The forecasts keep changing and last I looked we're supposed to be seeing about .2" of ice accumulation now. Here I don't see any rain or snow and it's hovering right around freezing. What's it like up in NOVA?

We're in between RVA and Williamsburg.  We have about a 1/4 inch of ice on top of the three inches of snow and the power is out.  Lots of trees/branches coming down.  I was outside wiring up a dash cam for my truck when a pine tree snapped and came down on the wires for our road.  Quite a flash and bang when it hit.  Looks like this is forecasted to keep up for at least the next 12-18 hours.

Good luck y'all!


ETA- Dominion got our power restored in about 24hrs.  Not bad considering the number of folks who were and still are out.  Wood stove and generator makes this type of outage a relatively minor inconvenience overall.

My son and I went out around noon. It was slush/ice on our neighborhood road, but 3 was clear. Did some errands and stopped at SSG to see if they had any decently priced lowers. Got there and saw they had closed for the weather. By then it was around 1430 and it was just raining, no ice on the roads. I assume it’ll be bad tonight.

I'm in lunenburg county and we have a good bit of ice. Roughly 1/2". Trees are coming down constantly. Power has been out since 10am here

This.

My cars are ice mounds with a vehicle inside them.

SSG had one or two for 60 bucks as of Wednesday, fwiw.

SW VA here.  Done; melted all away and power restored.

It was cool watching big ice chunks fall from the trees late this afternoon.

Just a bit south of Richmond. Power's still out from yesterday, got about 1/4" more ice last night and lost a couple tree limbs near the house.

Southern Chesterfield reporting.  Power has been out since about 1:30 yesterday afternoon.  Southside Electric reported it was too dangerous last night to have their crews working due to falling trees so they are only now headed back out.

At our place we have two trees down in the backyard and one in the front.  Fortunately nothing hit any of the structures but it is a mess.  

It is also nice that it isn't very cold so the fireplace is keeping the house at a reasonable temperature.  Between that and the generator the power outage is only a minor inconvenience but the cleanup will be a project.

Power went off around 1130 Saturday morning for about 15 or 20 minutes.  Came back on.  Figured they had cut ours off for a few minutes to reconnect farther down the road after doing some repairs.  

Then it went off around noon.  Hmm.  Blinked back on a few minutes later.  Just a blink.  Been off ever since.  Dragged the generator out of the garage and hit the start button.  Nothing (battery dead.)  Pulled the rope and it fired up the 2nd pull.  Let it run a few minutes, shut it off and dragged it over behind the house.  Got the extension cords ran inside, taped up the slots at the bottom of the windows, rolled up towels to lay on the window sills at extra insulation.  Got the extension cords plugged in and sat down to watch TV.

Gas fire place kept the house warm enough all night.

We'll see how long this lasts.

Heard reports of power company trucks working all around the area but have not yet seen a single truck around our house.

Years ago, I had no 4WD vehicles and I drove just about anywhere I wanted whenever I wanted.  Now I have four 4WD or AWD vehicles and have not even fired one up, let alone driven anywhere.

Older and wiser?  Or just lazy?

Been out of power now for over 24 hours and no estimated time of restoration from REC,  Haven't seen a single truck go by on the highway and I get fed off a major distribution line so it has to be something big somewhere to knock our line out.  we almost never lose electricity and if we do it is usually back on in less that 2 hours.

I had to go get more diesel this morning and it looks like Armageddon the further east you go.  Had to almost go into Richmond to find any gas station that had electricity.

Update from lunenburg county

Were still in the dark power wise. My contact at dominion told me to prepare for a week without power. I just got 100 gallons of gas in Buckingham county while helping a friend get his generator from the hunting camp. Buckingham is in good shape

I haven't gone out yet today, but looking around my property last night it wasn't too bad in Spotsy. I expected power to go out at some point but it didn't, thankfully. A light glazing on the snow and my car, but not much, and the street wasn't slick when I went to check the mail around 2300. Gonna go out in an hour or so to do some errands, but I'm not expecting it to be bad.

I had to go out this morning and the roads were fine in spotsy, wet but that was it. No power outage like some have had.

Prince Edward here.  About .5 inches of ice on the trees.  Power has been out over 24 hours.  A pole on my road snapped, so I don't expect power back on for 2-3 more days.  Roads are fine, and Farmville has power.

Yeah, everything is melting in the rain currently. Went to Lowes and SSG to look at what lowers they had. Wasn't going to pay $250 for a Spike's Tactical lower so it was a bust.

General area of prince Edward? Your a new face/name for the area

Im in northeast lunenburg county, Victoria to be exact

4HShooter,
Worsham area near Hampden-Sydney.  Actually I've been on the board for a while, I lurk a lot and don't post frequently.

Just rain here, life we've had for the past week or so.

Hampton Roads area.

Went up to the north end of Chesterfield County yesterday about 4 PM to take a shower at my oldest son's place.  They haven't lost power even for a few minutes.  Lots more snow up there (12 miles away) than we had south of Richmond.

