Viewing post #863540 by plantladylin

It has been a very frightening sight to see the t.v. news coverage and to know what folks are having to go through in the areas affected by the tornado's and floods. I do hope y'all get electric power back real soon!

It's disconcerting when power poles are down everywhere and you don't know for sure if the electric company has managed to shut the power off completely or if by chance some of the lines still have live wires. I never thought of it until August/September 2004 when we had hurricane's Charley, Frances and Jeanne come through here all within a couple of weeks of each other. I don't remember which storm caused us to lose power for a week but a couple of days afterward a police officer drove around our neighborhood telling us to be very careful when we were outside because some of the downed power lines still had live wires! We bought a portable generator after those storms but we haven't needed to use it yet and we've discussed spending the money to have one of those full house generators installed but for now we are sticking with the portable model. It's miserable being without electricity when temp's are climbing into the upper 80's and higher. You can always cook on the grill and if you have a swimming pool that helps too. We used the pool for bathing and a bucket to get water from the pool for flushing the toilets. Being without power for a couple of days sure makes you appreciate having electricity! My sister and her husband bought a portable window AC for their bedroom after a power outage due to a hurricane years ago ... she said it was wonderful to have one cool room for them and the dogs!