Saturday, February 2, 2019

101 still closed basically from Santa Barbara zoo area to highway 150

So, if you are heading north from Los Angeles or anywhere south of Santa Barbara you cannot get there by the 101 freeway. However, there might be ways to do it (or not) by side streets if you are not driving a semi or something like that.

Where I presently am in Orange County rain came down about 1 inch and hour for a lot of the day so likely they got 4 inches minimum new rain today here which caused a lot of flooding locally.

Nearer to San Francisco where I live our friends were taking care of our home and the power went out so we had them take our food to their homes that was perishable out of the freezer and fridge as  we won't be back and someone needs to have it and eat it. And their power is still on where they live because they don't live in a forest like we do. So, because we live in a forest big storms often cut off power between December and January when big trees hit power lines and the power gets knocked out. If I was home I would run by gasoline powered generator from about 8 or 9 am in the morning until about 8 or 9pm at night to save the food in the Refrigerator. They said many many trees were down and they had to reroute several times trying to avoid trees that were snapped into from winds and rain that had fallen across several roads in our area.

However, the thing about power outages is you eat the frozen stuff first because it usually will be the first to go bad. (If you can't just start up a generator and hook your refrigerator (or refrigerators) to it directly.

Safety regarding gasoline powered generators. Diesel Generators are similar except for fuel and maintaining them.

Never run the power through your power panel attached to your house because this could blow up your generator, possibly kill you, and start a fire and burn down your house. So, only hook up your refrigerator directly by cord from your generator after unplugging your refrigerator from the wall and plugging it into a 50 to 100 foot outdoor (usually orange colored outdoor cord) either directly or by plugging a surge protector with several plugs on it. I usually pull my refrigerator away from where it is into the kitchen so I can more easily unplug my refrigerator from the wall. Then I plug it into the surge protector that is plugged directly into the orange outdoor 110 cord. I also usually plug in at least one lamp in the kitchen (to see at night) and then Wifi and Cable TV if that is working also into the surge protector that supplies electricity for the refrigerator and one lamp in the kitchen. Don't plug in electric heaters at all because a generator (most of them) cannot sustain enough electricity for most electric heaters (except for maybe the smallest of all). I'm not sure most surge protectors can handle most electric heater loads either

You leave everything regarding your main electrical panel alone completely attached to your home because you realize the power can come on at any time and you don't want to run the generator through your home power panel ever really because it is a very bad habit to do this.

So, when the power comes back on (if and when it does) you are separate from the 220 and 110 circuits in your home so lights can come on and then you walk outside, turn your generator off, unplug the orange cord, stow your generator in a safe place (remember it's still hot from running) so you might want to leave it where it is to cool off by the way for awhile. Then you roll up your orange cord, plug your refrigerator (and everything else back into wall sockets like before). And then when your generator cools down you store it in a safe place until you need it next time.

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