Tornado Season is here

[GreenTwin]

Had a tornado pass about a mile from the house.
Quite a few trees down, but not as many as previous years.
It was a bit like Wizard of Oz there for a while.
Lots of streets blocked in the hood.
Power may be out for a while.

 

[ShopShoe]

Hope you and yours are OK. It was a wild ride for a lot of the USA yesterday. The complex stretched from Iowa/Minnesota/Illinois all the way to Southern states: One weather source said it was the largest watch area ever posted. We had big storms to the north of here and to the south of here, and major damage in the eastern part of Iowa. If not tornadoes, then hail.

--ShopShoe

 

[Zeb]

Some of the drone footage I saw really put their power in perspective. I thought videos were being sped up!
We had a powerful wind storm years back that took trees and twisted them vertically out of the ground. Car in front and behind me got hit by trees. We all huddled in a junction until it passed. Took 3 hours for a bunch of us to saw our way back to our homes and three weeks for power to come back.

 

[GreenTwin]

we talked to these folks.
they came downstairs right before it hit.
family of 4 with young kids.

they won the lotto of life today.

 

[GreenTwin]

Right into the bedrooms.

 

[GreenTwin]

more pics

 

[Apprentice707]

My heart goes out to the people affected by the tornadoes. Having lived in Nebraska in the early 70s' I have witnessed the force of these things and they are frightening. Great pity we can't harness the power in them and direct them to barren areas. Perhaps in the future, let us hope.

B

 

[GreenTwin]

About every 10 years we get a tornado through town.
This town has a lot of trees, and so some percentage of them fall with each big storm.

In the past, i have avoided buying houses that have big trees near them.
I cut down two trees in my yard that were getting too large, a few years ago.

The people across the street cut down three large oaks in their front yard about 3 months ago, and no doubt that saved their house friday. They still had a very large oak in the backyard, maybe a 48" diameter trunk, and it did fall friday, but fell away from the house. Took out his power line.

 

[GreenTwin]

Many rural folks in this region have concrete tornado shelters in the ground.
I dont have a shelter, but i have an older low rise house that is built like a tank.

About 20 years ago a tornado touched down a few miles east of us, in a newer neighborhood, and some of those houses folded like a wet paper bag, killing some folks.

.

 

[GreenTwin]

Geography comes into play wirh tornadoes. Storms in this city hit the bluff towards the west, bounce up, and then create vortex right over my neighborhood.
Has happened multiple times.
We got lucky in this city this time, with no deaths, but 3 deaths in a city one hour west of us.

I guess i could dig a storm shelter.
Often you are not aware of approaching stroms at night until they hit, such as happened on friday.

The folks we know down the street (one of the photos above), heard that a storm was coming, and went downstairs just minutes before that tree went through their bedrooms. That was a very near fatality.

.

 

[GreenTwin]

One can always replace material goods.

Some of the primary lines are down in this neighborhood, and so we have been running on a generator, mainly to keep the refrigerator going, but also critically to keep the coffee machine functioning (priorities you know).

Internet cables are damaged all over, so no internet. I am typing on my phone, which is a pain with the tiny keyboard.

On a scale of 1 -10, this storm was a 2, compared to some previous storms.

Ice storms are often worse here, since that sends large limbs and trees crashing down all over the city.

We were without power for 2 weeks during one ice storm.

.

 

[GreenTwin]

Arkansas west of me got hit hard, especially Wynne and Littlerock.

.

 

[GreenTwin]

I have seen quite a few permanent home natural gas gensets in this neighborhood, and i wondered if they actually work.
A quick survey yesterday shows that the do indeed work.

My next door neighbor is having a 22kw generac unit put in next week.
Price is rather high at about $15,000 installed with transfer switch.

I have a 5kw honda portable, extremely quiet, i can barely hear it running inside the house. I really like my honda, and it is inverter based, so ok with my computers. It was pricy at $5000, but worth every penny i think.
It had been sitting for at least a year without running, and it electric started in seconds. One has to be religious with fuel stabilizer in the gasoline.

Natural gas units dont have fuel issues.

.

 

[GreenTwin]

There are some extremely inexpensive portable generators for sale now, such as $1000 for a 20kw gasoline unit.
I would never purchase or trust such a low cost generator.
You will not save any money long term with an inexpensive genset.

.

 

[Mousetrap]

Had a tornado pass about a mile from the house.
Quite a few trees down, but not as many as previous years.
It was a bit like Wizard of Oz there for a while.
Lots of streets blocked in the hood.
Power may be out for a while.View attachment 145708

If it is such an unsafe place ----------------- why live there?

 

[GreenTwin]

The cost of living is relatively low, and the scenery is nice.
Weather is not too hot or cold.

Lots of nice lakes.

I would build a storm shelter before i moved.

I may build a storm shelter this year.

.

 

[GreenTwin]

The rural storm shelters most often are poured concrete walls and roof, about 3/4 into the ground, with dirt berms on the sides.

I think they sell precast structures.

Some dig a vault in the garage floor, with steps going down.

.

 

[CFLBob]

Natural gas units dont have fuel issues.

The biggest fuel issue for generators like yours is getting fuel for prolonged periods of running it. The lines at the gas stations start before the storms.

I have a natural gas-fueled Generac that's over 15 years old. A couple of hurricanes ago, Irma in 2017, our power went out in the early evening and the generator came on after its programmed 10 seconds without power.

The next morning, about 10AM, firemen were at my door saying someone had reported smelling gas and they traced it to us. The fire department told us to shut it down, which we did. Back to living on batteries for about another day.

Turns out that we had gotten a recall notice on the generator and in the rush around a couple of road trips had put it aside and forgot it. It was for a fault in a plenum they use to buffer fuel for times when the output power needs to surge, and our generator was leaking LNG. I'll call that a fuel issue. It was replaced without charge, but it cost us living without the generator.

The longest it has ever powered our house was around 24 hours, not even in hurricane season, and it caused a massive surge in our gas bill. We didn't really notice a decrease in the electric bill, although there must have been.

 

[SmithDoor]

Had a tornado pass about a mile from the house.
Quite a few trees down, but not as many as previous years.
It was a bit like Wizard of Oz there for a while.
Lots of streets blocked in the hood.
Power may be out for a while.View attachment 145708

I use to build doors all over the world.
The surprise was build codes in parts of tornado 🌪 was only 80mph.
I did not build for 80 they built for at less 150 plus 1.3 for safety.
Building for high speed does not to much more

Dave

 

[GreenTwin]

Watched them rebuilding the overhead primary line yesterday.
Like ants, or beavers, or whatever.

Lots of equipment.
Auger truck to dig and set new poles.
New crossarms, insulators, new arresters, fused cutouts, transformers.
And a new manual sectionalizer.

The are making good progress on the main primary backbone that goes through the neighborhood.
It is large primary cable, about the size of 500 kcmil.

I am guessing power will be back on late today.
I saw two more primaries on the ground nearby, so they have more work to do.

No telling when we will get internet back, but luckily I can use this phone for internet.

As I said, we really got lucky in this city, with I think only 1 death.

Next county over has 9 deaths, so they got hammered.

.