bbehring
New member
Well, this would be a shout out lesson to all to be prepared before disaster strikes. Thought I'd share my 18 hour power outage experience with all (and very lucky it was just 18 hours). We were woken up at 1:30am by a power outage. Nothing really unusual as in past outages we wait 15 to 20 min and the juice comes back on. We'll we jumped out of bed checked on the kids, located our flashlights then began checking our tanks and pond etc. Both our tanks and pond power down well (and most of the time power back up with no problems). We've been through several small outages but none real long past 3 to 4 hours at any one time. Anyway, after about an hour with no juice, we began to worry and dialed up Southern Cal Edison via cell to see what the scoop was. Well some poor souls had missed a corner turn down the street a couple of blocks and creamed a sub transformer, plowing through it, through a block wall and into someones back yard. The emergency power crew was dispatched and by 6am the 1 splice had been made. We headed out to breakfast at 7am thinking that by the time we returned the power would be back on. Checking with SCE at 8am after breakfast yielded an approximate time of restored power at or after 8am. Well this is when our unprepardness hit home hard. We borrowed a 1500 w old generator from our best friends. Problem was the unit was super old and hadn't been run in over 2 years. Finally after 20 to 30 minutes I got the thing fired up and then realized that I couldn't get into my garage for my power cords without power to my auto GD opener. I then headed out to the LHS and bought 6 new power cords. After plugging in my sump return pump (mag 5) the generator power serged then konked out. I got it started a few times but same result, once a load was put on it it just shut down within a few minutes. Well be move to plan B! I marched down to my local RV center and purchased a brand spakin new 2000i generator and my wife ran out an picked up a 6kw rental generator. With the 2 generators in yard, I proceeded to add our loads to them. On the 6kw I was able to get 90% of the reef tank hooked up (minus my skimmer and MH), 2 water pumps and an air pump on my kids cichlid tank and our upright freezer. The 6kw rocked. On the newly purchased 2kw I was able to get my kitchen fridge/freezer and a spare (newly purchased 340gph pump) for my 4000 gal koi pond. Whew! Gotter all hooked up and running with in maybe 1 1/2 hours from the initial plan B inception. Well the power just came back on about 10 min ago and we're in the clear! I'm the proud new owner of a 2kw generator and will be purchasing a used 6kw generator soon! We are happy that this has happened to us now and not during an actual serious disaster. We are now more prepared and have 90% of the equipment required to sustain us and our systems for some time (as long as there would be gas available). Anyway, just thought I'd share to maybe motivate all to get prepared before actual power outage disaster strikes your home.
