Double Red Alert!!

[dr_phil_physics]

12:13 5:51am

I was puttering and watching things late, as is typical, and went to bed around 3am. Woke up to see the clock blinking 12:13. Huh. Power was either out or glitched due to the ice storm overnight. Got up to use the bathroom and just as I was about to crack open the window to hear if our generator was on, I heard the neighbor manually start his -- I assumed our Kohler 12kW generator had come on automatically.

Went out to living room to grab my watch and figure out what the time was. Calculated that the power went out at 5:35am. Of course, there was the annoyance of a First World problem. Behind the cube with the TV is an old uninterruptible power supply strip whose battery has gone. Periodically it let's us know by rapidly beeping for sixty seconds. Now it was just continuously singing. As I wasn't going to reach behind there in the middle of the night to silence the alarm, I went back to bed. By the time you get to the bedroom, you couldn't hear it, especially with the thrum of the neighbor's generator.

10:12

Definitely double red lights on the transfer switch in the garage -- generator purring away outside coming up in six hours now. Consumers Energy reports:

An outage for your location has been reported. We are currently in the process of evaluating your situations. An estimated restoration time is not available. Estimated restoration times are updated regularly as we get better information. Please check back for the most current estimate.

We currently do not have an estimation of when service will be restored.

Of course with the UPS power strip not providing uninterruptible power, once we got up and abandoned the heavy blankets and quilts of the warm and comfy bed, I had to reset the VCR after Mrs. Dr. Phil cycled the switch. She had attempted to go out and see if the Sunday paper had been delivered, but the icy coating made it difficult -- she had grabbed one of my canes but the broad rubber tip made a lousy traction point -- and turned around right where the 240 foot driveway goes into the trees. It would have been annoying to get out to the road only to find it hadn't come yet anyway.

Meanwhile, The Weather Channel people are practically wetting themselves with weathergasms from Winter Storm Ginormous (Gemini). Apparently we have shifted from having an ice event to having a snow event. Ooops, forgot to capitalize those words to make it sound More Dramatic. And how ominous is it when they go to do the Local Weather On The Eights for nearby Grand Haven and... it's blank?

Sugar Frosted Flakeage

The rain/ice has shifted to snow now, coming down pretty good. The pines are all heavily flocked, though the branches aren't too weighed down right now. If the events had missed us, we might have planned on going to see Saving Mr. Banks in Holland this afternoon. Otherwise we have nowhere to go til Tuesday.

With the passing of the winter solstice, we're still seeing a lot of weather nationwide. The current storm system which is bringing rain and ice and snow here and New England, stretched from -26°F in Bismarck to +70°F in Newark, and heavy thunderstorms by my mom in Greensboro NC, with December tornadoes in Arkansas and Louisiana for good measure.

I sure due hope that the weather gods get this out of their system by January 6th. We don't have a good place here to sacrifice an ox or something like that. Best we can do is a couple of little Cornish hens come Christmas. (yum-grin)

Wherever you are in the world, even if you have to suffer in sunny Perth with highs of 33°C, be safe.

Dr. Phil