Hurricane Irma. Holy Crap

[Flrider]

Family and I are all good. 
Missing roof shingles, screen from pool enclosure and lots of tree debris, took us all of three days with wife, son and daughter helping out to get it all cleared out and to the curb 
Some of the rentals also had roof damage so it will be interesting dealing with the Insurance Companies and contractors in the coming weeks.

I am glad I was able to cover windows, still have to get them off 

Hope everyone else is doing good   

[pocket aces]

Glad to hear everyone is doing well with minimal damage. For me it was just a a lot of small branches and   limbs everywhere. The worst was having no power for 72 hours. Not a big fan or cold showers by candle light before work. No generator but we where prepped and ready. 

[Pappy!]

Finally!
Lost power around 6:30pm last Sunday. Just got it back on at 7:25 tonight - Saturday night!!
No power and no running water. Around 120 hours on the generator. Changed oil in it twice this week. Had to drive and search for gas for it every day. Costing around $36-38/day to run it but worth it for a couple portable fans and fridge to work. Also took it to two neighbors houses to power up their fridges for them.
Good news - No house damage and no windows broken. Minor garage door damage.
Bad news - Trees down everywhere. Oaks down across power lines up and down my neighborhood. We lost two trees and it looked like a bomb went off about a hundred feet above my property with all the big limbs and smaller stuff. Two of us and three full days from around 8am until losing light and we have it pretty well cleaned up again.
All in all we dodged a very big bullet and I knew it when it turned inland a bit. Knew it would break up and lose strength quickly. Thank God it did!

[Valkahuna]

It could have been a lot worse! Still no power, and it will most likely be a couple of more days. However our Honda generator has kept things partially civilized, except for no AC, and the pool is starting to get cloudy.

We spent a couple of days cleaning up, taking plywood off the windows, and MANY hours trying to find gas to keep the generator going. But as said, things could have been much worse. So, once again our Lord blessed us a protected us from what originally appeared to be something barely survivable.

Still dealing with our boat on the St John's river. It looks OK, but since it is floating in a covered boat slip that is flooded, I really can't get to it. Oh well, I am sure all will settle down and this will be one of those "Hurricane Irma survivor stories and memories".

[John Schmidt]

Heard a guy on the radio today used an inverter mounted in his wife's car. Said it was big enough to run the fridge, some lights and a couple fans, plus some small appliances one at a time. At night he unplugged the fridge and plugged in a small window unit to cool the bedroom. Said he left the car idling the entire time, nice and quiet, never over heated. He left the car in the garage and installed a pipe to the exhaust to funnel any fumes outside. Said he ran it that way over two days, was surprised at the small amount of gas used. I looked on line and there's some rather large units available, some big enough to run our a/c and a few other things. Seems a lot of late model pickups come with inverters installed from the factory, worth taking a look I guess. I know that's how I charged my cell phone, backed the car out and let it idle while working in the yard. When I got hot I'd go jump in the car for a few minutes.

[_Sheffjs_]

I just wish there was an easy way to siphon gas out of these new fangled cars to run the gen. 

[Grumpy]

Finally!
Lost power around 6:30pm last Sunday. Just got it back on at 7:25 tonight - Saturday night!!
No power and no running water. Around 120 hours on the generator. Changed oil in it twice this week. Had to drive and search for gas for it every day. Costing around $36-38/day to run it but worth it for a couple portable fans and fridge to work. Also took it to two neighbors houses to power up their fridges for them.
Good news - No house damage and no windows broken. Minor garage door damage.
Bad news - Trees down everywhere. Oaks down across power lines up and down my neighborhood. We lost two trees and it looked like a bomb went off about a hundred feet above my property with all the big limbs and smaller stuff. Two of us and three full days from around 8am until losing light and we have it pretty well cleaned up again.
All in all we dodged a very big bullet and I knew it when it turned inland a bit. Knew it would break up and lose strength quickly. Thank God it did!

Dang, wish you had called me. I have 2-6500 watt gen sets here fueled and ready to go. Even stock piled 25 gallons of gas. Never were used, as our power only dropped out a few times in the height of the storm. I would have gladly brought them up to you.  Guess we were real fortunate, a few blocks from here power is still off.

[Valkahuna]

I just wish there was an easy way to siphon gas out of these new fangled cars to run the gen. 

Man, that's the truth! Neither my truck or the wife's car cooperated. So...I spent a lot of time in lines.

[Pappy!]

