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Sounds like those things might become sentient and kill us all, ala Westworld (no spoilers, still haven’t seen Ep 2 since I foolishly drove down to the Panthers’ suckfest last night).
Glad I live in a townhouse complex on high ground, one or two blocks from the Town of Apex government center. Have a feeling if my power ever goes out, will be super high on the priority list.
Yogi and anyone else….
Talked to a retired electrical contractor. Generac has “tightened” the noose. He purchased and installed several large (150KW) Generac units for a DT Raleigh complex. They were the “Latest and Greatest” in the Electronic Control Generators designed for office complexes, computer networks as well as LARGE Motors to operate their printing equipment.
This was several years ago. He hit the same wall. The distributor that he purchased the units for….for his customer, had to come and out “inspect and activate” them. The “CODE” is actually an electronic serial number on the board that is also “mated” with the unit’s Serial Number. So it is unique. IF the board ever goes belly up or burns out, then there is (was then?) a set=up procedure to install a NEW board and then input the Unit (Genny) SN so that they were “paired”.
It appears that with the lower cost of electronics and more folks wanting higher level of electronic sophistication, that Generac is now using the same “logic” and that lower capacity units, WITH Electronic Control systems, have the same interlock. This was done to ensure that the installation was correct and also to reduce warranty costs….
Time and progress and electronics marches on….
Well that sure was fun. 4 days later and I’m still without power. I bought a B&S generator on Friday from Lowe’s (6250 W with 8000 W Start up). Boy am I glad I bought that sucker. We live off the beaten path in Moore County and I have a feeling we are going to be one of the last to be connected back to the grid. I was able to keep it on the front porch, mostly protected from the rain, and ran drop cords through the separation between my two front doors. Kept the fridge and freezer powered, ran my espresso machine, temporarily hooked it up to my tankless hot water heater (for hot showers), and best of all, was able to power my modem, tv, and apple tv to stream our game. This situation sucks, but I feel fortunate I’m not under water like most of Lumberton. It looks like Moore county is down to their last 5500 people without power and we just happen to be one of those 5500. Maybe when I get home today we’ll be connected……
Mine came back around 1330 (that’s 1:30 PM for you civilians). It did take a bit of instruction over the phone to make sure the wife understood what to do. While I’m certainly not going to front the money for one of those gouge your eyes out and wallet too Generac units I am considering a bit more juice, just in case. The difficulty with having hot water is something I need to overcome.
Smarter than the average bear
Well now mine is gone again. Blew out about an hour ago. fired up the Genny again. Oh well.
Smarter than the average bear
Finally got power back on last night around 1900. Boy what a relief. 4 days without power sucks. Generator makes it manageable, but still not something I’d like to do again anytime soon. Yogi, I hope you guys get yours back on again soon.
Are these new Generac units succeptable to an EMP? Might be handy to have them working if the sun has a hissy fit.
Becton, the answer is probably yes since they are microprocessor controlled and anything with one of those inside could be hit by EMP.
Smarter than the average bear
Sounds like a potential market for large Faraday cages. I suppose as long as the breaker is open, there would be no backsurge from the output leads.
On the other hand, if only the electonic section was protected, the rest of the unit would probably be ok.
I hope all you guys down east are getting power back. It is miserable I’m sure.
Interesting question about EMP. I had to look it up. I’m with Yogi. My 5 1/2 YO Generac looks better every day. It is conventional, I think, but has some more filtering circuits to clean up the power. It is NOT a double rectified Inverter style my the Diesel Genny on my Motor Home. I suspect that any electronic device that you need a digital code for and there is one stored on an Eprom (or whatever device they use), WOULD be full of Little Microprocessors….and like the Snowflakes that we are seeing more of, any little EMP, like a Microagression, will cause them to want a safe space and totally shut down until they get their way.
GREAT POINT and INSIGHT….
On a more positive note, Duke Energy (yes, THAT DUKE….the one that is being bombarded with negative political ads) has really done a yoman’s job in restoring power. Wake was down to less than 10K last night. Have several friends that were told it would be later in the week….they are showering and bathing with HOT water and really happy about what Duke has accomplished.
We often say a word of thanks to our military and first responders and LEO….I think we ought to tell a lineman (person?) thanks for the hours they put in and for putting their personal safety on the line….
Becton901….sounds like you have a great marketing idea. Make a Faraday Cage that would double as a Genny rain cover frame. Then, you would be covered….maybe even have some type of metallic cover that was EMP and Water Proof….
