# Power Plant blows up



## pixieduster (Mar 28, 2012)

Perfect example of how the general population isn't prepared. Got a call to come to work ASAP. I don't know why yet. Less than 30 min later I'm driving to the office and a huge section of city area has no power. It is now dark, no traffic lights working, no street lights, nothing. No stores can operate and can not pump gas. People start acting stupid pretty quickly. Fighting, getting drunk, breaking into houses and businesses. And its only 2 hours into a power outage. This is not new to me, but another example of how quick SHTF and non of these people know what to do with themselves, much less anything else. Its overtime pay for me, and you betcha I have my goodie bag in my trunk. : )


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## BillM (Dec 29, 2010)

*Wait until*



pixieduster said:


> Perfect example of how the general population isn't prepared. Got a call to come to work ASAP. I don't know why yet. Less than 30 min later I'm driving to the office and a huge section of city area has no power. It is now dark, no traffic lights working, no street lights, nothing. No stores can operate and can not pump gas. People start acting stupid pretty quickly. Fighting, getting drunk, breaking into houses and businesses. And its only 2 hours into a power outage. This is not new to me, but another example of how quick SHTF and non of these people know what to do with themselves, much less anything else. Its overtime pay for me, and you betcha I have my goodie bag in my trunk. : )


Wait until this friday. The temperature is susposed to reach a comfortable 110 degrees.


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## DKRinAK (Nov 21, 2011)

Man, it must really suck to live in your town if folks have gone batty in less than 2 hours of no power.


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## Emerald (Jun 14, 2010)

You stay safe!! At least around here we don't get squirrely till we have been without power for a week.. then the area gets kinda scary. not too bad but folks "not" from around here tend to get a bit too "friendly" if you know what I mean.. 
And as awful as this sounds.. it means that my hubby will have more work.. He makes big power relay panels and panels for wind turbines and hydro damns etc. any time there is a big blow out of power for any reason the company tends to get super busy. 
Sending safe thoughts your way!


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## d_saum (Jan 17, 2012)

pixieduster said:


> People start acting stupid pretty quickly. Fighting, getting drunk, breaking into houses and businesses. And its only 2 hours into a power outage.


Dude.... what? C'mon now.. I've been in plenty of towns when power goes out and I've never seen that kind of crap go down.. especially in 2 hours. :scratch

Like DKRinAK said.. what kind of crappy town do you live in? If that's what happens after 2 hours... you might want to consider moving. Just imagine what it'd be like after a week.


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## stayingthegame (Mar 22, 2011)

when did the plant blow?


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## pixieduster (Mar 28, 2012)

d_saum said:


> Dude.... what? C'mon now.. I've been in plenty of towns when power goes out and I've never seen that kind of crap go down.. especially in 2 hours. :scratch
> 
> Like DKRinAK said.. what kind of crappy town do you live in? If that's what happens after 2 hours... you might want to consider moving. Just imagine what it'd be like after a week.


Ha! Yeah its crap. That's why I don't live where I work. Got away from the city for a reason. And these types of incidences always make me feel better about the drive. I love overtime money anyway. I get to purchase more preps. Yoohoo!


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## pixieduster (Mar 28, 2012)

stayingthegame said:


> when did the plant blow?


Around 6pm. One main transformer overheated and blew then was a chain reaction from there.


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## stayingthegame (Mar 22, 2011)

is the plant off line or still functioning. hubby used to work at taft and nine point plants. hadn't heard here about the plant. I live near rodenmacher. wonder if we might have blackout or brown outs.


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## pixieduster (Mar 28, 2012)

stayingthegame said:


> is the plant off line or still functioning. hubby used to work at taft and nine point plants. hadn't heard here about the plant. I live near rodenmacher. wonder if we might have blackout or brown outs.


Its offline. No power anywhere near Morgan City. The news people were out filming and saying it would be up in 8 hours. No way that's happening!


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## LongRider (May 8, 2012)

Zip damn fools leading complete wastes of skin is the primary reason for not living in any city.


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## pixieduster (Mar 28, 2012)

All power is up now for a couple days with only one brief outage. The power people said its was overloaded due to the heat. Didn't think its was that hot around here so it didn't take much. Overall we had, 2 shootings, 2 car fires, couple break ins. One would believe that we have been through enough to know sh!t happens and do SOMETHING to be prepared. Well that is not what happened. People scrammbled to gas stations for fuel and chips. Only one was open because they had a back up generator. Dunno........


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## Elinor0987 (May 28, 2010)

pixieduster said:


> People start acting stupid pretty quickly. Fighting, getting drunk, breaking into houses and businesses. And its only 2 hours into a power outage. This is not new to me, but another example of how quick SHTF and non of these people know what to do with themselves, much less anything else.


