All you lucky people who could post during the storm....

My 2 exchange students (who had never seen much, if any, snow) brought a 3rd home Thursday evening as a snow day was expected. We got it as well as a loss of power. My wireless modem requires power to work and there was none of that. My stone house has very good insulation we put in when we bought it and again after the fire...

With a wood stove in the kitchen, gas stove I can start with a match, and good humor we managed 36 or so hours of no power. Temp in the house proper got down to 57 last I looked, and Saturday was warm and sunny. They were saying 4 days, then 2 days and then here came the trucks! I told them my pole had wires dangling. They fixed the guy wires but neglected to see that the neutral was hanging loose and powered up the neighborhood.

The smell was immediate. I was looking for fire in the walls and Sinan (my Turkish kid) was trying to find the source of the smell upstairs (it was pretty much all over) and we found the attic full of smoke. While I was looking in the kneewall space the TV began to smoke. I turned on the bathroom light and it was WAY too bright, which clued me in to what was happening. By the time I was all powered down (forgot about the 200amp main just below the meter) I had lost the TV, the laser printer, the micro-convection oven, 2 refrigerators, a computer (there isn't a surge protector in the world that can handle a steady 200 volts for 5 minutes), said surge protector, the portable phone set, the modem, and more. Almost lost Fabio when he touched a switch and it bit him. Very scary. And the power company says it won't pay my deductible. I say it will.

The trees were fabulous, and the boys had a wonderful time. Actually it was all great (playing hearts by candlelight 'til 1:30 am!) until the power came back on. And I was driving through my little town on my way home Saturday night (not expecting to get my service back til Monday) and saw every truck in eastern Vermont at a restaurant (in a town of 1100). I asked them if I could get my neutral fixed and a crew came down when they were done with dinner. Had my power back at 11:15 Saturday! I did feel very blessed there as I had work to do for the Sunday service and needed my computer to make it easier. But I now must replace appliances and so on. But my new modem got here yesterday so I am back!

Whew!

Hope everyone else is doing better. Vermont was down to fewer than 2000 people without electricity this morning. And now real snow. Yes!

CamiSu

Why won't this post?!!!!