Good idea ‘roo.
If anyone would like to have a waterproof rain cover/Faraday cage built
for their generator, let me know! I have a machine shop so it wouldn’t be
that involved to manufacture.
Besides, more work for the shop in this so called recovery would be more than welcome.Good point about the linemen. Usually a thankless job. They bust it in the worst weather.
Roo, just for the record, I HAD power for 7 hours yesterday from 1 pm till about 8 PM. I have been around the house all day and have not seen ONE, not ONE service vehicle no matter what the brand. As for DUKE I am thoroughly disgusted since I can get NO answers to why there seems to be NO PROGRESS to get my power back.
Smarter than the average bear
Well… I drove up to Rawlee today on sum bizness…
They GOTT I-40 West dug up ‘tween 55 and 96 — putting in bigger storm water pipes — , so I GOTT to take the detour up 50…
no biggie…some, but not alot of loose water, lots of sweet taters and cotton still in the fields….
more power lines down than you would think… but given the situation, maybe not….Could be worse, unless your house in a flood plain…
Dennis, Floyd and now Matthew –Twenty people dead in NC….
Praying for all of ’em families…
for the rest of us, it’s just an “inconvenience”.Meanwhile….
We GOTT this Locker room thing, that most people really don’t want to get to the bottom of and that’s just fine…
Some things are better left unsaid or forgotton…Somebody might tell DonaldDick and QueenB#tch that…
a matched pair of mules if I ever saw one….(and I mean mules, I didn’t want to say Jacks$$s, ’cause I wanted to politically correct and NOT question one of them’s gender — although on the other hand, neither one is sterile…)
Do they still have Mule Day in Benson???
#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!Watching the game was there last fun I had.
The cotton crop blew away. Soybeans are rotting in the pod. Roof damaged on hog farm. I can’t count how many trees I’ve cut off fences. I’m glad we don’t do peanuts or sweet potatoes. They are rotting quick. I count 8 places within 5 miles of my house where the road completely washed out 10′ deep so getting parts to fix the problems is difficult.
I’ve still got 4″-6 water under my house. Thankfully it stayed below the door frames and didn’t come inside. But we have tons of work to do to fix the damage.
And I’m in good shape compared to our neighbors in Grantham and Mar Mac and seven springs. Small blessings. I had friends completely flooded out.
Packplanth – you, the other farmers and those harmed and still in harm’s way have my thoughts and prayers.
Bill – nicely said. These 2 jackwagons deserve each other but we the people nominated them. It takes a hell of a man to make Hillary look reasonable. Thanks locker room!
BOTB, Mule Days was 3 weeks ago. Had Matthew come in that weekend it would have really messed that up. Finally gott power back last night around 10. It took me actually getting a live person on the phone at Duke before things gott rolling and they came to fix it. Took ’em 1.5 hours to find it because they wouldn’t listen to those who heard the boom when the power went down. Sure enough it was a transformer right where we told ’em we heard the boom come from. Bucket truck shows up and 15 minutes later the power comes back on. Get a clue power people, sometimes the masses knows more than you think they do.
Smarter than the average bear
I’ve been going to eastern NC my entire life. I’d have to say that this storm seems like it was “the big one.”
My grandparents lived in their house on a lake from ~ 1960 until they died last year. In that time, it never flooded — not even with Fran and Floyd (which admittedly came very close). It’s now under water up to the windows and is effectively a total loss. This sounds bad but thank goodness it happened after they died.
Hazell was the last thing that has hit NC that seemed this destructive. I wasn’t alive then, but have heard stories. My thoughts are with all of you who have been impacted.
rye, both Fran and Floyd had different outcomes. Fran came slamming in head on and drove west. For those in it’s path My bet is they would disagree about “the big one”. That comes down to which affected you personally the most.
With Fran we were living in Norfolk but came down to help my wife’s family recover. From exit 79 on I-95 it usually took us 5 minutes to get to their house, that day it took almost 45 minutes due to downed trees and having to find alternate paths to get there. When we did we could not see their house from the road and it was set back about 100 feet. They had over 100 pine and oak trees down. It took them 11 days to get power back. Fran’s path resulted in much the same for those in it. It was estimated that over 500 tornadoes were spawned during that storm and recovery costs for CP&L were tremendous.
By the time Floyd came in we were living down here and there wasn’t much wind but the rain flooded farms and scores of cattle could not be saved and it single handedly wiped out hog farming as it once was in NC. The sewer ponds overflowed and were an ecological nightmare. Floyd’s flooding was pretty close to what we just experienced, it was just shifted from the coastal areas east and northeast of I-95 / I-40 to southeast of I-40 / west I-95. The common ground being the Neuse river basin near Princeton and Tarboro.