Got my shower, thanked him, left to drive home and my wife called me to let me know Dom. VA power had called to confirm our address and phone number (when we'd called to report the power outage they asked me to enter the home phone number).  I was on my cellphone as we don't have a working home phone unless we have elecctricity.  That confused them.  When I entered the home phone number to confirm our address/account from my cellphone the computer response was that they had no record of that phone number.  We've lived in this house with that home number for 35 years now.  Anyway, she got that straight with the lady that called and the lady corrected the information in their system.  She asked the woman about possible timing for power restoration and was told that they had no idea when we might get power back due to the large number of fallen trees/limbs around the area.

We finished our call and hung up.  About 5 minutes later she called back to tell me the power was on in our area.  We were on our little generator for lights, TV, internet.  But, when the power went out I'd turned on the lights in the garage (separate line/meter base to the garage) to give us a sign when the power did come back on.  Look out the back window, if the lights are on out there, we can shut down the generator, unhook the extension cords and go back to normal.  Got home and did all that and turned the breakers on.  

Youngest son lives about 12 miles SW of us near the Amelia County line and still doesn't have power.  Been trying to get them to come over and get warm/take a shower, etc. and they won't do it.  Been trying to get him to get his gas fireplace fixed for 3 or 4 years and haven't convinced him of that either.  Maybe the last couple of days will encourage him enough to get it done.

Many of us are really lucky that it wasn't cold enough to freeze our pipes in/under the house.

Update from SW Chesterfield county.  On Southside Co-op service here.  

At last check they still had 40,000 of their approximately 50,000 members without power.  Their service area may be the worst impacted in the state on a % of customers basis.

Attached File


Their map shows that they haven't even yet verified the damage in our sector.  The map is constantly changing and there is no way to know which sectors are interrelated.  I am bracing for at least another day but it could be longer.  

Been burning the fireplace constantly since mid-day on the 13th.  At current balls to the wall usage I have about 3 days of good stored dry wood left.  House is comfortable since it hasn't been all that cold.  

With a little circuit breaker power management the 6.5kw generator can power everything except the heat pumps and stove.  I have 40 gallons of stored gas and run the bigger noise maker through the day and then the smaller 2K Wen inverter at night to power a few lights, internet and the fireplace insert circulator fan.  

I feel sorry for those that are less prepared.  The worst inconvenience to us is that someone has to stay at home to feed the fireplace insert which means the wife is taking the early shift at work and when she gets home I will head in to do what I can't manage remotely.

I've got an uncle that lives just down from hampden Sydney on past granny b's

Edit: I got power back on at 430 this evening. According to my backwoods math we were out of power for about 54 hours. Glad I was prepared with a generator and enough gas to get by until I could get to my company fuel tanks.....which had roughly 150 gallons of gas stolen at some point over the weekend. Damn thieves

We got out power back at about 4 PM so it was out for 50 hrs give or take but we were lucky.  Southside Co-OP still has about 80% of their customers out and is projecting several more days before everyone has power.  

We are fortunate to be on a 3 phase line which they are prioritizing since those lines feed more houses than the single phase lines.  We are also in one of their denser service areas since there are a couple of reasonably sized subdivisions that appear to be feeding from the line that passes by our house.

All in all my preps were sufficient but I did learn a few things that differ from the hurricane damage that has been our most frequent issue in past years.

1.  We only burn the fireplace insert occasional when it is moderately cold or a bit more frequently when it drops into the teens and below.   If you are using it to heat the entire house (to the extent that is possible) you burn a lot of wood.  My dry supply was good enough for about another two day.  I need to add another covered wood storage rack so I can at least double my supply.  I would like to be sufficiently prepared for at least a week without power in the winter and two weeks in the summer.

2.  The fireplace keeps the house tolerable even toasty in the living room but the more distant rooms downstairs and those away from the stairway upstairs (master bath mostly) get pretty cool even with the doors open.  I am going to invest in a 10K BTU kerosene heater and add 20 gallons of kerosene to my emergency preps so I can spot heat to augment the fireplace.

Damn, hope y'all get taken care of quickly. We were only out of power for about 30 hours. The 5kw generator ran about half the house and we had enough fuel on hand that it wasn't an issue. I had to go refill the gas cans after one day, but then power came back on before I used much of it. After the fact, I realized I should have drained and used the gas from my motorcycle tank and refilled it with fresh fuel.

Another round of snow, sleet & freezing rain coming in tomorrow night.

Checking in on our Charlotte, Prince Edward and Lunenburg members.

I'm in Appomattox Co and got power back on Sunday. Things are not looking good with the current ice storm forecast for Thursday.

I'm an electrician for a nearby locality and we had to get generator power going at a few of our sites.

I guess get ready, here it come again.

My youngest son got electricity back about 7 PM last night.  About 80 hrs. without electricity.  Kept the fridge going with a generator.  A light or two plugged into another extension cord.