It usually doesn't take long for people to come unglued in an emergency. A few nights ago we lost power for a couple of hours because of the storms. I lit a candle and set it in our living room because we were only expecting the power to be out for a short time. I pulled out the hand-crank lantern with a radio that was bought before the last major snowstorm and we were able to listen to music. Within an hour of the power going out there were people wandering the streets and acting crazy. People were out there screaming at each other from across the street, and this is all during a temporary power outage.


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## d_saum (Jan 17, 2012)

Elinor0987 said:


> Within an hour of the power going out there were people wandering the streets and acting crazy. People were out there screaming at each other from across the street, and this is all during a temporary power outage.


Come on... where the heck do you people live? The power went out here in NC yesterday for several hours after a really bad storm.. and the only thing out of the ordinary that I saw was the girl at the coffee shop offering me free ice cream (before it all melted.. actually.. I think she was just flirting with me.. ok.. not really, but I can dream, can't I?). Aside from that, me and my friends cracked a few brews and sat outside his garage and BS'd for a while... no screaming.. no yelling... no cars lit on fire.

So what gives where you folks live? :scratch


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## Elinor0987 (May 28, 2010)

d_saum said:


> Come on... where the heck do you people live? The power went out here in NC yesterday for several hours after a really bad storm.. and the only thing out of the ordinary that I saw was the girl at the coffee shop offering me free ice cream (before it all melted.. actually.. I think she was just flirting with me.. ok.. not really, but I can dream, can't I?). Aside from that, me and my friends cracked a few brews and sat outside his garage and BS'd for a while... no screaming.. no yelling... no cars lit on fire.
> 
> So what gives where you folks live? :scratch


I live in the Chicagoland area. Ours is the second most populated city in Illinois with the second highest crime rate. Chicago has the highest crime rate and the most people. Gangs, drugs, prostitution, etc., plague our city and it's been that way for a while. When I first came to this forum my plan was for my boyfriend and I to buy a house and bug in to avoid people during a crisis. After I lost my job and my credit score tanked, the option to buy a house wasn't there anymore. I now am making plans for us to bug out and get as far away from the people in this city as we can. My reasons are still the same- I want us to avoid the chaos.


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## WatchUr6 (May 18, 2012)

I work in a large city, but live in the burbs @ 40 minutes away. I refuse to live in the city because I see how people act when minor incidents occur. I like having that distance as a buffer between me and herd.


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## pixieduster (Mar 28, 2012)

d_saum said:


> Come on... where the heck do you people live? The power went out here in NC yesterday for several hours after a really bad storm.. and the only thing out of the ordinary that I saw was the girl at the coffee shop offering me free ice cream (before it all melted.. actually.. I think she was just flirting with me.. ok.. not really, but I can dream, can't I?). Aside from that, me and my friends cracked a few brews and sat outside his garage and BS'd for a while... no screaming.. no yelling... no cars lit on fire.
> 
> So what gives where you folks live? :scratch


After working in major cities for over 20 years, one does see a bit of society that's unpleasant. I commute now so I don't have to live in it. I just work in it. Humans have the capability of doing horrendous things even under "normal" circumstances. I moved to protect my children from the craziness, And to teach them how to be sustainable. I realized how programmed they were when one of the first questions by the teenagers were "where's the mall?!" After moving. Ha! No mall here. Might find a dollar store 30 min down the road. The crime and crazies are strange to you because its not your norm. But its my usual work day.


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## stayingthegame (Mar 22, 2011)

we live where Katrina and Rita met. where the government thought everyone would leave if told to. where the government watched as chaos formed to see (what we needed). where people shot at planes because someone in hospitals, NOT THEM, were being rescued. where the help to rebuild still is not come to many areas. and where there are areas that the police don't want to go for their own safty. where when the shtf. most people helped themselves (stole and looted) not others. when those who watched saw what would happen in another disaster of that magnitude.


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## stayingthegame (Mar 22, 2011)

the best advice...... be ready for ANYTHING, anytime, any place. it will happen and always when you least expect it.


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## pixieduster (Mar 28, 2012)

stayingthegame said:


> the best advice...... be ready for ANYTHING, anytime, any place. it will happen and always when you least expect it.


Great post! That was heartfelt and I feel the same.


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## tac803 (Nov 21, 2010)

d_saum said:


> Dude.... what? C'mon now.. I've been in plenty of towns when power goes out and I've never seen that kind of crap go down.. especially in 2 hours. :scratch
> 
> Like DKRinAK said.. what kind of crappy town do you live in? If that's what happens after 2 hours... you might want to consider moving. Just imagine what it'd be like after a week.


Some places a power outage is considered a rare and special shopping experience. No alarms, no surveillance videos, and no working cash registers.


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## d_saum (Jan 17, 2012)

pixieduster said:


> The crime and crazies are strange to you because its not your norm. But its my usual work day.


