Crazy., Yet another reason I have to pull the trigger on that generator.
Ben,
Hurricane Matthew knocked down power lines and blew literally tons of transformers, they sounded like thunder and lit the sky with various colors. Power went out at my DeLand, Florida residence noon Friday 10/7/16, just after a huge CRACK sound on my roof, a 60 pound tree branch dropped about 50 feet and impaled the roof a few feet from where I had been writing an e-mail.
After a while the winds died down, I went outside to check the damage, my neighbor across the street pointed out why our power was down- a large branch had fell on his power lines, shorting them out, knocking out power for most of our block, with around a half dozen more power lines around the block down.
The next day, seeing so much damage had occurred all over DeLand, my expectations for getting power back anytime soon were not high. After moving about a half ton of debris out of the way, I decided to move my travel trailer to the front yard where it's solar panels would be in the sun most of the day, providing enough electricity to keep the refrigerator cold. Finished setting up the solar system at 2:45 PM Saturday, but after an hour running the refrigerator, decided to give the batteries a bit of time to recharge, as they had dropped from 12.9 volts to 12V, a resting voltage of 12V is only a 20% charge. After only a half hour, the batteries had already recovered to 12.6 V, about 80%, so I went inside to plug the refrigerator back in to the extension cord, but noticed the lights had just come back on!
I was certainly glad to have power back, but I had sheared the lock hasp and a marker light off the trailer when they caught, and broke off a piece of the wooden fence gate while I snaked the trailer around downed tree debris. I used the trailer's power for only an hour, moving it and the repairs took around four hours. I was able to buy a new marker light yesterday, still have to install it, and move the trailer back after I finish raking tree debris before mowing the lawn.
Oh well, at least I now know the trailer's solar system can keep the refrigerator cold...
P.S. The power company just fixed my neighbor's power lines around 2:45 PM 10/10/16, fortunately he owns several generators so is just out some gas money.
The workers asked me to not publish the photos of their work, for fear of reprimands from the supervisor, quick emergency work is not always pretty ;^).
After they get "out of the woods" they will be back to straighten out the power poles...
Art
