Seven years to the day... Isaac expected to make landfall on August 29. Hopefully it will stay small.

Stay dry down there, Scott.

I was thinking of you this morning when I heard the latest forecast. Good luck. Thoughts and prayers.

Same here - just reading the anticipated landing and thinking of you and your family. Sending dry thoughts your way!

Thanks everyone. It's still not well defined, but being closer to a trop storm means lots of rain - sideways, wind-driven rain. This one is a relatively small storm so we're staying put. We've stayed through a Cat 3 before without issue. In the 12 years we've lived here Katrina is the only storm we evacuated for.

Stay tuned...

Can you set up a webcam for us or something?

Be safe.

Stay high and dry, Scott. I am sure it will be a long night.

We're being as safe as we can for staying put. And now it is officially a hurricane, which means that insurance deductibles go from $1000-2000 to 2-4% of the policy limits - the range depending on the ins co.

I'd love to have a web cam hooked up to a long run DVR, if for no other reason than to document what came first - the chicken (wind) or the egg (water) - for insurance purposes. I've been looking into security camera systems, just haven't made the decision yet to purchase.

Can you not tap into the secret camera Mark set up on the side of your house to watch 'bead transactions' during Mardi Gras?

All my best wishes for you and your families safety, Scott.

I'll be thinking of you, with fingers crossed, hoping for the best.

Ditto!

Also hoping for the best.

That looks to be some awful rainfall.

I hope you and your family stay safe, Scott.

You aren't kidding, sideways rain.

Stay safe bud!

We're all safe. We lost power ~5am on the 29th. We were able to borrow a generator from a neighbor around 6 PM. That's when the water started rising! Once the storm moved north of us and the wind direction changed, the water started coming up and fast. We had less than a foot (vertical) left before it would have come into the house. The water peaked and started receeding around 7am on the 30th. We were land locked until this morning and power was still out when I left for work.
We have a long weekend of cleanup ahead...

But importantly, you're safe! Good news!

Been thinking about/worried about you the last few days. So glad to hear that your house was not flooded.

More importantly, Geaux Tigers!

Thanks for the update, Scott. Glad to hear you dodged a bullet.

Thanks all. I'll try to get some pics uploaded when I get a chance (and once I've got power and internet again). It wasn't all doom and gloom - there were some light-hearted moments, too, like... pizza "baked" on the BBQ; hurricanes on the front porch (yes, the drink); Garden Island of the Month - as seen from a kayak; canoes and kayaks going down the street; and many, many more...

Glad you are safe, Scott.

Good news, Scott; everybody's safe and I'm sure the cleanup is a lot less than seven years ago.

Wow - can't wait to see the photos - I can't imagine holding your breath during that last foot of water, hoping it wouldn't come any closer. Excellent news that everyone is safe and well.

Is it like Lake of Bays after the ice goes out? You go down to the dock to see what has floated in to your life? Sometimes we acquire entire pieces of other people's floating docks!

Great to hear that you weathered the storm in good shape.

Just got power late last night. So far on the dead list...

Mac home computer (on a surge protector)
Axiom EP500
ALL Emotiva stuff
2 GFCI breakers
1 surge protector

All the HT equipment was plugged into Brick Wall surpressors and they are fine. Also plugged into the Brick Walls were the DVD players, the TV, the Cable Box and they are all fine...

Yes, I've checked the fuses...

We lost power well ahead of the storm, otherwise I would hav had everything unplugged.

Scott

Phew. Hope everything else is OK, Scott. Glad to hear your power is back on.

Sorry to hear about the equipment losses, but I'm really glad everyone is OK. I've not seen much here in the news on the after effects. I guess there is not enough devastation to make it newsworthy.

Even after Katrina, the news died down pretty quickly. Sad, really. Actually some folks were still recovering from that storm when Isaac hit.

I'm surprised, Fred. I heard a fair amount of coverage last week, through Friday. Haven't really been tracking the news much this weekend.

Scott, out of morbid curiosity, what caused the equipment damage? Lightning? Straight power surge? Water?

Glad you are okay, Scott.

