Winter storm January 2009 in the Midwest.

dacjohns

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How is everyone in the affected area; Kentucky, Southern Illinois, Arkansas, Missouri, and other areas doing?

If I left an area out chime in here.

When you come back to civilization how did you cope with the disaster?
 

hoosier

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We were fortunate that we did not lose power. (We were prepared with a generator and wood for the stove.)
Our only inconvenience was that we were unable to leave our place for four days when we finally found someone to plow our driveway.
 

rebecca100

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I am repeating myself, but I guess we did pretty well on being prepared. We lost a bunch of trees and down lines everywhere. We lost electricity and water for 3 days. Now we are under a boil order. We have a 1 ton 4 wheel drive and saws so we were able to get out with no problem. We also have a generator, wood stove, propane cookstove, etc. Anyway, we survived okay. Compared to our all electric neighbors, we were living the good life!
 

PamsPride

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Here in NE Ohio we only ended up with two foot of snow. That is more than we ever remember having at one time since we bought this house 10 years ago. Thankfully we only got a little bit of ice. The worst of it was the day I came home from the hospital. The road crews were NOT out plowing or salting! It took me and my brother 2 1/2 hours to get home which normal would have taken 45 minutes and he had four wheel drive.
 

Homesteadmom

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Glad everyone is doing well, I heard on the news that over 1mil people were without power from this storm.

Just a question why do they not bury elec lines in the midwest & back east with all the ice problems? Our lines are buried here where we live in the desert & it just seems to make sense to me. I know they don't bury them in hurricane areas either.
Just wondering.
 

hoosier

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They don't bury them because it costs more at the time. It seems to me that it would be cheaper in the long run, but too many businesses don't think long term.
 

Homesteadmom

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It would save more in the long run because they wouldn't have to replace them every year when the ice storms hit. Plus you wouldn't have all the people without power & freezing to death. Lots of reasons to bury them & save everyone hassles. Not to mention it is so much nicer to not see elec lines running every where here.
 

PamsPride

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Homesteadmom said:
Glad everyone is doing well, I heard on the news that over 1mil people were without power from this storm.

Just a question why do they not bury elec lines in the midwest & back east with all the ice problems? Our lines are buried here where we live in the desert & it just seems to make sense to me. I know they don't bury them in hurricane areas either.
Just wondering.
At least one company has to have job security!! LOL! If they did not have to go out and repair lines all the time they would not have a job...and then pass all of the overtime charges onto us in our ever increasing electric bills!
 

FarmerChick

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I asked Duke Power people when here putting up a new power pole why they don't buy lines?

He said it is STILL CHEAPER to keep the existing lines in tact and fix them as they go down. To replace existing and bury lines is more expensive then just fixing the old.

Hmm...interesting.

But he said new lines that go to new areas are buried now.....but anything above ground just stays and gets fixed. Their network of lines above ground is so intense it is "cheaper to keep her"--LOL
 
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