He says his 5,000 watt generator won't run his fridge and freezer at the same time.  I think it should, but he says he's tried it and it won't, so he swaps back and forth between them.

Not sure how they've managed with no heat at all till Monday.  I took an 18,000 btu propane heater and a couple 20 gallon tanks over to him.  They ran it for a few hours that night and again in the morning.  Took a kerosene heater to them yesterday (not knowing how much longer the power would be out but knowing it was going to finally get cold enough to freeze pipes.)  His wife didn't like the kerosene heater, so we cut it off and fired up the propane heater again.  

Glad they got their electricity back on shortly after so they didn't have to depend on that one small heater to keep from freezing the pipes in their walls.  That could have been a hell of a mess.

Power went back on around 7pm, 80 + hours out.  My generator runs the well pump, fridge and some lights so we have water.  Cook on the old coleman camp stove (we made a big pot of chicken soup) and a kerosene heater kept the house tolerably warm.  I haven't bothered to put the gen away, and will be restocking on gas and kerosene today.  Hold on to your hats for round two...

I agree that 5K watts should be enough for both a fridge and a freezer.  It may be that if they shut down the genny at night and then start it up the next morning with both circuits energized that the startup draw of both compressors kicking it at the same time is a problem.

What did you have to do to get the gennys running?  And why?  Adding knowledge to my "oh crap" list.

Lunenburg county

I'm more prepared now for tomorrow's forecast. I wish I could've found a 30 amp plug to temporary hard wire my generator to a couple breakers but I'm a day late and a Dollar short.

Got about 60 gallons at the house and access to another 1500 about 8 miles away at the company shop. Ready to rock and roll

Yeah I spent the afternoon replenishing my fuel and ice melt stocks plus a few goodies to get me through the weekend. Hopefully it isn't as bad as last weekend.

We had several traffic lights out during the storm. All have UPS on them but ran out...

Had to carry gennys out to a couple of sewer lift stations that lost utility power.

One generator had issues with a engine control module that I had to replace from Carter Cat. That one is back up to a water booster station.

I have about 8 or 10 that we maintain. Most critical one is the one at our 911 dispatch center.

This one might even be worse than the last at least for the area right around Richmond and to the SW in Chesterfield.  

It seems like the ice is forming much faster than last time.  The commute into downtown Richmond was raining but slushy and the wiper blades were freezing up.  Not terrible but I did see one car off the road on 95N.  

The forecast is for slightly increasing temperatures but not until late this evening.  The weather into Sat and Sun is for much colder nights so the people without power might be pretty miserable if we have more lines down and the weather prevents the crews from even fixing the lines still down from last week.

For the oh crap list

It's not the recommended way to do it, but 10-3 wire and a male plug for plugging generator in to back feed the house panel. If you don't understand how electrical panels work, don't do this.

I would have some spare fuel hoses for the generator, they tend to rot at the most needed times.

Carb cleaner

Oil change material.

Plenty of fuel cans. I'm partial to the metal safety cans used on construction sites but have a ton of the old style black nozzle (pre-spill safety crap nozzles)

Woke up to a 1/4 inch of snow around 0600 this morning. Warmed the car up and got all the snow off and went to work. Wasn’t icy, but the slush and unplowed roads like 17 were a little concerning, but not bad. Left work at 3 and the snow/sleet was a frozen sheet on the car. Cleared it off again and drive home. Roads were clear, just idiots who only clean their windshield having 2-3 pound sheets of frozen snow flying off at 60+ mph. Didn’t lose power, but I expect the driveway to be a compacted sheet of ice tomorrow morning.

We were fine yesterday and last night.  Power blipped once this morning at about 6 AM.  Heard the stove's little jingle when it powered up so I got out of bed to get the coffee going.

Hoping the day will just get better.

Last night and this morning when taking out the dog, the snow on the grass had frozen to a solid sheet of ice.  Doggo was not happy that his paws wouldn't crunch through to the ground.

And my cars are both inaccessible steel igloos.

Power out. Generator running good. Attached File

Did any of you see that weird bright object in the sky late this afternoon?  I've heard it called "the sun" from ancient times.

Let's hope we have seen the last of the damn ice storms for VA this winter.

Double tap somehow.  Sorry.

Update:

Still out of power. We were out 2 days on the first storm. It came back on for 2 days then back off for day 4 now.

Keeping the house warm with a kerosene heater. Cycling the generator on and off so the fridge and deep freezer stay cold. My wife and daughter off to the local firehouse to help distribute meals.

Checking on elderly neighbors to see if they were ok.

Local stores are seeming to be keeping up with the short-time emergency supplies.

Hoping for restoration sometime this weekend. Maybe???

I got lucky with this last storm. Seems like I was 1/4 mile west of the all night rain/sleet. The other side of town was froze solid, but I faired well.

My grandfather in Charlotte county is still in the dark from the first storm. I'm headed to his house tomorrow with a generator and chainsaws to clean up and get him squared away