You should be using Whole House Surge Suppressors instead. Something like this. Proper surge protection is one that doesn't let destructive surges inside the home.

http://www.smarthome.com/4860/Leviton-51120-1-Whole-House-Surge-Suppressor-Surge-Protector/p.aspx

You have stock in that company, don't you?

Nope. The Whole House Surge Suppressor I have installed is manufactured by Intermatic. There are a bunch of reputable companies that make these. Leviton is just one of those.

Short story:
Pretty sure it wasn't lightning - we only heard one distant rumble on Wed evening.
FOund out after the fact that a large tree had fallen on the the main lines out of the sub-station and fried a transformer at that end.

Long story:
But Tuesday at ~ 1AM our bedroom light/fan came on all by itself - sort of. We have a combo ceiling fan/light with a remote control and we usually leave the fan on at night. If the power goes out and comes back on the light will turn on. So we got up and checked everything and it was all OK. CHecked the storm on the internet and TV and it was still well under us. By 5AM when we got up we had no power...

I tried to connect a generator to the house panel through the transfer switch and the main popped immediately, so we were limited to a single extension cord. When we got power, the main kept popping, so I shut off all the breakers and the main stayed on. As I bringing single circuits on line I discovered that 2 of 3 GFI breakers would not stay on and a third regular breaker would not stay on. That was the one for the computer. I tracked the problem down to the Tripp-lite surge suppressor that tripped the breaker upon plug in, along with a good light show. Supposedly it has a $250,000 coverage limit, but my guess is that it will be a huge uphill battle to get a claim settled. We'll see.
Still trying to figure out how only the audio equipment on two different Brick Wall surge suppressors was effected when the other equipment (TV, cable box, 3 dvd players) plugged into the same suppressors was unharmed... 'trons, I guess.

Oh well. We have an unflooded house and all of us are healthy. The rest is just stuff. And we are fortunate enough to have stuff.

I saw those a long time ago, but was quite skeptical at how it worked considering the wiring diagram; One uses two circuits downstream of the main lines - on 12ga wires?? But for $175 it might be worth finding out.

There are a few different ways whole house surge protectors can be installed but it's effectiveness is more or less the same. The destructive surge would seek the easiest and shortest path to ground (the whole house protector) which will harmlessly dissipate the surge outside in earth.

Been offline for the long weekend here but I'm glad to hear things went relatively well.

So Amie put me in contact with Brent who had me check a couple of fuses I didn't know were there and sure enough, a blown fuse! FOr those keeping track, that would make 5 fuses in the model I have. So those are order (hard to find 5x20mm fuses here in US except on line). So the EP500 should live again.

Now on to the Emotiva equipment. Started with the amp. Same story, the outboard fuses are fine, but I started pulling individual amp modules and each one has a 5x20mm fuse right next to a pair of what looks like pretty good sized MOV's. So far those are OK, but then I took a closer look inside the section of the chassis under the power cable connection and there's another fuse (5x20mm) on a board in there and its smoked. It says "bel RU (SA)" on one end and "T160L250V" on the other. I went to the bel website and that number comes up as no good and no other GOogle hits for that fuse spec are coming up... Emo is closed on Saturday, so unless someone here can tell me what size fuse this is, I'll have to wait. It has a pretty good sized single wire inside, so I'm thinking its bigger than 160mA.

Next stop; the Pre-Pro...

6 fuses blown?
Maybe it's time to get that Monster Power Surge protector...oh, no, waitaminute...

crazy stuff

No, only 1 blown fuse per device. But there are 5 fuses my EP500 - 1 - 15A fuse, 3 - 250mA fuses (now 1A per Brent) and 2 more 15A fuses in a small holder just under the power cable connection, one of these was blown.

On the Emotive MPS-1 amp, there are 2 - 15A fuses near the power cable input, 1 - 15A on each of the 7 channels, and 1 - ?? amp fuse inside the chassis on the power distribution block - blown. That's 10 total fuses on this thing!

On the Emotiva DMC-1 I have only found 1 - 2A fuse inside the chassis. It was blown.

Scott, if the labeling is correct, "160" does mean 160 mA, but more common for amplifier uses would be 1.6A fuses like these .

That looks much closer to the wire size on the fuse I have. I'll wait to contact Emo on Monday jsut to be sure.

Thanks, JohnK!