Storms Sunday

[enjenjo]

Did everyone make it through the storms Ok? I see there were some tornadoes near some of the members.

[Rrumbler]

From what I could see on the news and weather channel, I am worried about most all of you back in the midwest and Great Lakes region.  Hope nobody got whacked.

[416Ford]

Good here. Lots of wind and rain. Hope to head home from work early today so I can check the garages and house in the light. Heard something banging outside in the wind this morning before I left but could not find it.
Hope everyone else has it just as good.

Dave

[rumrumm]

Luckily, we were 80 miles from the devastation experienced by Washington and Pekin, Illinois. We had wind and rain, but nothing other than a few tree limbs down.

[58 Yeoman]

Our electricity went off at 11:15; little did we know that a tornado had touched down about 40 miles from us just before 11am.  When our power came back on about 5 hours later, we could see the reason why.  Washington, IL got hit the hardest.  WOW!  We didn't receive any damage.

[Charlie Chops 1940]

A good bit of rain and wind, bu no damage up here.

Charlie

[UGLY OLDS]

LOTS of wind & rain ... No problems by us .. Power off for a short time ...Some branch's down ... Less to trim in the spring ...


Bob....

[kb426]

Good to hear, guys.

[wayne petty]

wow... i saw the video.. looked like the typhoon last week...

houses just blown apart and anything left standing peppered with holes from debris..

its time people start building slightly differently..

with an enclosed basement..  reinforced concrete walls and a poured ceiling either with removable forms or over steel panels like in skyscrapers..  with that coated in some kind of waterproofing..  a protected by walls stairwell that comes up from the basement to the raised floor of the main house..  this shielded stairwell.. could be up thru the first floor.. and if its a 2 floor house.. up thru the second floor.. with a stairwell inside..  so access to the basement could be shielded ..

this would probably require a horizontal sliding door.. think of a pocket door on steroids..  and a winch/ cumalong to pull it open from the inside if needed..  

why cap the basement.. so if the house blows off the top.. you are still covered..  and may actually have a place to stay.. instead of a shelter.

foreward thinking.. yep.. more expensive.. slightly.. make your house worth MORE.. yep.. keep your family safe??  yep..  if you lived in a flood area..  one might want water tight doors on the first floor.. or make the only access from the second floor. one will want to take precautions.. and do some creative post hole auger digging before the walls are poured... and drill at 45 degrees down and out in a few locations..  just a few feet.. 4 to 6 feet.. stuff some rebar in .. and then fill with cement..  prevents the flood if ever. from popping your basement out of the ground..


how many of you have a UPS for your computer .. uninteruptable power supply???  back up power for a few minutes for your computer..

i have one beside my bed... where the TV is plugged into it.. the lamp beside the bed also.. i use it to charge my cell phone also...

this gives me the ability to have power to light up the bedroom for 30 or 40 minutes when the power goes out..  when i had a wireless home phone.. it was also plugged in there.. so i could make land line calls when the power was out.. or turn on the TV to the HD antenna to see if there is any reason for the power to be out..


hint.. these things need new batteries.. 20 to 25 bucks every 3 years or so..

offices throw them out when the batteries fail..

hint.. in extended outages.. one can pull the battery cable ends off the internal battery and use some male quick connects and wire to attach to a conventional car or truck 12 volt battery for extended use..

some will run strings of LED xmas lights for significant amounts of time..  so one could actually take the time and run some lights down the ceilings of stairwells..

check this stuff out..
window films for home and building windows..

for car windows..

installation.. without bubbles..

these are just ideas...

around here.. fires... mudflows, landslides,, earthquakes.. high speed chases , crazies..  drug fueled rages.. drive by shootings..  armed roberies.. in the last 10 years.. there have been 2 people robbed and killed on my block.. just people walking down the side walk and people running up and robbing them..  4 or 5 cars stolen.. that i know about..  several homes robbed..  many cars robbed..  i average 1 piece of side glass a year in my cars parked on the street.. halloween  got my windshield smashed in my vw van..   and do you know what scares me the most.... of all the horrible things here in the big city...

los angeles parking enforcement..  in seconds.. they can get you for 80 bucks.. or 300+ if they impound your car.. around 1,500 if you park on a blue line of a handy cap parking spot. or even park in a handicap spot..


and when the big one hits..  its going to be bad..around 15 million people.. and all the roads out of here cut off by the san andreas..  the 10 near palm springs. the 15 at the top of the cajon pass. the 14 at palmdale blvd, the 5 at gorman.  the 101... probably in ventura.. or oxnard.. as there is a LOT of reservoirs that might fail up close to the fault line north of los angeles..  there was a 4.4 a few years back..  had over 10 inches of vertical  waves in the ground from where i was out in the valley.. 40 miles from the epicenter.. whats going to happen.. when the 8+ happens and it shakes for 3 to 5 minutes..   next time you watch a star trek episode/movie or an old western where you see giant slabs of the ground tilted up.. that area is called vasquez rocks..  where the earthquake shock waves passed each other.. they doubled and amplified there..  ripping the ground up like you were whipping a garden hose..  except it was so violent it tore and each piece fell on the next piece..   the northridge quake tossed my sister and her husband in the air twice while they were in bed..   he had the forethought of adding simpson strong ties to every place he could while the framers were building that house.. every one of the other 200 homes that were built by the same crews with the same materials. needed significant structure repairs.  they did not even have a single crack.. the 7.1. hector mine earthquake out in the desert east of barstow caused a 3 foot long crack.. but that quake has the light fixture in the stairway swinging over 6 feet..  8.7M to come???

oh... and... if you get this far down.. the northridge quake was in 92 or 94.something like that.. about a year ago.. i ask my sister.. that after being tossed around by the quake.. and it had settled down and stopped.. if her husband had leaned over and whispered in her ear.. "did the earth move for you too?"   funny.. there was a thud on the phone where she dropped it and a huge amount of laughing ..

[Beck]

I had mostly wind here. The problem area was north of me. No damage at home.
I have a ground blind up for deer hunting. The season opens Fri morning. I put the blind up over a week ago. I expect when I get there Fri it will be gone. My blind is basicly a camo tent without a floor. The only thing holding it in place are corner stakes.

[48ford]

It touched down 5 miles west of us.
It riped up a industrial park took out a gas station& a doctors office.
It missed first solar ,they employ a lot of people.
Then it took out a meijers store and hit a drive in, taking down the screen.and riped up a metro park.
We had one a few years ago that took out our little town,lost 7 people,high school,police station.
It missed us but took the place the other side of the road.
Thank god no loss of life this time,feel sorry for the people in ill.

[moose]

Glad you Ohioians are okay and nobody was hurt in the touchdowns. I feel sorry for those further west who did suffer losses! We lost power Sunday evening and just got it back... Lots of yard debris but okay otherwise.

[348tripower]

I lost another tree. It was old and rotten and now its down. Power was out for about 3 hours but no big deal.