Power out from Maine to Michigan and may last through Friday!

Ahh.. This might explain some of the quiet around here and I only hope those missing right now are doing well in the areas currently going through this. My thoughts go out to all in the impacted regions for warmth, shelter and a speedy return to services.

LITCHFIELD, Maine (AP) — Some homes and businesses from Maine to Michigan and into Canada that have been without electricity since last weekend's ice may not get their power back for another day — or longer.

Utilities in Michigan reported 105,000 customers without power Thursday morning, while those in Maine reported more than 36,000 and Canada more than 101,000.

One Maine provider is indicated as giving late Friday as the soonest time for full restoration of services...

More snow was forecast Thursday for Maine and parts of Michigan, and frigid temperatures were expected to keep ice from melting off power lines and tree branches, posing new risks for outages.

From 2 to 6 inches of snow could fall in parts of Maine.

Source

What a time to be without power. At least it's snow and not ice. I still have real stress over hearing sleet and rain falling outside with temps in the 32 range. So extensive was the damage for the '07 ice storm in this area, I think everyone who lived it was changed by it.

Thankfully this isn't on that scale. Still, nothing is better to see than the soft falling of snow ..NOT rain. Nothing quite as nice to near than the muffled cottony quality a fresh blanket of solid snow gives the world at first. I'm sure the folks up there will at least be glad that it's now snow, not ice.

Here is hoping crews run ahead of schedule on this one!

Had major ice here in Michigan. Lost power saturday or sunday, just got ours back on Christmas eve.

On our communities Facebook page people with power were offering up their homes and bussiness' for people to stay or charge electronics. Saw people offering up free firewood and delivering it. Was nice to see people come together to help out.

Saw a lot of out of state power company trucks out yesterday, so big thanks to those who left their families on christmas to come help out

tinner07
Saw a lot of out of state power company trucks out yesterday, so big thanks to those who left their families on christmas to come help out

Big thanks for the mileage and triple time.

Having some utility and line workers in my family they look forward to events like this the way school kids look forward to snow days.

Altruism and heroics are nice. Quadrupling your take home that month is nicer.

reply to post by tinner07

On our communities Facebook page people with power were offering up their homes and bussiness' for people to stay or charge electronics. Saw people offering up free firewood and delivering it. Was nice to see people come together to help out.

There are still a few. It always helps to hear it in order to put a bit of faith back for mankind.

tinner07
Had major ice here in Michigan. Lost power saturday or sunday, just got ours back on Christmas eve.

On our communities Facebook page people with power were offering up their homes and bussiness' for people to stay or charge electronics. Saw people offering up free firewood and delivering it. Was nice to see people come together to help out.

Saw a lot of out of state power company trucks out yesterday, so big thanks to those who left their families on christmas to come help out

Agreed on the kindness for out of state people to sacrifice their Holiday for others. As some note, they're paid well for it...but money is far from enough to compensate a lost Christmas from family that can never be replaced, eh?

Heck, I'd have paid them 10x's wages and a gold coin for a tip if it had gotten my power back sooner in '07. Some here were down 10 full days. I'm glad that level of crisis isn't being repeated yet this year.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Ya the ice storms were bad last week, our trees and stuff are still covered in ice, its actually really pretty now but it was a nightmare for some those few nights. My brother in law is a lineman and he just got back yesterday. Here are a few pics I snapped from my cell. This was after the clean up.

These were taken about 4-5 days after the ice storms you can see how much ice there still is.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


of course they are paid well for it as they should be.

I like to think that maybe a few of them do it for the helping others/heroic factor and most do it for a combo of the heroic factor and a heck of a lot of money,

Like Burt Reynolds said in Smokey and the Bandit as to why they are going to do it...
for the honor, for glory and for the money....mostly for the money lol

Remember after Sandy when a lot of the out of state workers got sent home because they weren't union?

I know a lot of the utility workers from out of state mobilize to go help out and, yeah, they get paid for it, but in situations like this and in that one, why on earth would anyone turn down the extra hands? People could be put in jeopardy over not having their power. It's not like modern homes are built based on lack of electricity and heat.

I hope everyone stays warm.

I have about 6 family menbers in Michigans Thumb area still without power and my sisters office over there 9 out of 19 people still are out. Monday it's supposed to get real cold again but above freezing before that. I bought a generator 2 years ago power hasn't flickered since

Since we got prepared and have everything we need for a power outage, we haven't had one. That's like buying an insurance policy and never being able to collect because you have insurance. Maybe we will turn off the power for a week just so we can say we feel better about being prepared.

We were lucky. We only lost it for about 9 hours, and I had made the hubby go get kerosene the night before. Unfortunately, a lot of our neighbors still don't have power. They all have consumers and we don't. We have offered everyone to come over, but most of them are farmers and such, so they have generators and wood burning stoves. Even my mom a couple towns away is being told that it could be Saturday before they get power back.
We did loan our gen to a friend down the road. He has been living in his garage, due to having a woodburner out there.

I did get some beautiful pictures though. Amazing how something that cause so much havoc, can still make it so beautiful.

reply to post by chiefsmom



Sounds like the Thumb area the CO-OP people have power but the big electric company people don't. That big east coast outage about 10 years ago we were the last house on the mile with power and ours never flickered because we had the CO_OP

reply to post by mikell


LOL, yep, that is exactly what we have. And we are pretty much at the end of their lines, or "area" as well. Strange how that works, but I'm happy.

reply to post by chiefsmom


I was south of Mayville on the county line between Lapeer and Tuscola counties. Everybody joked about Thumb Electric but when I sold they gave me nearly a 1k$ rebate

I grew up in Maine so know what the winters are like this is nothing compared to when we would get 50 below temps that would snap power lines and 6 feet of snow in a storm. This is nothing to them. My dad worked for central Maine power for 40 years, and I know what it was like when he would leave for days and go out of State helping others to get their power back on. Many years on Christmas we would have to wait to open our presents until he got home. Sometimes up to a week.

Most folks in Maine, NH, and Vermont all have wood stoves, and know how to rig a small TV to a battery. Shoot that is what I did when I lived in Maine. we had a battery hooked to the TV all the time when that would go dead we would hook up the spare and recharge the good one. As for food, we always had an extra trash can in the spare room to put food in and place it on the closed in back porch. Packed with snow the food would stay good most of the winter. My uncle ken would bury the food years ago under the snow in his fenced in yard so it would stay good. Maine folks know how to live without power.