EnergyRealist

Day 4 after Hurricane Sandy went through.

Unlike many others, and unlike buildings in the center of Keyport, we had minimal damage.  It was not until I walked into town on Tuesday that we realized the extent of the destruction.  In Keyport there is almost no damage from trees (Keyport trees have to be tough to stand the constant northerlies in winter), the damage is from the storm surge.

Watching the 10’ plus waves chew up the shore line on Monday night and seeing the amount of debris they threw up (from trees to boats to sections of dock) I realized that my measly few sand bags around the basement door were not going to do much.

With a lot of luck high tide turned at about 9:30 pm and the wind shifted to the east at much the same time.  We were lucky…

I am trying to get videos up to YouTube, but no luck with the internet connection so far. Here are a couple of pictures during, and after.

The Steam Boat Museum - gone - some nice pieces of maritime history washed away

Let's dock the boat on this bridge over here...

Lessons?

I was not nearly as prepared as I should have been.  The long electricity outage (it could be another week, maybe more…) means nothing works; no heat, no fridge (some bait in there really started to smell!), no internet (except on the cell phone), no traffic lights, no pumps, no cooktop, no microwave, no electric kettle, no TV etc. etc.

Back to my hobby horse; get those power lines underground!  Sure it’s expensive, but look at the added security.

And the elections; one party promises some focus on energy conservation, renewable energy and all that green stuff.  The other promises “North American” energy independence.  Listen closely it does not say American independence, it says North American.  In practice it means drill, baby drill, it means Canadian tar sands and a huge pipeline, it means more Mexican off-shore rigs in the gulf.

No wonder Statoil is launching that beautiful web site – see my previous entry.

More when I get power again – in all senses of the word.