Dang city!
By ElicBxn
@ElicBxn (63235)
United States
February 2, 2011 7:25pm CST
or was that the State?
Anyway, about 6 this morning our power went out.
Oh, it'd blink on for a few minutes, but go out again.
When I finally got over to Maggiepie's she had power and I got on her computer and saw that the city/state were doing rolling blackouts to "shed" megawatts during the cold...
excuse me?
Maggie never lost power, we only would have it for about 15 minutes TOPS!
I turned off my power strip because my silly computer tries to reboot every time we'd get power again...
http://austin.ynn.com/content/local_news/276417/austin-energy-reports-end-to-rolling-blackouts
I wonder how many people were late to work because their alarms didn't go off...
I use my cell phone as an alarm because the cats kept killing my alarm clocks so that wasn't a problem. We also have a gas range, and that, and a match, meant we had some hot water for tea this morning.
Had to use a flashlight to find my fruit for breakfast and its a good thing everything else were in their normal places and we get up after it gets light!
I feel for the rest of you guys who have lost power, even just the short time I was without I was pretty unhappy about it.
My roommate, on the other hand, works from home and she only worked about a third of the day because of the power outages. 
Cats yesterday, no power today... a couple'a mornings I could'a done without!
So, how was you day? 
Cats yesterday, no power today... a couple'a mornings I could'a done without!
So, how was you day? 6 people like this
16 responses
@danishcanadian (28953)
• Canada
3 Feb 11
There's way too much snow up here, and I got stuck in a drift up to my knees. Great point about the blackout, and the alarms. I use my iPhone as an alarm. I use it to the point of needing to charge it before, bed, and leave my docking station on. If the power were to go out in the morning, it'd be charged by then, and the battery would kick in, so I'd never miss my alarm.
4 people like this
@GardenGerty (157546)
• United States
3 Feb 11
I would never remember to do that. I guess for now it is good that I do not need to have an alarm.
3 people like this
@Maggiepie (7816)
• United States
3 Feb 11
All this, & you got here early today! Talk about yer luck! 
You poor dear, & still sick with one of my colds, too! (I think I'm actually getting over mine, finally! 'Bout danged time, I say!)
If you have another morning Thursday similar to today's & yesterday's, you have my permission to sleep in & make it up when you're better. I can nuke something. What Girling doesn't know won't hurt 'em, & I know you're good for it. Just shove the cats out of the room so you can get some rest! 
Maggiepie
“During times of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ~ George Orwell "1984"
You poor dear, & still sick with one of my colds, too! (I think I'm actually getting over mine, finally! 'Bout danged time, I say!)
If you have another morning Thursday similar to today's & yesterday's, you have my permission to sleep in & make it up when you're better. I can nuke something. What Girling doesn't know won't hurt 'em, & I know you're good for it. Just shove the cats out of the room so you can get some rest!
Maggiepie
“During times of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ~ George Orwell "1984"3 people like this
@Maggiepie (7816)
• United States
3 Feb 11
If there is, don't forget the snow cream! 
Maggiepie
“During times of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ~ George Orwell "1984"
Maggiepie
“During times of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ~ George Orwell "1984"2 people like this
@GardenGerty (157546)
• United States
3 Feb 11
I left the house for the first time since Sunday afternoon. No snow or wind, just very cold today. The sun was shining as well. Our power stayed on. We are pretty well covered if the power goes out, but I can really imagine that it is disruptive to have rolling black outs.
3 people like this
@GardenGerty (157546)
• United States
3 Feb 11
I did not even think of the traffic lights being on the rolling black outs.
2 people like this
@bellis716 (4799)
• United States
3 Feb 11
Here in one of the oldest subdivisions in Schertz, we only had two 15 minute and one 20 minute power outages. We were being thankful that we were not in the area of San Antonio that were still without power because of fallen trees that took down power lines when we discovered that there were areas of Schertz that were not affected at all. If they were trying to conserve p0ower, why didn't they cut off the power temporally to those large houses that must consume much more power than the dinky little houses in our areas. They should have, at least, had to take their turn with the outages.
2 people like this
@ElicBxn (63235)
• United States
3 Feb 11
who knows, Maggie lives in an apartment, and there's a low income city housing near her place so her area might've been "exempt" because of that...
My area sure got it!
Schertz huh? I was just talking about Selma the other day - trying to explain to the roomie about small towns and tickets...
1 person likes this
@bellis716 (4799)
• United States
4 Feb 11
Today, one of the newscasters was trying to explain how a particular area is chosen for an outage. Maybe it was someone from CPS speaking. I don't remember for sure. Anyway, the service area has to meet certain criteria for average usage and not contain exempt users.
1 person likes this
@JenInTN (27514)
• United States
4 Feb 11
That stinks. I bet there were a lot of people late going in to work. Power outages are no fun...especially when its cold. I have some oil lamps and a kerosene heater because last year I had a power outage and it lasted quite some time. At least it seemed like quite some time..lol.
Days not bad so far...the last couple have been a bit of a challenge though.
