BIG storms Michigan

[coobie]

Big storms in Michigan last few days around 800,000 without power.Still have power here in my location but tree damage.

 

[Thomas]

That's lot of extra work was plan on.

 

[coobie]

That's lot of extra work was plan on.

Thank god for chain saws and tractor with front end loader..My woods south of the house is a nightmare with trees down..

 

[MoKelly]

Wow. Looks like the house was spared. Thank goodness.

Hope all goes well with clean-up.

MoKelly

 

[bigtiller]

Our weatherman said you could have 50 to 70 mph winds. Is that about what they were? It missed us by 200 miles.

Tuesday was one year to the day of the derecho that hit us.

 

[TractorGuy]

Bummer! Glad you are okay and the house was sparred.

We have Fred coming our way. They think it will just build back to TS strength but you never know.

 

[milkman636]

That may have been the best lightening storm I have ever seen. The first lightening showed up around 8:30 PM in the distance and gradually built as the rains came. Around 12:30 AM at my place there was a constant barrage of intense flashes and booms that lasted about 30 minutes. A few were close enough that the thunder claps seemed instantaneous and things in the house were rattling. We only lost power briefly after a strike in the woods behind the house. Everything in the house went black and silent for a minute or two, and then came back on. While it was off, I just stood there in awe, staring out the family room windows at the continuous strobing light from all the lightening. The only thing I found afterwards that wouldn’t work was a motion detector on the floodlights mounted to the garage. When the power came back on all the lights on the garage came on and stayed on. They stayed on until I turned them off a few hours later. I’m thankful that and an apple tree are the only apparent casualties at my place.

 

[deezler]

Yeah it was hard to stay asleep for long on Wednesday night in the southeast corner of the state. I didn't look at a clock, but it must have been at least a full hour of constant lightning, with several local strikes. And torrential downpour.... we got 3.5" of rain in a hurry. Then when I dragged out of bed at 7am, another windy storm hit! A couple dead trees fell into my yard, got some sawing to do also. Need to get my tractor front axle bearings replaced tonight so I can haul the logs.

Our power went out in the windy first storm on Wednesday afternoon. Got it back yesterday around 5:15, thankfully. Still around 550k folks out just in DTE's southeast area alone.

I am a bit surprised at how basic 55-65 mph gusts can bring down our entire area grid, with some 20k distinct outages. Poor maintenance? weak wires? or just bad luck.

 

[sandman2234]

The Old Grind was without power for quite a while. I haven't heard if his has been restored.
David from jax

 

[lman]

Trees in the electric lines is what causes our outages. They are replacing many of our lines with heavier cable that won't break when smaller limbs fall on them.

 

[oldballs]

Same here in East Central Kansas....last night......a long display of thunder & lightening..........and 7.1 inches of rain so far at my place. Just some small limbs down however.

 

[cqaigy2]

Co-worker's son lives in Minnesota. The basement of their apartment building flooded and drown the electrical. They expect to be without power for two weeks, maybe more.

 

[sandman2234]

Trees in the electric lines is what causes our outages. They are replacing many of our lines with heavier cable that won't break when smaller limbs fall on them.

Sounds interesting, but wouldn't it work better to keep the trees trimmed in the close proximity of the power lines, since small limbs tend to grow to larger limbs? When a whole tree falls, the size of the cable probably won't matter, but how far it rips down power poles increases as the size of the conductor increases.
My thoughts on why they are increasing the size of the conductor may be more to do with demand and future demand than how big of limb it will prevent from breaking the cable.
David from jax

 

[arto98607]

Big storms in Michigan last few days around 800,000 without power.Still have power here in my location but tree damage.

You were lucky!

Wouldn't it be wise to plan ahead and remove any & all trees that could hit the house or a shop next time?

By our state law homeowner can do so - no questions asked.

Or so I have been told by a prof. logger - who knows how accurate that is, I just went ahead 20 years ago and did it.
Time to redo couple of small areas.

 

[coobie]

You were lucky!

Wouldn't it be wise to plan ahead and remove any & all trees that could hit the house or a shop next time?

By our state law homeowner can do so - no questions asked.

Or so I have been told by a prof. logger - who knows how accurate that is, I just went ahead 20 years ago and did it.
Time to redo couple of small areas.

Now thats funny.Being a retired tree trimmer and electric lineman I did plan ahead many years in fact.But when 80-90 ft trees fall(after living here 30 plus years) and still miss the house by 10ft.I feel we did plan ahead.

 

[arto98607]

Good for you, no problem.
By the photo it first looked like it could have hit the house if it had gone the other way, but I see now what you mean.

 

[coobie]

Good for you, no problem.
By the photo it first looked like it could have hit the house if it had gone the other way, but I see now what you mean.

Play for the wind I say..

 

[shooterdon]

I know a guy who works for the power company. He tells me tree trimming is way down to save money.

We were spared the worst of it. One limb nearly hit one of the trucks.

 

[cqaigy2]

Sounds interesting, but wouldn't it work better to keep the trees trimmed in the close proximity of the power lines, since small limbs tend to grow to larger limbs? When a whole tree falls, the size of the cable probably won't matter, but how far it rips down power poles increases as the size of the conductor increases.
My thoughts on why they are increasing the size of the conductor may be more to do with demand and future demand than how big of limb it will prevent from breaking the cable.
David from jax

They did similar here with the larger conductors and some kind of (technical term) slack springy thing. Trees hit the wire, it gives some, but doesn't break. Trips the circuit breaker, they cut it off and turn the power back one. Repeat as necessary.

 

[civilian]

I know a guy who works for the power company. He tells me tree trimming is way down to save money.

We were spared the worst of it. One limb nearly hit one of the trucks.

No problems around us in Vanderbilt. Wind and just over an inch of rain in an hour. Jon