Hurricane Sandy

Ianab · November 03, 2012, 03:33:03 PM

Quote from: Jeff on November 03, 2012, 01:20:18 PM
I think in some states it is illegal to transport gas in containers in a car.

It may be a safety thing, and relate to the amount? A couple of gallons for your generator, lawn mower, chainsaw etc, no worries.

But having 50 gal of loose gas cans bouncing around in a car if you get in a crash?

I can see the cops having an issue with that.

Ian

wwsjr · November 03, 2012, 05:01:51 PM

Two crews, 4 trucks, 6 linemen from AL and a crew from our local MS power company bound for New Jersey went to staging area in VA. At that point IBEW union officials from NJ presented them with a union contract that "they must sign" before working on power restoration. After a few hours of calls and discussion, both groups returned home. Must not have needed their help. I have trouble understanding this!

DR Buck · November 03, 2012, 05:18:36 PM

Quote from: wwsjr on November 03, 2012, 05:01:51 PM
Two crews, 4 trucks, 6 linemen from AL and a crew from our local MS power company bound for New Jersey went to staging area in VA. At that point IBEW union officials from NJ presented them with a union contract that "they must sign" before working on power restoration. After a few hours of calls and discussion, both groups returned home. Must not have needed their help. I have trouble understanding this!

This was all over the news yesterday. Governor Cristie is pith! The union denied it, but the guys have the paper work that was handed to them to sign to prove it. Others have come forward saying that the union was activly pushing out of state companies to sign.

wwsjr · November 03, 2012, 05:41:56 PM

Story about AL crew on Foxnews.com. Crews were from Decatur, AL.

beenthere · November 03, 2012, 05:45:34 PM

Knowing just a little about Unions, should be no surprise.
This doesn't surprise me a bit.

Okrafarmer · November 03, 2012, 06:05:52 PM

After a storm, when you get half the power restored, that's only the easy half. It will take much longer to restore the second half. Typically, they work on the bigger circuits that are down first, where each circuit restored has the potential to restore power to thousands or hundreds of customers with a single repair. then they work their way down to the smaller lines and streets and neighborhoods, and eventually to the service lines.

wwsjr · November 03, 2012, 06:24:24 PM

Okrafarmer you are exactly right, as MM did, I spent about 20 years with an old "Ma Bell" company. Worked lot of storm damage. Telephone service priority was main cable, branch cables, individual services in that order. Usually separate crews for cable and service wires. Many times we had to wait for power company placing the joint-use poles where we attached cable 40" below power neutral. Many times when main cables were complete, there may be only one service line on a street still out of service. Sometimes hard to located all outages without going from door to door.

Sawyerfortyish · November 03, 2012, 07:11:52 PM

The gas can issue is a haz mat issue 5 gal ok 6 or 8 cans slidin round in the back of a pickup is a problem here.There was a time in this country when unions were a good thing back when people wern't so educated and informed now it's like a double edge sword they should become a thing in the past. Between them and the DEP is why so much industry has fled this country.Anyway thats the way it appears to me from the outside looking in.

Okrafarmer · November 03, 2012, 07:18:13 PM

I sometimes have up to 4 five-gallon gasoline jugs full in the back of the Toy Yoda. When that is the case, I put them all up against the back of the cab and run a tie-down strap through the handles and ratchet them all up tight to the tie-in points, keeping them from shifting around.

red · November 04, 2012, 07:19:15 AM

still no electric since monday maybe another week Long Gas Lines seems Linden NJ refinery was fooded with salt water and major electric problem . .I hear Wawa stations are getting gas loads every two hours . . people need to stay calm it could have been much worse . .

clww · November 04, 2012, 07:41:48 AM

red-I'm getting worried again. I just watched the weather forecast on FOX News for a probable Nor'easter, with possible snow, too. Colder temperatures for sure. I feel like stealing a gas tanker rig and driving it up there. All I can do is pray for those affected.