Hazel however combined Fran, Floyd, and Matthew. Category 4 when she hit, massive wind damage and flooding and loss of life and property. It was by all accounts THE BIG ONE. Imagine the beaches from Georgetown, SC to Sunset Beach, NC with only one structure, The Ocean Forest Hotel in Myrtle Beach, left standing. You could buy an acre of beachfront property for a grand (a nice car was about 2 grand). Today that same property for a 20 year lease (LEASE) is about 1 million and you either have to renegotiate or leave the building.
Smarter than the average bear
This has morphed a bit. And, as Babs sings…..”Memories…..Time has rewritten every line….”. I also totally agree that each of us judge events by the impact on OUR life (home, area, friends, family, whatever). I was curious about how the various storms “stack up” and remembered reading something a few years ago. Now, this is NOT a modern document….in that it covers 1900 – 2005, but the methodology, like any “White Paper” or hypothesis can be argued and debunked….much like the political garbage we are seeing today.
Here is the link….
Click to access NormalizedHurricane2008.pdf
If you read (OK, skim) the first couple of pages, you get a feel for HOW they made the comparison….or “Normalized” the impact so that you were comparing apples to apples. They go into a LOT of detail and their model, I think, is adjusted for inflation and other factors. SO, based on THEIR model, here is the summary…. Rank, Name & Year…. I picked the ones that impacted NC. The list is on page 35 or Table 2.
#9 – Donna – 1960
#14 – Diane – 1955
#16 – Hazel – 1954
#23 – TS 7 – 1944
#33 – Floyd – 1999
#38 – Fran – 1996
#45 – Isabel – 2003
#39 – Ione – 1955OK, I never heard of Ione….it looks NC got hammered in 1955…now bear in mind, this is the POTENTIAL destruction or LOSS COST….based on the value of the real estate and population….not the individual losses or the Insurance Losses….
Fran was worse for me….I lived in Raleigh. I had trees down. I had no power for almost 2 weeks. Floyd sticks out in my mind for the massive flooding….but it did NOT flood me.
From a Loss of life….here is one resource. I THINK that this shows that our forecasters and emergency management folks HAVE had a very real and positive influence in reducing casualties….
When Fran came, we had to cut 30-40 trees across a road, but the house didn’t flood.
When Floyd came, the house almost flooded. The water crept close, but never came in.
What they got where they were (and the streams feeding the lake) far eclipsed those two. That was more rain than that area (40/95 corridor) had seen in 50 years.
Nice find… B’rer ‘Roo…
the interesting thing here is the timeline..
1944…
nothing for 10 years..
four major storms the next 6 years…
nothing for 10 years…
three major storms the next 6 years…including Matthew…
nothing for 13 years….
then Matthew….We all know “weather” is “multi-cyclical”… that is to say, there are multiple cycles running concurrently…
So…What does this have to do with….
global warming…
phases of the moon…
the Cubbies won 103 games this season and are the odds on favorite to win the World Series???Math && Stat guys…. stay up late and knock yourselves out!
#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!Roo, just to be clear Hazel did an additional 3.6 billion (today’s dollars) in Canada. The listings there put Donna and Diane above Hazel but most of their destruction was outside NC. Donna’s primary target was FL, and Diane hit CT really hard. Also in terms of cost most hurricanes that produce tremendous flooding results in greater monetary loss. That is why Katrina is #2.
To you Fran was the worst. Growing up 20 miles from where Hazel made landfall, and being old enough to remember Donna, everyone I knew said Donna was nothing, but she had done her damage in FL, nearly wiping out a great deal of the citrus crops. Diane had her high rank from the massive flooding in the populous areas in New England. Again, it’s where you are that shapes your perception. Fran’s furry looked like a war zone but her path was not as wide and the flooding was not as bad and still she came in pretty high in the list. Discount Donna’s and Diane’s cost attributed to other areas of the country and neither come close to Hazel in NC. FYI, I rode out Agnes in 1972 in a campground in upstate SC. We wound up sleeping in the van that night and it was freaky. Expected a tree to fall through at any moment. For all out fear though I’ve never heard thunder as loud or often as when David came ashore in 1979. At times I thought the roof may cave in.
Smarter than the average bear
Chubb having a bad day
whicn is why he was ACC lineman of the week?
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