Who knew that this investment would save me those oodles of dollars later on down the road in my fishtank adventures with the love of my life? If I hadn't already owned my beast of a generator, a different beast would have been bought in it's place immediately following our beginning fishtank purchases. Why? To protect our investment. Duh!
Since our hobby has started we have had a few times, almost ALWAYS in the middle of the night, where we have gone into the shed, pulled out the generator, pissed off all the neighbors, and had light, television, and our tank up and running while everyone else is left in the dark. Fridge? Shit! Who needs to plug that thing in as long as the tank is up and running and the Playstation 3 is working! We even have ballasts now that let us run our halides on our generator. When a tree went down across the street and a live line was jumping all over, Chris walked across the tracks to meet his sister to get more gas for the generator just in case we needed it overnight. Anything for the tank...
When Hurricane Irene hit in late August of 2011 we were ready. We bunkered down in the house with the kids, and I had my mother come stay with us because her area was evacuated and we waited for the bitch to show her ugly face. At seven in the morning we all woke up to something hitting the house. Of course a large piece of a tree came down and hit the house and the generator. No damage done, but one hell of a mess. The next morning, we had a disaster in our yard.
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| Chris after removing the branch from the generator. |
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| A tree from the neighbors yard |
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| The branch that fell on the house and generator at 7:00 in the morning. This is later in the day. |
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| Shot from top of the side yard. This is nothing :( |
Seven days, and nearly five hundred dollars in gas that was purchased while waiting in lines for 30 to 45 minutes long, we finally saw these guys....
Fixing this mess....
They came down to our place and fixed the wire that had been ripped from the house. Never in my life have I seen the neighborhood come together and cheer so loudly for a bunch of workers! Chris and I got the name of their hotel and the number of their room and sent them a thank you gift. Seven days of cold showers, miserable kids, and praying the generator could hold on because it was running non-stop all that time, and finally, thanks to the New Hampshire Northeast Utilities workers, we had power!
Chris' brother brought his livestock to our house to keep alive during the power loss as he didn't have an overabundance of coral at the time. During the seven days we watched the Reef Central boards and shook our heads as people posted about their losses. Some were looking for generators but, the stores were sold out or it was just too late. Some were trying air stones, some were just hanging on to the hope that everything would survive anyway...but, it didn't.
So, here we were again, Hurricane Sandy was coming to get us. We had managed to escape the snowstorm that hit our coast the prior season and instead had to loan our generator to Chris' father to keep his tank alive. We actually read too many posts on people losing their livestock during that major power loss too. So, what did everyone learn from these two major storms? Anything?
I did my usual. I run around the house and gather all the candles. Fill tubs up with water in case our city water gets polluted, and I buy new batteries for all our flashlights. I fill all our tanks with gasoline and then I go around and take pictures of every square inch of the inside and outside of the house for insurance purposes. I then upload those on a private online site, just in case. My family thinks I'm crazy, I probably am. I do stock up on foods like soups and such too but, not like a zombie apocalypse is coming. Just enough for a few days. All the damned stores are closed when there is no power.
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| Better Value in Plainfield after Irene |
So, everyone just sits and waits. We watch television, play on the computer, I'm watching Facebook to see what my friends and family are writing. In the meantime, we still have power, cable, internet, everything. I get worried at one point because a friend down the road post a picture of that damned telephone pole on fire! I'm just waiting for the power to go out. But, no, nothing. Finally, Chris and I go to bed.
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| The children seem terribly worried about the storm as I take my pictures :) |
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| I found it humorous while going through my 'insurance' pictures that this one was predicting the power outages in the state. |
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| Chris' frag tank in the basement |
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| The fire department and utility company at the pole down the road that was on fire. |
The next morning we wake up to this....
Big difference from Irene huh? Yeah, no power loss, no downed lines, nothing. What a relief!
Reef Central told a different story. Much of Connecticut still suffered a great loss of power and once again there were stories of people scrambling to find generators, talking of using air stones, wrapping their tanks in towels, immediate loss or the hopes of things just hanging in there until the power went back on. In the days that followed, news of fish dying, corals bleaching and smells coming from the tanks that we all know too well, flooded the forums. As much as this saddened me to see people that I know and some that I truly care for, lose their babies, all I can think of is why? Why, after Irene and the snowstorm would you still not have a backup plan? All the time and money that we put into our tanks, why wouldn't you buy a generator in the off season?
Hopefully we see a break in this bullshit for a few years and I don't have to read of anyone losing their coral or fish because of Mother Nature and instead it will be because of their own hand (whether they admit to that or not lol). In the meantime, I will continue to thank my lucky stars for that impulse buy by my ex so many years ago because it has saved our coral, my food, my neighbors food, my children's sanity and of course mine for the last nine years. Oh, and it was one thing to cross off our 'to buy' list for the fishtank! And that means everything in the hobby!!
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