April 22, 2022

My Almost Daily Journal-Huge Snowstorm Hits NY State Causing Major Power Outages

Volume 31-An Awesome Storm, However We Were Without Power For 60 Hours-Many Lessons Learned

Welcome back. It sounds like a broken record. More snow. It just won’t let up. An awesome storm but with a price to pay.

Our family enjoyed a great Easter, I hope yours did also. However, on Easter Sunday, a Winter Storm Watch was issued for heavy snow Monday night. Say What? We were hoping it wouldn’t develop and somehow fizzle out. By Tuesday morning we had a foot of heavy wet snow and to make things worse, major power outages in our county and surrounding counties here in Central NY State.

Getting a foot of snow normally isn’t that big a deal here. We had a least one storm this big during the Winter. As you know, I am normally a fan of Winter as I love to cross-country ski. This time, however, since it was so late in the season, the snow was extremally wet and heavy. It clung to the trees like glue and caused branches and trees and power poles to snap like toothpicks. In our county, about 60 percent of the customers were without power!

Setting Up the Generator

I’m so thankful we have a generator. We bought it back in October of 2012 when Superstorm Sandy was forecast to hit. Luckily, that storm ended up being not too bad for us. The power stayed on.

Over the years we rarely used the generator. The power never went off for more than a couple of hours since we have lived in this house, since 1992. But this time was different. It was for real.

Even though it snowed and was relatively cold, thankfully this didn’t happen during the bitter cold of Winter. The furnace did still need to be run, however. Thankfully, our generator was able to run the furnace, the refrigerator/freezer, and the chest freezer in the cellar. Also, a few lights and even the TV and router. Do you notice anything major missing?

If you guessed water you are the winner! The generator does not produce the 220 Volts needed to run the deep well pump. Luckily, on Monday night I drew about 40 gallons of water in pails and totes to use for flushing toilets. Normally this is more than adequate for a brief power outage. This time we began to run out. So I put the snow to good use. Yup, you guessed it. We had to melt snow. We also bought some water here and there.

Also, since the power was off so long, we had to ration the propane used to run the generator. Run for an hour, off for about 3 to 4. Around the clock. This meant running the generator around 2 AM during the night for an hour, then again about 7 AM.

This went on from 8 AM Tuesday until 3 PM Thursday. Such a great feeling when the power came back on! Halleluiah!!

Lessons Learned

Overall, we were fortunate. We stayed warm, and all of our food was saved. And we even to got to watch a little TV. I would suggest to those of you who do not have a generator to buy one if you can. I am sure glad we had one. In this part of the country, it is critical in the Winter to be able to keep your home from freezing. The most important item. Anything else you can do with the generator is an added bonus.

If you can’t afford a generator, I would suggest you have some other means to heat your house. Perhaps a wood stove, fireplace (wood or gas), or pellet stove. As long as any of these don’t require electricity to run.

Unfortunately, with climate change, more and more severe weather is taking place, so we need to be prepared the best we can. In the scheme of things, losing power is probably one of the least harmful things that can happen, as compared with tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, and hurricanes. It’s always good to prepare the best we can for each of these.

Come Join Me on Ko-fi

For those of you who follow my articles, you probably noticed that I have been experimenting with Ko-fi. It is an interesting platform where you can post photos, videos, blog entries and more. The platform itself does not pay writers for content, however, it does allow for readers to “donate” money to writers/content creators. To me it seems that it would be difficult to get readers to donate, but time will tell. I don’t want to ask for money, that’s just not me. But I guess it would be fun to help other writers who in turn may help me.

There is another feature of Ko-fi that drew me to join the platform The “store” feature. That’s right, you can set up your own store and sell merchandise, either digital or physical. You can offer photos, book chapters, or even customized coffee mugs. For some reason, this sounded exciting to me. So I decided to give it a try. I am just starting out so it will take time for me to get things set up. I would appreciate if you take a look, however, to see what you think.

To visit my Ko-fi page, here is the link:

Here you will find a few articles I have posted, and a short video of my ducks. The articles are exclusive to Ko-fi and there is information on additional heirloom tomatoes I planted and the progress on my Hügelkultur garden bed.

Also, I have added a few items to my store. I have one photo, a customized notebook and a mouse pad. Customized with bird photos. I will be adding more content and merchandise as time goes on. Just to see what happens. We shall see how it goes. I would appreciate if you followed me on Ko-fi. To go directly to my store:

Stay tuned for more updates and journal entries.