The Flying Penguin wrote on Oct 13, 2024, 11:43:
Not sure if I checked in yesterday, but we got power and Internet back late Friday. Internet is the suck, though. Comcast is giving me some major packet loss. I have a couple of bad hops on my trace route.

It's good enough for browsing, but for gaming, remote desktop, or Zoom calls, I'm relying on my T-Mobile hot spot.

First time in the 7 years we've owned it, that the whole house generator was actually needed, and it was a blessing. Up until now the longest outage we've had was 3 hours while they replaced a transformer. I at least now know that I can run it continuously for at least 5 days, assuming our 500 gal propane tank is full.

I have learned a lesson though: I always tank up in late May right before hurricane season. Trouble is, most of our bad hurricanes are late in the season like this one, and my tank was down to 65% (we use propane for the stove, on demand hot water heaters, and dryer - the dryer uses a lot of fuel). Starting next year I'm going to top off the tank in late May and again in late September.

God Bless the propane company. They showed up to refill the tank yesterday. Pleasant surprise: The price of wholesale propane has come down a lot since May. I was expecting a whopper of a bill.

Some interesting observations: Unlike previous storms, almost everyone seemed to have a generator this year, and good for them. Our town setup small generators at all the major intersections to run the traffic lights. Very nice! Once again I am thankful to be on a well instead of city water. Couple of people I know are on small water utilities, and they stopped pumping when the power died. Even on the old house next door, without a whole house genny, I had long since setup a system to easily tie in a portable genny to the main panel so we didn't have to run extensions, and the well pump could get power. I still had to set that up this time for the tenant who lives in that house, and he was thankful.