Low on the Totem Pole

Well some of the worst storms of the past 40 years decided to stop by for a visit starting Thursday night.

I woke up (okay I was already awake) at 5:49 in the morning Friday to a VERY LOUD bang.

BOOM! The power was out.

Grab clothes and run outside to turn the inverter off on the RV (which was plugged into shore power) so we

1. Don't kill the batteries
2. Don't back feed into the grid

At that point hubby is up and outside too and we realize that a neighbor's tree split in half and took out our power line which is resting ON MY CAR! It also blew the transformer for the main street.

Come to find out, it's the neutral line, so no fried vehicle. Just half a redwood tree dangling on the rest of the lines and blocking our end of the cul-de-sac. (I'll have a pic for you tomorrow, maybe who knows)

I tried to go to work, no power means no water (we have a well) and I called in many favors to get a ride. His wife is my director and she was home sick. We get part of the way to work and she calls and says turn around. Her and our dev SVP said get home and stay home (yes Jenn we know you cannot work from home - don't worry about it).

So I'm home in time to see the PG&E guy cutting the tree off of the wires and hubby on the tractor (it's still pouring rain people) pulling everything out of the way. They get the transformer back up and power to the main street (there is an assisted living home on the corner- they rightly have priority)

We set up in the RV and just wait out the afternoon. Then we decide to plug the fridge in so we don't lose the food.

Saturday dawned to more rain and a downed fence along the back of the property. Sigh. We get the furnace in the house and the fish tank hooked up to the rig generator as well as the main server for hubby's business.

We are definitely running the rig at full load and it's being a trooper. Hubby figured out a way to back feed water into the house so we could refill the toilets as needed, but that's it for water in the house. Hot water ain't happening in the house. Again thank goodness for the rig. It is truly our Ark right now.

There are about 400 reported outages in the greater Sonoma County area right now and we figure we are number 398 on the list. No one is going to push to get a line crew out for two houses. Regardless of the fact that it's two houses, four people (our neighbors are piggy backing off of the neighbor whose tree brought about the damage - yeah HE still has power), 7 dogs, about 12 cats and assorted farm animals.

If this goes on much longer I'll probably have a lovely case of cabin fever.

A friend is letting me do laundry and borrow his internet today.

Be warm and dry.