May storms in June

[Kilgore47]

Last Thursday night we had a strong storm blow through and it knocked out the power. It didn't just knock out the power - the entire town is out.  The town north of us and the town south of us.  They're telling us it could be another four or five days before the power is back on.  The storm destroyed a transformer station South of town. Around us lines are twisted and poles are down.  For many years friends have given me a hard time for having three generators. They're using those generators now. The one I have is running the refrigerator, several fans, a couple of lights and a small AC. The 6000 watt generator I bought 15 years ago is pulling the load with no problem.  It has a 5 gallon tank and runs for almost 12 hours.  Kind of expensive to run but well worth it.  No damage to the property. Just a lot of limbs down.

[Plymouthy Adams]

sorry to hear that, with the trees on my property I am always most nervous on storms with strong winds.  When I first moved here I brought my generator with me as I was coming from hurricane country.   Seems like monthly I was using the generator.  They have since been pretty much on top of keeping right of ways cleared beneath the lines and power is a lot more stable.  But I keep the generator and a bit of fuel on hand as is prudent.  Last two outages was lightening strike on tree that came down on the power line shorting it out.  The time before, big ole snake shorted out the transformer station just up the road.  Crew had a hot meal while the transformer was being toted to them.

[soth122003]

Thanks for sending them this way Kilgore47. The storms that hit you are currently pummeling our area. The saving grace is they are moving pretty fast. Like you and Plymouthy, I also have a generator bought in 2005 for the hurricanes that sometimes visit our area. Once a year pull it out and run it for about 20 minutes with a load to make sure it works as a just in case we lose power. add stabil to the gas, then shut off the fuel petcock and run the gen out of gas so the carb doesn't gunk up while setting. Starts on the first pull every time I do this. Luckily we didn't lose power, but if we did I am ready for it.

 

Had birthday/Fathers day (me and my son in law have a birthday 3 days apart) reservations yesterday in Destin Fl. about 15 miles away (my daughter set it up). Just as we left, the bottom dropped out of the sky. It took over an hour to get there and then an hour to get back a few hours later because, Saturday in Destin during summer. All the tourists in Destin at dinner time. The storms dropped visibility to about 1 mile then the rain dropped it to yards. Have I mentioned I hate going to Destin on the weekends, especially during the summer? During heavy storms? With the lightning banging around like the wrath of God? Then the place I picked because it was the only one that had Bread pudding on the menu, ran out the night before. While I will say getting there and back sucked, the dinner with my family was nice. 

 

I talk to my dad about this regularly, but have you noticed the increase in traffic at all times during the day and evening on roads that were once only busy during the morning and afternoon work times? Seems like everyone has to go somewhere all the time for no apparent reason at all. Now add in the storms and you get gridlock, in a small town no less. The one good thing about the storms (beside needing the rain) was I have 2 250 gallon totes that Mama uses to water her gardens that were completely empty on Thursday. Last night they were completely full. 500 gallons of water in 2 days? I can live with that. Okay, done with the rant for now. Wait a moment.... Oh yeah, GET OFF MY LAWN and SLOW DOWN THER"S KIDS AROUND HERE! .... OK done now.

 

Joe Lee

 

 

[kencombs]

We had a 13 hour outage, ended about 4 hours ago.   Lots of broken poles, downed lines etc.  City just finished a big tree trimming contract or it would have been much worse.  80-90MPH straight wind foran hour or so as the system passed.  

[Kilgore47]

Good news.  The power just came back on. 4 days earlier than they thought it would be back on.  A big thanks to all the people that were out here working 24 hours a day to get that done.  

 

Bad news is that the only fuel I could find this morning was corn gas. I normally use ethanol-free fuel for the 47 Plymouth the old Jeep the lawn mower and the generator. But I had to take what I could get.  There was only one place with power this morning and they were running on generators. I'll use it up in the daily driver

[soth122003]

I use the corn gas in everything. The cost of regular gas is about a dollar more a gallon. But that being said I use Stabil in the gas tanks of things that don't get much use monthly. Seems to keep the gas good for a good while. One of the things I did worry about was having enough gas on hand to outlast a power outage. Enter my RV. Used for GTFODdge from hurricanes, it has a tank capacity of 60 gallons. I need to take a trip in it as the gas is almost 2 years old, but with the Stabil x2 the gas is still good. 

 

Joe Lee

[Kilgore47]

I have Stabil in the shop but I wonder how long that will make the gas last.  The Jeep and the 47 only get driven about 300 miles a year each.  Fifteen or twenty dollars each a year.  Not enough to worry about.  Got the Jeep 10 years ago and have only put about 3000 miles on it.  I used ethanol gas for many years with Stabil and then a new station opened close by selling ethanol free so I made the switch.  The Jeep - well it's old and wore out and I can't really tell the difference with the ethanol free but the 47 P15 definitely runs better with ethanol free.

[SteveR]

On 6/18/2023 at 7:20 PM, soth122003 said:

Had birthday/Fathers day (me and my son in law have a birthday 3 days apart)

When I met my wife in 1992 she had 2 girls ages 6 & 4. After dating Sherry for a while I asked her girls birthdays. She said March 20 & and the other the 22nd. This struck me and I said do you know my birthday? Sherry replied she had no way of knowing it. I said it's March 21. So now we have 3 birthdays in a row, March 20,21,& 22. The oldest daughter married a wonderful man. His birthday is March 23. March is an expensive Month. Actually, those 4 days are expensive.

[Sniper]

I run E10 in everything too.  But for my small engine stuff I run them dry when I am done and do not leave gas in them.  If I forget I usually end up having to pull the carb and clean them out, 

[Kilgore47]

13 hours ago, Sniper said:

But for my small engine stuff I run them dry when I am done and do not leave gas in them

Yep - that's the secrete.  Run it dry.  When it dies pull the choke and start it again to get that last few seconds of run time out of the carb.  Growing up we always ran the gas out of the boat motors when done.  Learned that one the hard way.