conus/southmissvly_loop.php


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## Pessimistic2 (Jan 26, 2017)

*NOAA now predicting ABOVE AVERAGE SEASON...*

Because the anticipated "El Nino" has failed to form, NOAA is now predicting an *above average hurricane season,* and expects 11-17 named storms, 5-9 of which would be hurricanes, and 2-4 "major hurricanes "(Cat 3 or higher). Well, we can always hope they are wrong......:scratch

http://www.noaa.gov/media-release/above-normal-atlantic-hurricane-season-is-most-likely-year

Excerpt: ""The outlook reflects our expectation of a weak or non-existent El Nino, near- or above-average sea-surface temperatures across the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, and average or weaker-than-average vertical wind shear in that same region," said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.

Strong El Ninos and wind shear typically suppress development of Atlantic hurricanes, so the prediction for weak conditions points to more hurricane activity this year. Also, warmer sea surface temperatures tend to fuel hurricanes as they move across the ocean. "


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## Country Living (Dec 15, 2009)

The new Kohler generator ran for 22 hours. We checked the oil halfway and after co-op power was restored and it didn't even need a topping off. The house phone started working sometime Monday morning. The water well people will be here today to put in a new pump. 

The Bison pump worked well. We pumped enough water into the tanks to use in the house without any major inconveniences (except no showers). 

On an interesting note: The well guy said, in case we have a situation where we need to hand pump water for several days, remove enough air in the bladder tank to get down to around 18 psi and it will give us more volume in the tank with less pumping effort. We'll probably try going down to 10psi in case of a long-term situation. That is now written as a procedure and is in our maintenance book.


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## TheLazyL (Jun 5, 2012)

cqp33 said:


> ... When I arrive I am amazed at what I find. I see the fire department (volunteer) with a chainsaw that can't start (20" stihl that they can't remember the last time it ran)....


Way back when I was young we lived in a small Town. Tree came down across our street. The Town's Street Department didn't own a chain saw but they knew the Volunteer Fire Department had just bought one.

Fire Chief showed up and proceed to fill their new chainsaw with straight gasoline. Me just being newly married, early twenties and not knowing much politely asked the Fire Chief if the chainsaw fuel should have oil mixed in it? "Nah" he said. "It will run fine." And he was right! It ran long enough to cut the tree in small enough sections so the Street Department could push it off the road. Then the chainsaw stalled and Chief could not even pull the rope to restart. Being young and still wet behind my ears I made a mental note to double check my house fire insurance coverage.


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