Nature Strikes Again

[xpatUSA]

Round here we have clay under the sandy soil coupled with country dirt roads. So a good bit of rain quickly causes flash floods across the only road out of here. So it was, the night before last, with torrential rain for about 7 hours. The power has been off for over a day. Although I have an 8000W generator for such events, please do not ask why my gas (petrol) can was empty

So here's the heart-warming story so far:

Fields:



Road:



Power plan 1:



That marine battery is heavy for this old man, lugging it in and out, to charge up off the truck with jump leads, is no fun.

Since the Jeep had a full tank of diesel, we went to plan 2:





C&C for the pics not invited

[Ziggy]

Seven hours of torrential rain! That's a lot of water. Hope all works out.

[rpcrowe]

My family lives in Georgetown, Texas and my wife just finished a phone call from her sister about the heavy rain...

Since we seldom have rain when our electricity goes off (which is usually mid-day in the heat of the summer) my solar panel helps me. Although I usually generate electricity into the grid and draw from the grid; if the electric grid goes down, I can isolate my system from the grid. I then have two 1,500 watt a/c receptacles which give me power generated from my solar panels separately from the grid. This would allow me to run my refrigerator and freezer during the day as well as keeping my cell phones and other battery operated devices charged...

If I keep the fridge and freezer going during the day and don't open them at night - they pretty well could keep cold indefinitely... Thankfully, our power outages are usually of a short duration...

[xpatUSA]

Power came on today. So I've been able shut down the trusty Jeep/300W generator combo.

Apparently, our sub-station in Bellville was flooded (low location), preventing access by the Cooperative.

Your Solar system sounds great. Mine is just a double-panel thingy, made in a far-off land of course. More of an experiment than serious back-up.

And the $300 Marine 68 A-h battery is pretty good but needs two charges for an evening's viewing 'cos it has to power the satellite Dish modem too. Had to go steal the lawn tractor battery while charging the other one, that ran about 20 minutes before the inverter went beep.

Thinking about getting a modified sine-wave inverter just for non-electronic stuff. My 300W Samlex wouldn't start the fridge, just sat there and beeped at me.

Also thinking of keeping gas for the 8000W generator instead of using it for the mower

[IzzieK]

Man o man! what an ordeal...and everyday, we were trying to watch for the purported torrential rains and thunderstorms here coming from Texas but it barely hit us. Oh and it did during some nights and tomorrow will be a better day the more rains for the rest of the week...I am just glad you and your family are ok...

[DickyOZ]

I've just seen the reports on our news in Aus, my thoughts and prayers are with all those affected.

[rankin]

I enjoy looking at these amazing pictures.