I'm originally from NY.. Long Island to be exact. Between Newark, and other assorted parts of NJ, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and most of Nassau county... please don't assume that you know what my "norm" is. I've been at parties where crack and shrooms were being passed around like hors d`oeuvres. I've been at other parties and witnessed drive by's, gang fights, and a few people high on acid seriously hurt themselves, so don't for a second think I'm some quiet town kind of guy in the hills of NC who's never been to the "big city" or seen "real" violence.

I've also lived about 20 miles from the nearest.. well... anything. Gas station? 20 miles.. post office? 25 miles. I lived off of a dirt road in a town that had no name (no really.. if you look on a map, there's no named town there). Neighbors had to haul in water. There was no high speed internet.. and if you wanted tv.. you were getting satellite.

I've been all over the globe, and been to just about every state in the USA with the exception of the pacific northwest, Alaska, and Hawaii.. So I know what people are capable of.. and random acts of senseless violence don't phase me in the least. What I am having a hard time understanding is how when you say the power goes out for an hour or two and people start acting like the way you describe. I've just never seen that before, and all of my friends and family have never mentioned seeing anything like that, and they span the country. I'm not saying you're lying... just saying I find it hard to comprehend... even in the worst of neighborhoods, unless YOU are not used to that sort of violence which may just be normal, and now you are thinking it's tied to the power being out for an hour.

All that being said.. don't think for a second that I don't "get it" when referring to how fast society can break down after a natural disaster like Katrina and the like. That, to me, is almost expected. Levees break, towns flood, no power, no way to leave... yeah, sure... people start going bat$hit crazy almost instantly. But a transformer blowing?


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## MrDean (Jun 29, 2012)

Glad that we live 100% off-grid, ran the back up gen set only about 4 hours in the last two years.


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## d_saum (Jan 17, 2012)

stayingthegame said:


> we live where Katrina and Rita met. where the government thought everyone would leave if told to. where the government watched as chaos formed to see (what we needed). where people shot at planes because someone in hospitals, NOT THEM, were being rescued. where the help to rebuild still is not come to many areas. and where there are areas that the police don't want to go for their own safty. where when the shtf. most people helped themselves (stole and looted) not others. when those who watched saw what would happen in another disaster of that magnitude.


Now see? THAT, I understand. Stuff like that, where a major disaster happens, and people are told to leave, but they don't... and then when it hits said fan... they panic. Panic, or go into "free stuff" mode... THAT is why I prepare the way that I do, and for prepare for the worst. Not just the worst kind of disaster, but the worst in people. Hopefully your doing ok, and you and yours are back on your feet! :beercheer:


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## d_saum (Jan 17, 2012)

MrDean said:


> Glad that we live 100% off-grid, ran the back up gen set only about 4 hours in the last two years.


Wow! Nice.. are you using solar otherwise?


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## alwaysready (May 16, 2012)

d_saum said:


> Dude.... what? C'mon now.. I've been in plenty of towns when power goes out and I've never seen that kind of crap go down.. especially in 2 hours. :scratch
> 
> Like DKRinAK said.. what kind of crappy town do you live in? If that's what happens after 2 hours... you might want to consider moving. Just imagine what it'd be like after a week.


When I lived in San Francisco there was a late night power outage and within an hour people had stripped a payless shoe store, liquor store, tabacco shop and butcher shop. Maybe its not the town but the part of town. Anyway I now live far from there


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## MrDean (Jun 29, 2012)

d_saum said:


> Wow! Nice.. are you using solar otherwise?


We live in the White Mountains of Arizona in the middle of 40 acres. The nearest electricity utility is about 2 miles away. Started building it a little at a time. !00% solar powered with 4KW worth of panels, 24 2 volt L-16 size batteries and a 5500 watt inverter. All built by myself. System works perfectly, the fact that we are Off-Grid is completely invisible. Be glad to explain more if anyone is interested. Have pictures but don"t know how to post them in this forum.


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## pixieduster (Mar 28, 2012)

d_saum said:


> All that being said.. don't think for a second that I don't "get it" when referring to how fast society can break down after a natural disaster like Katrina and the like. That, to me, is almost expected. Levees break, towns flood, no power, no way to leave... yeah, sure... people start going bat$hit crazy almost instantly. But a transformer blowing?


