14 hours in Hell, 4 days to Home

Thank Goodness you pulled through with a minimum of damage, and so much suffering for so many. Very riveting ordeal you shared there, and important information too, how we all need to get thinking of what would happen if the power goes out for long time? Are we ready to create some energy? Good will and community is needed too.

Great thread redneck. You are a gifted writer. At first I didn't even realize it was you, the guy who provided so much information about the nuclear plants in Japan. I am thankful that you and your family are safe.

I've lucked out on these storms. Most of them have somehow missed my area. I've had many brushes with storms in the past though. Mother nature is awe inspiring when she shows her sheer power. Once I was caught in RFD from a tornado while I was storm chasing and luckily was able to drive my car up next to a rock face under an overpass to save myself. When you hear the roar, you can't help but be filled with terror. It's even worse when it's knocking at your doorstep. A few years ago I woke to tornado sirens around 8am with water blasting in around my sliding glass door, spraying my living room. I was so confused having just woken up. That was also when I saw my second UFO, or perhaps the rare phenomenon known as "ball lightning." It was quite an event.

Long power outages are awful, but I seem to usually experience them in the winter. I've been through two awful ice storms in the past ten years. Both without power for about a week., both in two different locations. The second one caught me off guard as it hit right after I was coming back from Florida on winter break. I couldn't even make it all the way back down to school as the roads were getting so terrible, but luckily I had some friends at a different college along the way and I hunkered down there and spent that whole night watching "green lightning" fill the sky from all the transformers popping. We cleaned the BBQ and grilled off some of their meat. There really is something about disaster and losing power that brings people together. Even though it was awful, it's still a fond memory for that reason. We had to rely on each other. We each had different jobs. We would also go out on "expeditions" to see the devastation, and being a photographer I documented the whole thing.

Well I hope these storms settle down. It seems early in the year for these storms to be so active. Right now it's downright chilly this morning. My wife swears she saw some sleet yesterday morning mixed in with the rain. Crazy weather. At least there is a break in the rain for now, but we are expected to get more later today. Looks like you guys are in for some more storms so hold on! Also this flooding is getting out of control. But that's a whole other topic! Glad I live on high ground.

All this talk makes me want to rush out and buy some supplies. I keep putting off getting together my bug out bag and all that stuff. Apparently it's more important now than ever to get this stuff taken care of. Summer break will be starting soon. My wife and I have a sizable savings built up now, and she gave me the ok to get some stuff. She is a real level headed lady and even she is starting to get worried about the world!

Is it getting closer to doomsday?i don't know I've been raised a christian but I"ve never really beleived; maybe it is all I can say is here is a song that sums up america. Even if it's not doomsday a lot of people are dying or hurt and need our help
www.youtube.com...

Well Redneck, I was glad to hear that you and your family were ok. I know a lot of people were thinking of you. Here in NB, Canada our thoughts were with you also. I too have many friends who live in Al and in MS, I was thankful that all were ok. God Bless you and your family.

The lack of electricity reminds me when power goes out in general for whatever reason and there's that "strange" silence. No hum of anything electric. You don't realize how much you are used to it until it's gone. I think your story is a lesson in knowledge and preparedness. Thank you for sharing it with us! I wish you and yours the best of luck.

reply to post by TheRedneck


You know, you did an amazing job describing that tree on your shop, and I only wish I could write like that, but, a picture is worth a thousand words.

so get the camera out and let's see some devistation.

I live in the city and the biggest trees that we have around here wouldn't break a dollhouse. sucks. So I have to experience and enjoy sights like trees and mountains through the imagery of writers and photographs.

Thank you.

Oh. and congradulations to your son.

reply to post by antar

Thumper is fine... all of them are fine. Scared silly from a forest falling on them and all the noise from chainsaws and generators, maybe, but otherwise happy to be alive.


reply to post by Expat888

That skill is something anyone can learn, and I believe everyone should learn to some degree. We are so dependent on electricity, yet it never ceases to amaze me how little most people know about it.

As an example: inside that generator, it was developing two different AC current sources, each one out of phase with the other by 180°. When one source is positive 120V, the other is negative 120V and vice versa. Put them together and you get 240VAC power. Typical wiring tends to hide this fact, because it is easy to short the whole mess out if you do it wrong, but in an emergency, when I need 240VAC and all I have are two opposite 120VAC sources, I can combine them to get the power I need.