red · November 04, 2012, 08:17:10 AM

no worries lol . .we will get thru this . . otherwise Life would be Boring

Sawyerfortyish · November 04, 2012, 08:39:39 AM

Havn't seen the forcast just heard somethings comming.The guy I get my fuel from sent tankers to ohio to bring back gas he told me all the refineries are badly dammaged from the tsunami like tidal surge of 11+ feet that came rushing ashore. The refinery that was in bayone nj was hit so hard the vertical tanks that held fuel are now horrizonal whats left on shore the rest is in the bay.Just had my first gas line experiance yesterday it wasn't that bad took about 20 min in line to get to the entrance.It was very organized they had about 15 pumps and the attendant standing at the entrance would only let one car at a time in each time a pump became available.But I have heard stories of fist fights and arrests and wondered how long before guns showed up in the picture. It didn't take long. Guy got arrested for pulling a gun on someone it was a good thing that there was an off duty sheriff deputy there. He won't have to wait in line no more he can stand in front of the judge by himself.Thats crazy over a few gal of gas.My wife went to get gas she had no problems and was only 20 min in line at another station. she went online and seen they had 17000 gal of reg gas on hand and thats why she went there.

Ron Wenrich · November 07, 2012, 06:39:33 AM

I was in Newark yesterday. Western NJ have areas with poles down and spotty areas without power. There were no gas lines and traffic looked to be normal, which means heavy. The locals told me that some of the rural areas will probably be without power until Thanksgiving.

I was expecting to see large areas of damage, but that wasn't the case from what I saw along the highway. Most of the forested areas withstood the wind pretty well. The worst areas were those that had pine plantations. They were pretty well all snapped off and what was the cause of the localized power outages. Some areas had some minor forest damage, but it wasn't widespread.

The houses that fared the worst were new builds. Shingles and siding being blown off was the major damage. Seems to be an installation problem.

When I got into Newark, it seems that cleanup is still a problem. Trees are still laying in the street in places. You can get through. The cops are really busy directing traffic at the gas stations. Lines had 30-40 cars in them. It was that way in the morning and the evening.

Okrafarmer · November 07, 2012, 08:37:12 AM

Many houses (certainly not all) that have been built in the last ten-15 years have been, shall we say, hastily made. I worked in building trades for 2.5 years a few years ago, and in many cases, the real estate and building competition was so stiff, a lot of things got overlooked and swept under the rug. "Get it up, get it done, get it sold, move on." Usually the companies with the worst reputations for that kind of attitude were the ones to bite the dust when the blow fell in 2008, around here. Those companies folded, leaving the new home-owners with no one to take responsibility for all the problems that have cropped up ever since the for sale sign came down. :

Sawyerfortyish · November 08, 2012, 07:48:10 AM

Well 10 days now and no power. My whole town is still out bank,gen store, 3garages,church( for the first time in over 100 yr has to cancle services)broken pole and down wires laying in front of the door. The school running on generator the fire dept running on generator and my sawmill now running on generator and more than 1000 people with tempers running short want to know whats going on?5 times trucks have come men got out looked at the mess and left.We got a hold of a guy driving an out of state elec company truck and he told us they ran out of everything poles,transformers and stuff to fix everything. I've had people come in for firewood tell me they were told that there power would not likly be restored until after the first of december >:(. Many others have told me at least thanksgiving. Gas has gotten easier to get thanks to the odd and even rationing. But now diesel is getting hard to find.Theres no way of making money when every 4 days it's 70.00 for gas for the generator and the time spent driving to get gas finding a station open and waiting in line. now were looking for diesel too. Only thing to do is try to hang on and hope things inprove soon.

Okrafarmer · November 08, 2012, 09:20:15 AM

Sorry to hear that, Sawyer. I wish there was more I could do to help. :-\

dail_h · November 08, 2012, 07:02:57 PM

We got electric back on mon night. 4 ft wet snow here,,winds were 40 to 60. lot of trees dowm ,,my sawmill shed roof is down on top of bandmill. spent last two days trying to get the snow off so can see how bad damage is .one 60 yr old guy with COPD shoveling 3 ft of wet snow off 16 x 34 roof is slow goin. did get most off the area over sawhead,, but at best is gonna be bad

DanG · November 08, 2012, 08:34:37 PM

Sorry to hear you took a hit, Dail. I hope the damage isn't too bad.

Ron Wenrich · November 09, 2012, 06:27:47 AM

I talked with a guy that used to supply poles to the utilities in that area. Electric companies don't keep poles in inventory like they used to. They expect the suppliers to do that. The big problem is the lack of poles.

I saw groups of about 5 bucket trucks that were parked next to the road on I-78 on Tuesday. There were a couple of them. Don't know where they were going. But, they're still working the area. I only saw one trailerload of poles on the highway.

My client has a propane generator. His supplier couldn't keep up with the demand. He ended up getting a supplier from PA to provide propane. Maybe you can do that with diesel.