First of all, I am sorry about your problems and I hope that you were prepared.

I have been wondering about how well prepared the government and business are.

Has the 911 system continued to operate?

Are retail businesses able to operate (backup power for cash registers or some other way to make sales)?

Do grocery stores and food distribution centers have backup power for refrigeration?

Do gasoline stations have backup power for pumping gas?

Thanks.

ETA:  I am interested in all power outages, not just this week's.

I suppose that those most affected will not be able to read this or reply.

This is not recent (couple days ago) but its what Ive seen. If its a couple days w/o power you are okay, go past three and then people will get stupid.



 

See above comments. Suffices to say you will either be on your own or fighting the masses for what resources are available. Cash, fuel, water and food! Have a stockpile of all of them until thing start to return back to normal. It took 36+ hr before businesses got generators and began opening up form Saturday's storm. Even if you're not a prepper, you can save enough food/water for a week, ensure vehicles are fueled up before any storm hits, have cash on hand, batteries, candles, flashlights, etc.....That will get you through the first week comfortably... Additional consideration should be a generator and fuel in storage (Jerry) cans.





 

Gonna depend on the cause and duration. Look up the ice storm of 1998 for Maine. Nothing worked. Nothing. And there was no way for government agencies to travel to help. EMS ceased to exist for most of Maine for days. 4-8 inches of solid ice on all roads. Plow/salt trucks could not drive. Trees down, etc.  Many cities and towns had no power (or heat that required electrical service) for 2-4 WEEKS. It was a pure motherfucker. On the other hand, folks tended to pitch in and take care of one another also. The only things moving here for over a week were skidders, snowmobiles, and ATVs with chains. We ferried propane tanks up a mountain to the only radio station left functioning since it was the only form of communication still functioning.

Our power at home has been out since last Friday evening at 9:30 pm.  I can post from work.

911 - I have no idea as our home phone lines are also down since the electric is down.  Our cell phones still work but since their area codes are in another state I don't know how well they would work for local 911.  There are news reports that Fairfax County, VA's 911 system shit the bed due to the outages and as of last night at midnight it still wasn't 100%.

Retail establishments with power are ok, those without are closed.

I know from past experience that my local grocery store doesn't have backup for its refrigerators and freezers.  It didn't lose power with this last storm.

Gas stations ditto; if they have power they have gas.  Otherwise no joy.  The exception is a very large truck stop a few miles down the interstate; IIRC they have generators.

My hotel (Annapolis) has been full of locals and their dogs since Saturday.  Most of them are there for lack of power and don't expect it back for a few days still.  Others are teleworkers than need Internet access and have no cable/telco/etc... at home.  Driving up here from Richmond (301), there were spots dead in the water and others seemed fine.  Some lucky and/or prepared, some not so much.  If it wasn't so damned hot, probably wouldn't be getting much press.

Not neccasarily true.on the  news  I saw one asshat in a cooling shelter using electricity that could be put to good use charging his wireless i-pad.WTF

First of all, I am sorry about your problems and I hope that you were prepared.

I have been wondering about how well prepared the government and business are.

Has the 911 system continued to operate? Our system shifted to backups and continued as normal, however most cell towers in the area were down so citizens had no way of calling in

Are retail businesses able to operate (backup power for cash registers or some other way to make sales)? A few had generators but then neighbors were calling in complaining about the noise...

Do grocery stores and food distribution centers have backup power for refrigeration? I saw a few that did, others that didn't were dropping off produce for us to snack on as we directed traffic

Do gasoline stations have backup power for pumping gas?None that I have seen, those stations that had power had incredibly long lines, there were also plenty of people that just drove until they ran out of gas...

We had a tornado 14 months ago. Based on that..........

Interesting thread:

Keep in mind that for 911 (Emergency Services) to function, you have to have some way for people to call them. The dispatch center has to have power to disptach the untis, andd the fire and EMS stations have to have power to get the dispatch. Also, some fire/EMS stations receive their dispatches over the phone lines. The radios themseleves possibly could have problems also. Most public service radios operate through repeaters and/or trunking systems which require power and phone lines seperate from dispatch and the stations.

Here where I work, we have backup power that will run the whole station including everything (and every station is so equipped). When the power goes out, if you blinked you missed the switchover to backup power. We are normally dispatched over the phone lines but also have a backup radio link that will set off the alarm in the station. Our radios are on a trunking system and there is a backup trunking system if ours goes down. If that doesn't work we have UHF radios to back that up.

Other areas I am sure don't have that kind of redundency. A break at anywhere in that system could result in no emergency services until they go to plan B.