Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Ice.... Everywhere....Sleep......Nowhere

In an attempt to stay awake on this horribly irrelevant conference call, I thought I'd read the boards. That's not working so maybe typing will.

Been a hell of a week after the Ice storm Monday and Tuesday. Over 200,000 without power at the peak and we had more phone equipment without power than generators to keep them running. I've been spending my days and nights in our Emergency Operations Center coordinating generators, fuel and manpower, etc. Short breaks for sleep but with most everybody sent into the field there wasn't many left to make a restful schedule for the ERC.

A big thanks to our sister Bell-Aliant provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick for sending over over 20 additional generators, as many trucks and probably 30 men to help out!!!

our biggest scare was yesterday when something happened (which I am unable to speculate on in print) at our main generating plant and the entire province went black for about 4-5 hours. If that hadn't been fixed, the next call was the Military. Luckily, they got it back on.

We are currently down to only 7 pieces of equipment out there on generators keeping dial tone and cell coverage going for their respective areas but most of the Island has power again.

Well, most except my road. My area came back up yesterday afternoon but my little stretch of road is still down. My drive in this morning I spotted a tripped fuse on one pole. I wonder where I can buy a 30' fiberglass rod??? With 4000 still in the dark (Maritime Electric did awesome work to get this down from 200k,) I doubt my one tripped fuse is anywhere near the top of the list.

Nice day today but a bit more freezing rain on the way tonight and maybe tomorrow. Driving is no longer like playing hockey but there are surprise sections of chunky ice fields in sections of roads that flooded over then froze. Very dangerous surprises, especially at night.

Oh well, if you got this far, sorry for the depressing story. If I wasn't so tired, I'd say its actually a fun adventure (until someone gets hurt.) I appreciate the place to vent. Nobody to vent to here as we are all in it. heh heh.

We are shutting the ERC down so I have more conference call to go then I am heading home to sleep. At least this next call will be more exiting.

Keep it fun,

Hang in there! Ice storms can be pretty devastating. In Montreal, we just "celebrated" the 10th anniversary of the 1998 Ice Storm. Not particularly pleasant memories...

Take care.

freezing rain here this morning

You guys take care up there, we'll be thinking of ya.

Wow, Murph. That's amazing. Take care of yourself, and thank you for telling us your story.

Hang in there, Murph. Being from Southern California, I think the only way I can replicate your situation is if I turn off all the lights in the house and then stand in front of the open freezer door.

Whoa, that sounds like some extremely nasty stuff. Take care up there Andrew and good luck.

I almost fell on my ass when leaving my house today due to the freezing rain path of death in front of my house, if it makes you feel any better.

I shoveled myself out of a foot of snow this morning. It's still a heck of a lot better than an ice storm though.