Living it up in the Hotel California…
No snow (well, probably on the hilltops nearby). No ice (around here, at least).
Also no power…intermittently this morning, then for three solid hours. Now it’s back. For the moment.
Something about 50+ MPH winds, driving rain, and PG&E’s usual tendency to have lots of power losses at the start of a storm system…with, cross fingers, fewer later on.
You find out very quickly that a five-year-old Uninterruptible Power Supply is essentially a noisemaker, beeping as the computer shuts down as soon as there’s power loss. And, for when you replace the UPS or the battery, you think about the desirability of having the display, PC, and DSL/router/wifi all plugged into it. (Which, with the old UPS and my older CRT, was an overload. With an LCD, maybe not. And, maybe, with a more powerful contemporary UPS.)
You learn to reply to emails very tersely so your post gets sent before it gets lost…
And, on days (or mornings at least) when you don’t really want to drive out to a store that might not be open anyway, you appreciate knowing that–if need be–you’ve got an earthquake kit with a reasonable supply of food (and water, and…)
Mountain View really is a wonderful place to live–and maybe the general lack of weather is one reason we don’t have undergrounded/ruggedized electricity. I couldn’t cope with ice and snow. Lack of electricity–yeah, for a while, we can cope. Although I’m hoping it stays on now…reading by natural overcast light is great, but only goes so far.
Update: Friday was the worst of it–the even larger storms either didn’t materialize or moved elsewhere. Some tens of thousands of PG&E customers on the ocean side of the Peninsula still lack power. Turns out our local Safeway (.7 miles away) didn’t lose power–but the other two Mountain View Safeways, much further away, did. Meanwhile, Saturday was rain & tstorms now and then, but not high winds; Sunday was partly sunny…
I’ll say this for the local press: They’re calling this “the storm of every couple of years,” not hyping it…
We live in the ice and snow regions just so we can mock you, Walt.
Actually, as lovely as that part of California is, I can’t quite imagine not having winter , the kind that comes with snow and ice, though I’d be happy to live in a place with more produce.
Laura: Come to Pittsburgh! Plenty of snow and ice—though today we’re just having 40–60 mph wind storms all morning—and some of the best produce in the Midwest, thanks to the Strip District, a collection of restaurant wholesalers that sell retail, too. . .
Oh, yeah, I was going to respond to the original post. . .
I’ll say this for the local press: They’re calling this “the storm of every couple of years,†not hyping it…
I wish that had carried over into the national press: I heard so many reports (on NPR, no less!) of impending doom for the Bay Area I actually called my parents to make sure my 80-year-old grandfather in Stanford was ok. . . . They were perplexed, to say the least. (Apparently he’s fine…)
Belatedly–Laura, we can get as much winter as we want, just two hours away: The Sierra Nevadas. (Well, you couldn’t actually get there at the peak of that storm, but there was plenty of winter when you did.)
Glad I missed national hyping of the local weather. Sure, we lost power for a few hours; sure, a fair number of trees went down. Doom? Not so much. Right now, in the middle of an apparently endless “storm series,” it’s partly cloudy outside, albeit chilly for this area (41F at 7:45 a.m., with a predicted high of 52F). Note “chilly,” not “bitter cold.” (Fortunately, Midwinter/Philadelphia was also chilly, not bitter cold. I read about Minnesota at the moment, and it’s almost painful even to read…)