Thu 3 Nov 2011
Four days without heat or electricity, five days without Internet service. Otherwise all is well! Thanks everyone for your concern and good wishes.
Lots of clean-up and other chores to do. It’ll be a while before things get back to normal, but at least we have power again. Much of the state to the north and west of us (Connecticut) is still blacked out, with millions of downed trees and branches everywhere.
The only good thing is that this didn’t happen in January or February. You can’t imagine how many casualties there’d have been.
November 3rd, 2011 at 11:40 am
I can imagine. It happened earlier this year out here when we had our own blizzard February 1-2. Among other wintry horrors were the poor souls who were stuck in their cars on Lake Shore Drive for hours.
I miss my home state most of the time (I grew up in southeastern CT), but not when I hear about these drastic unseasonable weather problems. Hang in there. Glad to hear all is relatively well.
November 3rd, 2011 at 12:51 pm
I was thinking you were figuratively under the weather, but you’re literally under the weather.
November 3rd, 2011 at 1:09 pm
When I saw the gap in days since the last posting I decided you must have been affected by the weather. This explains why I still haven’t heard from friends in the east Here in Minnesota we commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Great Minnesota Halloween Blizzard of 1991. I was at the University of Minnesota on that day, working on my magnum opus, The Dime Novel Companion, and had taken the bus from St. Olaf to Minneapolis. I was waiting for the return bus at the end of the day and it was somewhat late. When it pulled up the driver said to me “I bet you thought I was never going to get here! Driving is really a challenge.” I was never so glad not to be the one who had to drive. I could tell the highway was very slippery. I got to Northfield, collected my car and drove out to the house. There was a single package in the mailbox, a signed copy of Vincent Price’s book on his art collection, I Know What I Like. I had negotiated the arrangement through his secretary sometime earlier.
November 3rd, 2011 at 1:53 pm
Steve: I hope that everything gets back to normal soon. Glad that your power is back up. This sort of weather is best experienced from inside a warm house, in an armchair, with a warming drink in your hand, not sitting in the dark and freezing.
Would it be terribly insensitive for me to say that here in England we are having one of the nicest Novembers that I can remember? We are experiencing something of an Indian Summer, and though it gets dark pretty early now, the night air doesn’t have that wintery bite yet.
November 3rd, 2011 at 1:54 pm
Welcome back, Steve! There’s just no keeping an indefatigable mystery blogger like you down.
November 3rd, 2011 at 3:18 pm
Like Randy, I had assumed that you had been severely affected by the weather. I’m glad you’re over the worst of it. Welcome back.
Unlike Randy I have no great blizzard story to share. We had four feet of snow in February of 2010 but while such a storm in uncommon in these parts, at least February is when you might expect something of that sort.
November 3rd, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Glad all is well now. We were without electricity for 12 days after Hurricane Ike, but at least it was warm. Okay, too warm, but better than being cold. I now have a big old generator that will power the whole house if anything like that happens again.
November 3rd, 2011 at 4:23 pm
The last time I can remember a longer breakdown in PARTS of the town was 1992, it lasted for several hours, and was a BIG scandal.
Things like you have in the US, with days of no electricity and so on, are unheard of here.
So, I did’nt even suspect this to be the reason for not hearing anything new.
Well, over is over.
The Doc
November 3rd, 2011 at 10:43 pm
Geez Steve–
I think the weather is terrible up here in Montreal. Connecticut is another name for heaven. Sad to say revised thinking may be in order. Maybe not. Glad all is well, and look forward to more fascinating reviews in the not too distant future.
November 3rd, 2011 at 11:42 pm
Steve, I had hoped to see you at the Bordentown pulp convention on November 5, this Saturday. Looks like I won’t since you will still be suffering from the blizzard of 10/11.
November 4th, 2011 at 9:57 am
The “snow on leaves” happened here in Western New York happened five years ago in October. It’s called the “October Surprise” now. Our power was out for six days. Thousands of trees were broken. I was so used to seeing ill-shaped trees in the months after that when I travelled to Michigan I wondered, surprised, why the trees were so well-formed.
Best of luck to you and yours.
November 4th, 2011 at 10:24 am
Heavy sticky wet snow on the leaves of millions of trees is exactly what happened. In spite of many many warnings by the weather people ahead of time, no one took them seriously, including the power company.
The snow disappeared quickly, but the trees and branches on the ground sure didn’t. West Hartford, the town due north of Newington, is still mostly without power, and it’s six days later.
The big problem for us was being without heat. Luckily the day temperatures got up into the 50s, and the coldest it got in the house overnight was 49 degrees (F).
Our entertainment in the evening consisted of sitting around a battery powered radio listening to a talk show with callers helping out with handy tips, pep talks and all kinds of comments about the electric company.
We had hot water the whole time, which helped, and a local chain supermarket was open, as well as a couple of restaurants, so food wasn’t a problem. I’ll have to look into getting a generator, that’s for sure. But if gas stations can’t pump the gasoline they have, what do you do when your own supply runs dry?
Sure wish I could have gotten to the Bordentown (NJ) pulp and paperback show, but even before this all happened, I’d had to cancel out. I missed (or will miss) all of the three big ones this year: Windy City, PulpFest and now Bordentown. A sad, miserable record indeed!
November 4th, 2011 at 4:04 pm
When we were without power after a similar OCTOBER SURPRISE, I planned to invest in a natural gas generator. Bill Crider has one and it works wonderfully. After reading about your storm experiences, I’m actually going to move on it. Glad you and your family are okay!
November 4th, 2011 at 4:13 pm
Just waitin’ for the cannibalism to start.
November 4th, 2011 at 7:08 pm
I’ve done some research on large-sized natural gas generators since my comment #12.
They seem to cost in the low-to-mid four figure range, not including installation. It is worth it? Considering the food that got thrown away and the cold dark nights, I’ve got some thinking to do. (And tonight’s the coldest night so far, with almost 300,000 homes and businesses still without power. Even a small one sounds awfully good.)
PS. I probably won’t get back to regular blogging until Sunday or Monday. Besides the usual short reviews that’s always on hand, I have a good amount of longer ones sent me recently and just waiting for me to get to them.
And I will, as soon as I can!
PPS. No cannibalism around here. So far as I know…