So we had a Nor'easter come through last Friday that left us without power, phone, or internet from Friday at 9:15AM (That was the last reading from my weather station) until Sunday somewhere between 9PM, when we returned home and fired up the generator, and 11:30PM, when I shut down the generator and found that power had been restored.
Internet came back at 7:38AM this morning when weather station posted it's first reading since Friday.
We live in the heart of the mountains and high winds aren't that uncommon. We tend to be use to the "freight train" coming down the valley. This time it was the worse we have seen in a while. Power outages are also something we have adapted to as we loose it 5-6 times a year, usually just a day or less. We have a generator and usually have enough gas on hand to get us through a day or so. In the summer it is just more of an inconvenience and we just fire the generator up at night for some light and fill up the water tank to flush the toilets. Winter is a little bit rougher as we need to keep warm and not let the house freeze up. Although we have woodstoves in the house if it gets really cold, it is still easier to fire up the generator to allow the hot water from the outdoor wood furnace to circulate to the house. Fortunately it wasn't extremely cold so we could get 6-7 hours without power and the house was still comfortable. Since we don't have cell phone coverage at our house, we end up driving a couple miles down the road to get just enough around the mountain for coverage. It is quite common the find multiple cars stopped at "the spot" making calls.
This was probably the worst storm we have seen since the ice storm of 1996 when we where 6 days without power.
We had 8 trees come down on our property and only one uprooted, the others all snapped off. We were fortunate that nothing hit our house though the top of one came within 3 feet. I was not so luck with my bee truck though, a tree fell on it and smashed the windshield, in fact one of the branches actually punctured right through. I haven't assessed all the damage yet, but I think most of the dents can be straightened out and will just need a new windshield.
The wind actually blew my neighbors metal furniture off their front porch but it is no worse for the wear, even the glass from the table ended up in the yard but did not break.
They did however loose a good swatch of shingles off the roof.
All in all we feel extremely blessed as we faired really well compared to the devastation that others have seen. It is just a minor set back for us and our prayers and thoughts go out to the others that have had their lives forever changed.