1 person likes this
Wow...in Texas! That's pretty rare isn't it? I do remember being in houston during an ice strom...those bridges were a trip! My friend there said they had never got weather like that before and accused me of bringing it with me...lol.
@scififan43 (2434)
• United States
2 Dec 11
we have not dealt with a power outage since this summer. lighting struck and hit a tree then the tree hit the power line and we were without power for two hours. but we do have gas heating for the winter and just in case we do lose power we got that.
1 person likes this
@scififan43 (2434)
• United States
6 Dec 11
well that is good, but you could lite the gas heate with a match or lighter.
@jillmalitz (5131)
• United States
18 Feb 11
We had rolling blackouts a few days ago. Of course we didn't know it was going to happen until it did. I absolutely hate to reset everything after that. It is so anoying.
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63235)
• United States
18 Feb 11
I'll say that the city is taking a LOT of grief for this, because we have MUCH higher usage in the summer! And, it was supposed to be no more than 15 or so minutes for any place in town, but at our house it was over 4 hours with just blink on of the power and then at my client's there was no loss at all!
@BarBaraPrz (45475)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
3 Feb 11
Today (Thursday) has started with a headache (no particular reason) and a backache (shovelling all that snow yesterday).
1 person likes this
@BarBaraPrz (45475)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
3 Feb 11
The headache's gone now, thanks. The back will take a little longer.
@dragon54u (31636)
• United States
3 Feb 11
I did not lose power but more than 80,000 people did and several thousand of them are now in their second day with no power and that means no heat in below freezing temperatures. Ice and sleet really caused havoc here!
1 person likes this
Almost certainly true...
@ANTIQUELADY (36440)
• United States
3 Feb 11
This has not been your week, Elic. I hate it when the power goes off anytime. It would be bad right now not to have heat as cold as it is. Glads it wasn't off for very long. My day was pretty good. Didn't get out all day but that is par for the course for me. Hope the rest of your week goes better.
@paula27661 (15811)
• Australia
6 Feb 11
We take it for granted when the power is on and working as it should but when it goes out it is devastating! I recall the last time it happened where I live, it was out for most of the day and I decided to use my laptop because I have two batteries for it and figured with my mobile broadband I could work for a couple of hours. I realised I had to top up my broadband and, because I couldn’t use the landline phone (no power) I thought I would call my provider with my cell and get a top up but lo and behold the old mobile phone is out of charge and I have no electricity to charge it with! I could have cried! No phone, no computer…Luckily I had good books to catch up on because watching TV was out of the question!
1 person likes this
@cerebellum (3863)
• United States
3 Feb 11
You have had two bad mornings in a row! Makes you want to just stay in bed where it is warm. Some of the media guys from here went to Dallas for the Super Bowl and they were saying things about a black out, but I didn't know it was the whole state. That sucks that they didn't even give you a warning. At least if they had you could have been prepared. I hate when the power goes out in the winter. In the summer it's not so bad, but it gets pretty cold when the furnace doesn't come on. They were saying here that power lines would probably be down because of the high winds and freezing rain. It was windy, but the rain wasn't as bad as they said. My power flicked off for a minute. Just long enough to make the clocks blink. There have been quite a few times that I have reset them and it goes out again. My alarm clock and my cordless phones have battery back ups. My alarm would still go off. I don't work anymore,so if I sleep in, it doesn't matter most days anyway.
@Hatley (163781)
• Garden Grove, California
3 Feb 11
darned state it never blows brick off roofs that leak in sunny California oh yeah we have had gale winds last night. My friend
Nelda had a leaky roof and they had put plastic up over the leaks
held down with bricks. she said the wind storm last night blew those heavy bricks off her roof. I sat here and shook with cold this morning as the housekeeper had undone my heater. the wind was
rattling the windows so hard it seemed like they would break. ordinarily we do not have much wind here except when we have Santa anas and they are warm winds. this wind tonight feels like its blowing over ice fields. really very cold. Our lights have flickered but not gone off . I always dread that as if I am on the computer it knocks me off the net. so them I have to reset the modem and router, not hard to do but if you do not wait long enough it will take several times to get them reset.This weird weather all over the US is the pits. we did not get the snow or ice just the really miserably cold wind. these Ca buildings are not built for cold weather either.
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63235)
• United States
3 Feb 11
The wind seems to have calmed down, the clouds kept it from getting quite as cold as predicted (never did get out of the 20's yesterday.) Had lights and heat this morning, tho the roomie was complaining about the cold, walking around in shorts and a tee shirt - suggested she put on more clothes. First thing in the morning isn't her prime time!
She only worked about 3 hours yesterday because of the power - I think they rolled us into that blackout most of the time!
@frontvisions101 (16043)
• Philippines
3 Feb 11
Unannounced power outages are a drag. We've had them here too and it just gets in the way of your schedule, big time. I just hate it when I don't know that we'll have black outs soon. By the way, my day was fine. Found a quarter by the door.
1 person likes this
