YAY!! Power is back on! (Mount Vernon, Leesburg: credit, tornadoes, closing)

[CraigCreek]

If your formerly frozen food is thawed but still cold, it should be safe to eat if you get right to it now (Saturday night, June 30). Same for ice cream. Knock on your neighbors' doors and throw a slightly-melted ice cream party, fire up the grill and cook those hotdogs and steaks.

But do it now. Tomorrow will be too late for meat and dairy products, though formerly frozen vegetables and fruits should be okay for another couple of days, if kept fairly cool.

Ideas for keeping as cool as possible include taking long, soaking deep baths (dip your head in, too) in tepid water, dampening sheets with cool water before retiring for the night, staying on the north side of the lowest floor of the house, of course keeping shades and curtains drawn - add sheets over the shades if your curtains are light-weight - opening the house to cross-ventilation late at night or early in the morning when it's less hot (can't call it cool...), napping during the worst heat of the day, of course drinking lots of water or better yet, lemonade or switchel (look it up), avoiding excessive alcohol and caffeine, wearing light-weight, light-colored, loose cotton clothing, again sprinkled with cool water, placing a wet washcloth on one's head (under a straw hat if you're self-conscious), putting one's feet into a bucket of cool or even tepid water, using hand-held and operated fans, moving slowly and deliberately, avoiding spicy foods...in short, imitating our wise ancestors' way of life prior to ubiquitous air conditioning.

Hope the heat relents and the power is restored asap - but meanwhile, try some of the above suggestions to make life a little less uncomfortable.

[The Dissenter]

Came home to have power at 9pm. I drove by Seminary Rd and King St on 395 and the high rises there have NO lights on. It is still hit and miss on Columbia Pike.

[Jenjen391]

Our power was out from 10pm last night til about 4pm this afternoon. We are in 22153 part of Springfield.

We were driving home on 495 from National Harbor last night when we got caught in the storm. It was very scary. Trees and debris everywhere, high winds, hail . I was so happy to get home.

We had family call this afternoon to tell us that Springfield made the national news.

[The Dissenter]

Originally Posted by saganista

What a fail? You expect that with some 1.5 million customers down, they are all going to be brought back at once? That would be a tad unrealistic.

It ain't even been 24 hours yet. Trust me, a lot of manpower from the power company is needed for that many customers and they can only do so much at a time.

[tgbwc]

We are in 22152. No power, but the meat in freezer is frozen solid. House is very hot and we'll probably sleep in the lower level where it is at least in the lower 80's.

[oneasterisk]

Lost power in Lake Ridge at 11:35PM Friday night, and didn't regain till about 5:30pm this afternoon. It was weird because some parts of Lake Ridge had power, but cross the street and power was off. Tackett Mills had juice, but then one light over the power was off, then another light over the streets had power. My buddy has some tree limbs go down, I wanted to get out of the house anyways, so I helped him clear it out. He paid me back by charging my phone, cold refreshments and food - LOL

This was the longest time I've been without power since moving here in 2003. Even Snowmaggedon only caused a 4 hour outage. All in all, I'm happy with Dominion's response. I will be looking into a generator though. Not sure if I'll spend the big bucks to go whole house since I live close enough in that we get good service. Maybe something to run just the fridge and a couple of outlets. I hunkered down in the basement and it was fine.

[saganista]

Originally Posted by Enilder

No but a fact that this never happened for past 11 years I lived in VA for more than a day+ AND a fact that damages are quite extensive (as we can see), that's a fail. I am sure everyone is working their asses off on a weekend to get electricity back. I don't recall writing anything that hints what you "assumed."

Never happened? Hurricane Isabel hit in September 2003. Maybe you missed it. Damage from that storm was severe, widespread, and long-lasting as well. The same has resulted from significant snow and ice events over the years. That's kind of what major storms do, you know. It's not like baseball. You can't just drag a tarp over the city and then go have a few beers till the storm blows by.

[saganista]

Originally Posted by The Dissenter

It ain't even been 24 hours yet. Trust me, a lot of manpower from the power company is needed for that many customers and they can only do so much at a time.

I'm well aware of that. I've been through this and worse before. Crews from out of the area will be moving in to give us a hand, but we were directly in the path of this thing, and it will take a lot of effort to get all our toys geared back up again. Technology is great until it breaks. It's the notion that this is all somebody's fault...that somebody failed and must be held accountable by being vilified for it -- that I object to.

[NC211]

We're in Broadlands, new development, power flickered, was off for maybe 2 minutes, we got lucky!! Drove to the coast of NC today, and even down here they have power issues.

We're on a hill, with clear views as far as the eye can see to the west. Last night when the storm hit and the power went out, I was watching from the top floor looking WNW. I saw this orangish strobe light way off into the distance, maybe around the Loudoun County landfill, blinking super bright. It was really spookie to see, had a burnt orange hue to it. I figured it was a power station beacon that goes off when the station fails, allowing it to be seen from a far distance. It went off after about 2 minutes, then the power came back on. Anyone else know what it could've been? I'm really curious, because it was strange!

I also noticed from that vantage point, as did my wife while watching from the other room, that every time the lightening flashed, we could see the clouds rotating. We grabbed the kids and hit the basement pronto. Any reports of tornado activity last night?

All I know is, living on a hill has its advantages, and disadvantages. One disadvantage is no protection from the wind. I'll admit it, I got spooked a bit last night.

Hope those of you still without power are doing ok. Worst timing possible to be w/o ac right now.

[saganista]

For futuire reference --

A typical freezer will be zero degrees or colder. If it's kept full, food will remain safely frozen for at least 48 hours without power if the freezer door is left unopened. The fridge is a different story. They are typically at forty degrees, but without power will remain safely cold only for about four hours even if you don't open the door. If you typically have expensive stuff in the fridge, find out now while you have power where you could go to get dry ice the next time the power goes out. Block ice will work as well, but it isn't nearly as cold as dry ice, so you need more of it, plus block ice has that nasty habit of turning into water.