ten below when the power went off

I was sitting here typing a response to kruser giving me a hard time about leaving the freezer door open when everything went dark. I had a couple of choice words as you can imagine. It was about 6:50pm and 10 below zero with a windchill about 30 below. Nick had been here and just left so nathan and I headed out to see what would run and get the genny going. On the way out the door dad called and wanted to make sure I was home and knew what was going on. He was headed out to start his gen and I told him to have mom call Ameren and see what in the heck was going on. Luckily the trusty 1086 was still warm enough from the snow blowing to start. Just as I pulled out of the shed with the gen dad called back and said Ameren said it would be fixed by 9pm and he let me know his genny was up and running. We got everything going here and were back inside by 7:20. At those temps I dont think the cattle waterer or the pump house would make it very long. This old farm house cooled off about 5 degrees the short time it took us to hook the genny up. Well 9pm came and went. I could see them a mile over working on the next road with 3 or 4 trucks. called Ameren at 9 and they said they knew we were out along with 40 other customers and they were working on it. I watched and watched them working in the dark and could only imagine they wanted the power back on as much as every body else did. I had told dad to call when the power came back on so I knew and I would do the same. It was 1:12 am when the phone rang. A quick trip outside to check everything and everybody after flipping the shutoffs and interlocks and back into the house at 1:30am. It was 12 below then. I hope the rest of the neighbors got along ok. It is flat out scary not having power at those temps. I bet anyone in the neighborhood that didnt have a gen will get one now! I cant wait to see dad because he just put his in a month ago. Bet he feels pretty smart this morning.
bill

wE've got a little fog at -39.2 on the valley bottom in Argyle.

Glad to hear that you are safe Bill. This cold weather is not for me. Luckily, I did not have to start mine this time.
Jim

What a price you folks pay to live on FERTILE
land ///

I have nothing but praise for the local electric co op's linemen ,they do dangerous work in some of the worst possible conditions. gh

The generator has saved our butts so many times. Usually during the summer you try to hold starting it up as long as possible but during the winter your bundled up in 2 minutes and just want to get it over with.

Sounds like what happened here a few winters ago. Temp was in the 30s,started to cool and rain. Ice took out the power just before 6pm. I got the tractor and generator out,had everything going in 20 minutes. Temp dropped to zero overnight and stayed there for a couple of days. Just about as long as the power was out. Every house around that didn't have a generator or a wood stove had broken pipes.

I think it has been over 90 hours of below zero temps here in central Mn. No power outages that I know of. In the summer time whenever the temps go up the power company is advising everyone to conserve electricy use but I havent heard of that now. It must take more to keep cool than to stay warm.

would you be from Argyle, Wi? I f so i'm just over the hill in Orangeville, Il

Bill - You are just so well prepared that the next time our power goes off, can the wife, daughter and I come to keep warm with Wrigley?

PS: I see that Travis is looking around for places to pull - must mean spring will get here soon!

Sure you can. I dont run the electronics with the genny so its all about good conversation. I figure travis is around somewhere this weekend trying to stay warm and deer hunt but I haven bumped into him yet. I hope spring is coming soon!
bill

Did a little deer hunting, managed to get a doe on the ground. Went and picked up a new coondog, hopefully the weather will be fit to try her out next weekend.