[fabsroman]

Hey guys, thanks for thinking about me. I had everything that Rapier suggested. 2 chain saws, a generator, plenty of gas, and coolers. We lost power for almost exactly 48 hours. Lost it Sunday night and got it back Tuesday night. Not many trees fell down other than the ones on the power lines around here. A couple of small trees are down in the neighbors' yards, but nothing significant. Figured I was going to get a lot of wood for the new wood burning furnace, but that isn't the case, which is probably a good thing for the community as a whole. Plus, I have plenty of places to get wood from anyway. Like Skinny, we had a lot of rain prior to Irene and the ground was pretty wet. Speaking of rain, it has been raining all week long and yesterday it was coming down really hard. If a hurricane came by now, trees would be all over the ground. We have had flooding in places from this rain and Main Street in Ellicott City had about 2 to 3 feet of water on it.

During the 48 hours without power, I hardwired the generator into the well pump, ran extension cords to the fridges, and powered up some other necessities like the entertainment system for the kids. LOL That was Monday. On Tuesday I went to Home Depot and bought about $90 in extension cords and set up my home office so I could get some work done. As soon as I was able to power up the computer and get back to work, the power came on. I spent the next three hours taking down the generator, wrapping up extension cords, and wiring the well pump back into the breaker box. That was the end of my Tuesday. On Wednesday, the hot water heater wasn't working, but that was because both heating elements were shot.

All in all, not too bad. When we moved in, one of our neighbors said that they hadn't lost power over the past 2 years since the wires in the neighborhood had been buried. Well, that is just the neighborhood. The wires that feed into the neighborhood, from the 2 main roads, are all above ground and they have a plethora of huge trees lined up by them. So, I am looking at replacing the two electrical boxes we have with interconnect boxes. They will allow me to plug in a 220 cord from the generator right to the electrical box and power the circuits that we want to use.

Right now, I am in the process of installing a wood/natural gas furnace and new AC. Getting the utility company out here to run the natural gas line is a PITA. Once we have natural gas, we will probably convert the water heater to gas. Not to mention that I am thinking about installing a system in the wood burning furnace to heat the water and send it to a tempering tank. After that, I will be looking into swapping out the electrical boxes. Cannot imagine the power outages around here if we get a wet, heavy snow. Plenty of things to do on this 24 year old house, but we really like the house and the property.

Glad to see that everybody made it through the storm alright.