No assumptions here buddy. : ) just saying it is what I am use to seeing. Don't have the option to leave for disasters unless I find another line of work. My point is that when a power plant goes out for (for 3 days this go around) and leaves an entire city without power, or a storm comes and takes away modern conviences, I see the same thing everytime. Masses of people are unprepared. Would have been an easy fix if just a transformer. And unfortunately some people do very stupid things. If it were only a transformer, don't think the city would have called in help from seven surrounding agencies. Dout if it hit the news, don't watch tv. Not asking for your approval or assurance. Again my point is, so many are unprepared, even after living through major hurricanes. It is the very reason I prep. : )


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## d_saum (Jan 17, 2012)

pixieduster said:


> No assumptions here buddy. : ) just saying it is what I am use to seeing. Don't have the option to leave for disasters unless I find another line of work. My point is that when a power plant goes out for (for 3 days this go around) and leaves an entire city without power, or a storm comes and takes away modern conviences, I see the same thing everytime. Masses of people are unprepared. Would have been an easy fix if just a transformer. And unfortunately some people do very stupid things. If it were only a transformer, don't think the city would have called in help from seven surrounding agencies. Dout if it hit the news, don't watch tv. Not asking for your approval or assurance. Again my point is, so many are unprepared, even after living through major hurricanes. It is the very reason I prep. : )


I totally get that.. and I COMPLETELY agree with you about how many people are unprepared... for even just a few days with no power. After a couple of days with no power, in a bad neighborhood... yes.. I can absolutely see how degenerates would act, and how chaos and trouble would follow. My only point was that after just 2 hours... it boggles the mind.



pixieduster said:


> Again my point is, so many are unprepared, even after living through major hurricanes. It is the very reason I prep. : )


Exactly! :beercheer:


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## BillM (Dec 29, 2010)

When I was eighteen , I worked in a department store.

We had flashlights under each cash register.

When the power went out, we were told to grab a flashlight and start looking for shoplifters as we escorted the public out of the store.

That was in 1967 !


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## LongRider (May 8, 2012)

Elinor0987 said:


> Chicago has the highest crime rate and the most people. Gangs, drugs, prostitution, etc., plague our city and it's been that way for a while.


Chicago has some of the worst violent crime in the world. Apparently because the citizens are to stupid to realize that when the Illinois political cesspool (that spawned Obama) spew rhetoric about making Chicago safer by assuring that all law abiding citizens are defenseless and unarmed. They mean safer for their murdering rapist cohorts, like ACORN, you know that organization that helps fund teenage whorehouses staffed by children smuggled into this country. Not safer for the general public.

IMHO if anyone want to have safe secure home now and post SHTF. A place where their children can grow up in a healthy sane environment where they can learn some semblance of social responsibility and personal accountability they MUST NOT not live in Illinois, California or Washington DC.


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## Elinor0987 (May 28, 2010)

LongRider said:


> Chicago has some of the worst violent crime in the world. Apparently because the citizens are to stupid to realize that when the Illinois political cesspool (that spawned Obama) spew rhetoric about making Chicago safer by assuring that all law abiding citizens are defenseless and unarmed. They mean safer for their murdering rapist cohorts, like ACORN, you know that organization that helps fund teenage whorehouses staffed by children smuggled into this country. Not safer for the general public.
> 
> IMHO if anyone want to have safe secure home now and post SHTF. A place where their children can grow up in a healthy sane environment where they can learn some semblance of social responsibility and personal accountability they MUST NOT not live in Illinois, California or Washington DC.


That's why I question the motives of anyone that is in favor of gun control and restricting gun ownership. Most of the places in the US that have the strictest gun control laws also have the highest crime rates. It's no secret that organized crime and politics go hand in hand here. It's certainly within the realm of possibility that even the gangs have their lobbyists and activists helping to shape public policy to make it easier for them to commit crimes.


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## LongRider (May 8, 2012)

Elinor0987 said:


> It's no secret that organized crime and politics go hand in hand here.


Seems Chicago has always been the stereotypical mob controlled city. Dating back to Capon and the Daley dynasty. There are those that believe that stereo types are not created in a vacuum with many having at least some foundation in fact.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

pixieduster said:


> All power is up now for a couple days with only one brief outage. The power people said its was overloaded due to the heat. Didn't think its was that hot around here so it didn't take much. Overall we had, 2 shootings, 2 car fires, couple break ins. One would believe that we have been through enough to know sh!t happens and do SOMETHING to be prepared. Well that is not what happened. People scrammbled to gas stations for fuel and chips. Only one was open because they had a back up generator. Dunno........


"Crews have managed to power up generators to operate the sewer and water functions. The city asks for people to continue to minimize their water use for things like toilets, tubs, sinks, etc. Officials said their drinking water is not impacted.

Mayor Tim Matte declared a state of emergency and asked for a dusk to dawn curfew."

Rough Town!!


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## mojo4 (Feb 19, 2012)

Hey mr. Dean, not to get off post or anything but please start a new thread describing your off grid setup cause I am very interested as I'm 100% plugged in.


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## MrDean (Jun 29, 2012)

I plan to, esp as soon as someone tells me how to post pictures.


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## kappydell (Nov 27, 2011)

You would be surprised at how many apparently 'normal' folks think that just because the infrastructure is compromised that all rules are off and all laws suspended for the duration. They get really mad when they get arrested, too, like they are 'special'.


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