Finally!
Lost power around 6:30pm last Sunday. Just got it back on at 7:25 tonight - Saturday night!!
No power and no running water. Around 120 hours on the generator. Changed oil in it twice this week. Had to drive and search for gas for it every day. Costing around $36-38/day to run it but worth it for a couple portable fans and fridge to work. Also took it to two neighbors houses to power up their fridges for them.
Good news - No house damage and no windows broken. Minor garage door damage.
Bad news - Trees down everywhere. Oaks down across power lines up and down my neighborhood. We lost two trees and it looked like a bomb went off about a hundred feet above my property with all the big limbs and smaller stuff. Two of us and three full days from around 8am until losing light and we have it pretty well cleaned up again.
All in all we dodged a very big bullet and I knew it when it turned inland a bit. Knew it would break up and lose strength quickly. Thank God it did!

Dang, wish you had called me. I have 2-6500 watt gen sets here fueled and ready to go. Even stock piled 25 gallons of gas. Never were used, as our power only dropped out a few times in the height of the storm. I would have gladly brought them up to you.  Guess we were real fortunate, a few blocks from here power is still off.

Hell....I would have gladly bought one from you!
After a carb job and new fuel lines last year my old one would not start this year and no time to get parts for it and no guarantee the generator part would run even if I did get it going in time. Scrapped it.
My neighbor had one in a box that a friend of his left in his garage......with dried gas left over from 2004!
Several hours later I had the rust out of the tank, the fuel valve freed up and gum and varnish removed from is as well as shaving down the swollen seal. The fuel line was solid gum....cleaned it. Carb was thick with hard varnish. Got everything clean and fired it up and no output from the generator.  >:(Neighbor is an electrician and he said it was a no go. That was two for two on generators for me.
Day before the storm a friend that works at Lowes called and said they were unloading a shipment of generators and hurry....... Hauled it over there and got one. Generac 5500. There were guys in there buying 3 and 4 of them!

[Jess from VA]

I just wish there was an easy way to siphon gas out of these new fangled cars to run the gen.  

Man, that's the truth! Neither my truck or the wife's car cooperated. So...I spent a lot of time in lines. :'(

I did a bunch of research on this last year, and there are some Utubes (and survival websites) showing how to bypass the anti siphon and/or vent lines in modern gas tanks.  There's even some kits, but I was doubtful of those.  To get past the crap, they use clear aquarium pump tubing which is small enough to fit, and strong enough not to kink shoving it in.  BUT, it only siphons like one gallon an hour (WTF?).  There were a number of variations on this method.  I think in pickups, they siphoned through the tank vent.

Another method was to unhook a fuel (FI) line under the hood, then with (removed) fuses and jumping a relay, somehow tricking the car's fuel pump (ignition on - FI pressure testing circuit) to run constant, and pump it out on battery power (car not running).   See below.

I even went to my local mechanic and asked him if he would devise something that work and be safe.  He said he'd think about it and I haven't been back.  

An ice pick would do it, but that's pretty extreme.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mGeb9s6yFE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfEFA_sVIt8

It's a 100 mi round trip to my closest non corn polluted gas, and I don't drive my car much, and it occurred to me that storing 17 gallons of pure gas in my car gas tank would be the most efficient and safe solution (instead of a bunch of gas cans).   For my generator, and topping up my bikes in winter.  If I could actually get it out (without an ice pick).

[_Sheffjs_]

Well Jess, I best look into it, now Maria is marching towards us! NOAA predicting it to be Major.   

[Thunderbolt]

Pappy on the generator with no output don't throw it out yet.  This might be something that the older ones did but not the newer units but there was something that sticks in the back of my feeble mind about exciting the field with a short between a couple of terminals.  My '72 International Cub tractor has a generator and regulator as opposed to an alternator.  Pretty sure when I changed those components out there was instructions on doing this in the manual.  I know we are talking about two different animals but hopefully it can be resurrected.  As long as the stator and rotor are not open or shorted it should be fixable.

[flsix]

Power is back as of 8:00 last night. 8 1/2 days on the generator was fun.

I lucked out and found a window shaker at Home Depot 2 days before the storm. Between that and the generator I was set. At least as set as one can be in those conditions.

70% of cell towers were down in Collier County. Lack of regular communication was making things difficult at work. Scheduled meetings at 8:00 am and 3:00 pm got the job done.

Everyone stay safe during the clean up phase.

[Pappy!]

Good to finally hear from you! Glad you are okay and know the feeling on the gensets.....that constant day after day drone is a witch with a "B" !
Thought about a small window shaker as well. If Lesa were here I would have gone that route.

[larue]

Glad you finally checked in and that you re ok Jeff. Now cleaning up time. Best of luck

[flsix]

Thanks Larue.