PowerLess

One of the trade-offs in living in solitude in the boonies high up in the Ozark Mountains is that we receive the extremes of the weather in the Winter time. It was too good to be true that we had the mildest October & November (almost) since we moved here in 1993. That changed dramatically this past Wednesday, when we were covered with ice; but our electric & telephone services were functioning fine. Subsequent rain, which froze on the trees, was simply too much. Trees were crashing all over the place under the weight of the ice. The roads & driveways were blocked by fallen trees. Power lines were toppled. We lost our power on Thursday afternoon. Since we rely on electricity for almost everything, we couldn't conduct much business or even check email or receive phone calls until the power was restored two & a half days later, late Saturday night.

Luckily, while the power was out, UPS delivered some packages that kept me busy. I was able to assemble the computer components I had ordered from Tiger Direct & build my new powerful computer. I will test it out tomorrow. It never ceases to amaze me how much cheaper everything is each time I order computer parts. An 81.2 gigabyte hard drive was only $179. After this power outage (which will hopefully be the only one for this Winter season), I'm taking another look at alternative power sources. We have a dozen UPSs around the house; but they only give about 15 minutes of power. For more, I'm looking at units such as this, which claims to be able to power a desktop computer for four hours.

I was also able to work on my state required CPE classes that I had ordered from CPE Store. I finished most of the 50 hours while working with kerosene lamps on my desk.

According to this news account (+ this one), we were among several thousands of people who lost their power due to this ice storm. Sherry & I are hoping that Carroll Electric will reevaluate its policy of not clearing the tree limbs in the power line right of ways. A little preventive maintenance could have reduced the number of power outages.

KMK

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- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 12/01/2001 10:37:00 PM Send this post: