My parents had popsicles (the kind on a stick wrapped in paper, not the ones in plastic "tubes") in their upright freezer. All melted, even right after running generator. I think the pork chops on the top shelf were frozen solid, don't know how warm they might have gotten in between "shots" of electricity, but I really think I should throw out the 5 lbs of hot dogs I brought home to put in my chest freezer - they were cold, but thawed, and who knows how warm they might have gotten at some point. Same with the big bag of Chicken Voila in Alfredo sauce - bag had some frozen chunks in it, but overall was pretty squishy. What's a few more things given that on Sunday we threw out all my mom's Jenny Craig meals she's just bought a few days before, and on Thursday threw out a good 40-50 lbs of veggies, chicken pot pies, chicken cordon bleu, stuffed peppers etc. that my mom had bought for my dad to eat while she was on a business trip, plus about 10 lbs of tilapia and shrimp? My dad also had a sandwich-sized bag with 3 hard hot-dog-shaped things I think might have been venison sausage - not frozen solid, I'm sure, maybe smoked? Insisted I take that to put in my freezer. I have no idea what it is, so don't know if anyone can tell me if they're safe. I have to tell him to watch his blueberries for mold, too, though I think he uses them frozen on his cereal, now they've refrozen into a solid chunk. I'd just as soon make jam out of them like I plan to do with my blackberries and strawberries. DH is looking at whole-house generators too. I'm thinking of seeing whether we can add our well pump to the 100A subpanel our HVAC, water heater and basement freezer are already on. I don't know if inspector will let us permanently change the fridge to go on the subpanel as well as the well pump, unless we put our resistive Aux Heat for the heat pump on the main panel (even in the dead of winter I think we can survive with geothermal and sweaters). Gotta think how to swap things around to balance the load and get all the necessities on that 100A panel. Then maybe an $800 generator will do.

I was raised on a farm that did not get electricity until 1947, therefore, we and our neighbors had to use alternate heat. We used coal or wood burners installed in the main living space. A wood burning cook stove was in the kitchen. On very cold days, both stoves were fired and on milder days, only the main stove was used. That kept one room very warm and the adjoining rooms above freezing. Someone above asked what about overnight. We did what was called "banking the fire". An hour before retiring, the stove would be loaded with fuel and the fuel allowed to become fully ignited and then the flue pipe damper was set to slow the draft up the chimney and the air inlets on the stove would be reduced to low air inlets. A properly "banked" stove will burn almost all night and by morning there will still be a healthy bed of coals. By morning, the house will have cooled; Its the job of the first person up to revive the fire. That's how it was done. Old houses with "modern" heating plants were in luck. Those old furnaces did not have forced air but depended on gravity and difference in density of heated air to curculate heated air throughout the house. No electricity was required, although some had automatice fire-box feeders that did need elecric power, however, most of these did have a manual feed feature. Those old furnaces were 'lovingly' referred to as "octopuses" describing the huge amount of ductwork in the basement. Gravity driven air ducts require large ducts possibly with 3 times the cross-section of forced-air installations, but those work without power. Were these efficent? Nah - a lot heat went up the chimney. Many of those old house designs did not have any water piping to the second floor. Water was restricted to a pitcher pump at the kitchen sink - no electricity needed. This pump could not raise water much more than 20 to 25 ft (by suction); It drew water from a rain filled cystern. On very cold nights, the pump was 'un-primed" allowing the water to drain back before going to bed. The only water was in the sink trap if you had one. The next morning, after the stoves were re-fired with room temperature rising, the pump could be primed to provide a fresh supply of water. In the winter, one should not leave the house for an extended time without first draining the pump and connecting pipe. How soon we forget about the life of yesteryear. It takes only one generation to move on to the modern house with plumbing on all floors, a house that is dependent on reliable electrric power, and to forget how to survive without power for a few days. Today's house design makes that very difficult.

We survived! We have had power outages here every winter for the last 30 years. We have 4 LED lanterns, much better and safer than the candles we use to use, and have a head lamp for each of us. DS gets bored because he is typical of other 32 years old. He is use to be entertained with electronic gagets. I grew up in 1950's in a farm house built in 1880's with bad wiring, we were alway losing power. But also grew up knowing how to keep myself entertained. Last night I was fine listening to my MP3 player and reading a book by a warm fire. I thought it was a nice change instead of watching all the junk on TV like usual. DH did get Netflix on his laptop so we all crowded around the 15" screen to watch a TV show. It made DS happy. Right afterwards the power came back on. That really made DS happy. It was out only 6 hours. After the 1989 earthquake we lost power and water for almost a week. They wanted to go out for dinner, but I hate being out in the very strong winds and heavy rain like it was last night. Also too many roads flooded, lots of trees down and mud/rock slides up here in the mountains. Not to mention lots of accidents. Made spaghetti and meatballs, used the top of the stove to heat up the sauce and frozen meatballs instead of the microwave. It came out better with no hot and cold spots. I missed the garlic toast, but it was in the freezer and no way to thraw it out. DH has talked about getting a generator for the last 30 years, but they are so expensive for one to run a whole house. One of our neighbors has one. It is so strange to see their house lit up and the rest of the area pitch black. Also it is really loud and it is quite a distance from us. I can't magine what it sounds like next to the house. We will have to do a walk around to see if there is any damage. We had some really strong gusts yesterday.

Olychick is right about logging practices. Logging can be beneficial to forest health when the trees are thinned rather than clear cut, the slash (debris that results from logging such as all the branches that are cut off of the downed trees and smaller trees that are damaged during logging) is removed and a diversity of seedling trees planted to replace those taken during logging operations. Unfortunately, it costs more time and money to log that way, so many companies opt for the cheaper way which is to come in and clear a swath of land. My property shares a border with a large logging company and they come thru here about every 10 years to log. Last time they were here, they left piles of slash and did not replant. Those slash piles are now tinder dry and highly flammable brush such as manzanita has grown where trees once stood. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I would like to share several 1000 words with all of you. We have 3.5 acres in the mountains and spend a great deal of time thinning trees and clearing brush. On our property there is an abundance of wildlife including birds, lizards, frogs, squirrels, rabbits, foxes, coyotes, deer, bears and the occasional mountain lion. The trees are healthy and not over crowded and there is very little brush or fuel on the forest floor. Tree branches are cut from the trees to a minimum height of eight feet to remove ladders which allow fires to get up in the tree tops. This is our property - we will be out thinning again this year as soon as the rains start. It's too dry to run a chainsaw right now: The property next door to us is owned by people who haven't been here in 25 years. Brush has accumulated, the trees have become over crowded and many are dead or dying. The brush is so thick that it's nearly impossible to walk thru the woods. You literally can't see the forest for the trees. Between the two properties, there is a power easement. The local power company contracts with tree companies to maintain the easement which is kept cleared to a width of approximately 50 feet. Two winters ago, a tree dropped a very large branch on the power lines and snapped one of them. We were on vacation at the time and not aware of this until we returned. Our nearest neighbor saw smoke coming from the area of our house, and knowing we were gone, decided to investigate. What he found was a live line that was sending out sparks and that had melted all of the snow around it for a distance of 30 feet. The power company was called, shut off the power and fixed the line. Thank God it was winter and not summer. If it had been summer, those sparks and a little bit of wind are all it would have taken to light up the neglected property next door. There are no simple solutions to this problem and all of these things - maintaining equipment and easements, forest health and forest management are connected. Of course, not all fires start in forested areas, but many do and I personally think that investing in improving the health of our forests thru thinning and removing brush along with responsible logging would be a gigantic step in the right direction. Another thing to consider is the size of the easements. I looked it up last night and the width of an easement is determined by factors such as the voltage of the lines and whether or not the area is urban or rural. According to what I read, the maximum easement is 200 feet, but many (such as the one shown above) are much less than that. With pines and douglas firs reaching a height of 150 to 200 feet, those widths are not enough no matter how much time utilities spend clearing and maintaining their easements. But, property owners don't want to give up that much space to utilities nor do they want their large and beautiful trees removed. I don't know what the answer is, but I think it's important to take into account all of the above factors when discussing this issue as there are no simple one size fits all solutions. Power companies such as PGE haven't done a good job of maintaining their equipment, but there are other factors at play too. The neglected property I've shown you is but a drop in the bucket but it illustrates the conditions that exists in many of our forests, but I hope that they give those reading this thread an idea of the problems we face.