Any time there is a shortage of anything, the human animal tends to overreact. I saw that first hand at the Home Depot with the shipment of generators and the lack of proper plugs. In a pinch, I could have used the generator to run some 120V equipment for a few minutes to fabricate some makeshift plugs and plugged them in too; at the time, it was a borrowed generator and I wasn't sure how long we would have access to it, and it was actually easier to convert my well pump to 120V temporarily. But the point is, there are always options. That's a large part of what I wanted to get across in this thread: knowledge is something that can keep you functioning, cannot be taken from you, and costs nothing to maintain.


reply to post by loveguy

Yes, we have a Harbor Freight in Huntsville... dirt cheap tools, but then again tools is one area where you get what you pay for. They are pretty good for hand tools like clamps though.

I got my solar cells from All Electronics, a surplus parts company I use a lot. These little jewels were on sale and I would love to have some solar lights in my yard that do more than glow a little.


reply to post by zorgon

Those old low-tech 12V car batteries are pretty awesome things, especially if you get deep-cycle. They hold a wallop of power for long periods, tend to last a few years at least, and hold pretty good output. I have been working on something to power my whole place, and the centerpiece of the whole mess is a 12V lead-acid battery bank.

One trick is getting an inverter large enough to power a house... I'm working on a design based on 50kW, which should be enough to pop the mains if need be. Another trick is I want a pure sine wave, not the square wave or modified sine wave inverter designs. So far the bubba oscillator design seems to be pretty effective for that.


TheRedneck

reply to post by TheRedneck



Thank you for the story it was incredible.It was like i was there,thank you again.
Imagine an entire planet without power.Take away the police,the power,the water,the food and civilization as we know it will disappear.
It makes my skin crawl when i think of this scenario.
Keep your friends close.

WOW, thank you for writing it all down.

When things don't happen to us and our families and friends and all we can do is see disaster on the TV we don't really think about peoples feeling and thoughts. You wrote you thoughts and happenings in a way that hopefully will wake many to what our Earth family suffers and feels when disaster occurs.

I am very happy to hear you and your family and neighbors are ok

I know you didn't write this from the perspective of entertaining us but wow, your harrowing recounting of your experience was fantastic writing. And more importantly, it allowed me to stand in your shoes if just for a moment. Thanks for sharing this. I'm sincerely happy your family has made it through okay.

I gotta' say, after reading your experiences, I'm fully aware of how lacking my grab-and-go bag/survival kit is. The need for electrical power has definitely been underestimated. I do have a small hand-cranked Eton radio/cell charger that I can plug my iPhone into. I was quite surprised to see you had such a persistent (albeit, weak at times) cell connection. It appears that the redundant design of cell towers can pay off in spades in disasters such as tornadoes.

Thanks again for sharing. I really hope your community gets back on their feet as quickly as you fared.

reply to post by burntheships

Not to fear: I was not kidnapped by aliens, probed by the CIA/NSA, abducted to Nibiru for re-training, nor tasered for doing 56 in a 55.

Just a lot of personal waves of misfortune (this tornado outbreak was merely the last wave that hit us), and it took some time for me to get my head screwed back on straight.


reply to post by Schkeptick

It went out of fashion to be able to do real things when it became more convenient to buy them or hire someone else to do them.

I have always hated it when I hear someone say "I am a doctor" or "I am a factory worker" or "I am a truck driver". No, you are a person who happens to make your living doing those things. That was one valuable lesson my father left me with. He worked as a cabinet maker (could perform miracles with a stick of wood), an exterminator, a heavy-duty mechanic, and a carpenter. But he also built our house, our garage (actually his workshop), fenced the place in, cleared land, grew a garden, made his own tractor out of sheet metal, spare parts, and a Briggs & Stratton motor, and generally turned this mass of unusable scrub land into a homestead and mini-farm with his bare hands. During all this he played guitar/mandolin/banjo/fiddle and was a pretty decent artist.

And it's not just the 'city slickers' that have this attitude... it has reached out here as well. I think I am about the only one in this community that still changes his own brakes and oil, does most other auto repairs, does his own plumbing and wiring, and builds his own stuff. That shop I built was not built by a contractor; it was built from the ground up by one old decrepit redneck, his wife, and two young kids. We found ways to do the things we needed to do with what we had available, and to this day those kids still mention how they got to tack down shingles and stain the siding.


reply to post by UnixFE

Welcome to ATS! Sorry to disappear from sight there, but rest assured the Redneck will always be back.

There are just some things that cannot practically be made by hand... wires for example. But give me some old equipment and I can strip the wires form it to do what needs to be done. A computer hulk, for instance, has tons of wire inside that can used in a pinch, from the small data wires that make up the IDE cables to the larger power supply wire. A rusted out car is usually full of heavy-gauge wire, even older models. The trick is to look around you and see what you have available.

For instance, the inverter... I had that old 300W inverter fro back when I drove a truck. It burnt out maybe a week after I bought it because I had it overloaded. I keep stuff like that in case I need a fan or a cord in a pinch. So I found it. the connector was apart, no fuse, and I wasn't sure if this one was the one that completely burnt out on me or not, but I tore some other ones that appeared in rougher shape apart to find a spring to hold the fuse and screws that would hold the housing together again, stole a fuse out of an old Chevy Luv pickup that I am trying to fix, and plugged it in. It worked. If necessary, I had extra fans in those other inverters... they may not have fit exactly, but I'm sure I could have made them give air flow.

Now I'm thinking about building a personal water tower... after all I have a welder, some steel angle, and plenty of plumbing parts around here. And should the power go out again, we would actually have water pressure for a few days. Even if I am able to find alternate power for the well, it might break sometime and I would need a few days to fix it.


reply to post by JohnD

Unclaimed Baggage is still there; Scottsboro seems to have somehow been spared the worst of it. Power has been restored, and everything is open again.

TheRedneck

Very glad to read that you and your family are safe.

Very glad.

Wow man excellent survival story. I'm always happy to hear the stories about the ones who survive. Too much doom and gloom is bad for the soul.

Very glad to hear you are okay and made it through the storms, we have missed you on the other thread.

Those of us in mid-GA got lucky, my parents got lucky (they are 10 miles from Ringgold, which sounds as if it got wiped off the map). Family in Huntsville has bugged out to other areas until power is restored.

They say it comes in 3's, hopefully you are done with those "waves".

reply to post by TheRedneck


Thanks for sharing your story brother, I'm glad you folks got through it safely, Rabbits & all!

Originally posted by TheRedneck
Not to fear: I was not kidnapped by aliens, probed by the CIA/NSA, abducted to Nibiru for re-training, nor tasered for doing 56 in a 55.

Well at least you can laugh about it now We were positive that TEPCO had enslaved you.


A question about water wells... how come no one does like the old Pioneers used to do? No electricity required



It's kinda like cars with electric windows that have no handle. If the motor burns out you don't have a manual override

Originally posted by TheRedneck
Now I'm thinking about building a personal water tower... after all I have a welder, some steel angle, and plenty of plumbing parts around here. And should the power go out again, we would actually have water pressure for a few days. Even if I am able to find alternate power for the well, it might break sometime and I would need a few days to fix it.

Being a Redneck you probably have a fleet of old cars out back Some of those motors could be used to make a backup pump.

As to water tower... when John built one at the Mine... they made a concrete block bunker under it instead of using the normal angle iron for legs. The concrete building served as an emergency food and supplies storage bunker as well and is a lot more wind resistant that the spindly legs with a top heavy tank.

wow, that's some story to tell - glad everyone turned out for the best and thanks for sharing it. valuable lessons learnt i'm sure and a good dry run for what will indeed be a bumpy year.
superb quote from your friend, "We survive together, or we go down together.".

Glad you and your family are ok. Amazing that the bunnies made it. Very little major damage is kewl too. Also glad to hear that you have electricity again. The last time mine was out, it was like 5 days. Totally bites... What sounds like hell, was actually a blessing for your family. You were very fortunate many times over!

Have you experienced any flooding in your area? I remember reading something earlier about the Mississippi undergoing a massive flood.