Well, everything at my house has pretty much recovered from the power outage now. Looks like I only lost two fish; one apparently sufficated and the other has just disappeared. I feel I was really lucky.
We do have a gas generator which supplies power to about half the house and a gas fireplace which keeps most of the house warm. However, the power went out just before midnight, Thursday night, and when my husband went out to turn on the generator, it's battery was dead. I woke him up early Friday morning and sent him on a hunt for a new battery.
He returned home about 9:30 with the new battery. Once it was installed, the generator fired up like new.
The generator worked flawlessly all day Friday and then he turned it off at 8 PM for the night. Upon getting up Saturday morning (the day of the PSAS Holiday Party) the generator wouldn't start again! Battery was good and it was trying to turn on, but there just wasn't any spark getting to it. My husband went out again looking for a mechanic and the parts to fix it to no avail. He then brought home the motorhome and we strung extension cords to all the tanks in the house and used it's small generator to keep some flow going in all the tanks. I was relieved to have my
tanks running again. I had been using battery operated air pumps until then.
About 1:30, people started arriving for the PSAS Holiday Party. Still no electricity in the house other than what the power cords laying all around the house were providing to my tanks. The house was lit by candles and warmed by the gas fireplace. You could hardly see into my tanks and flashlights were used to see various corals and fish. Everyone was a bit disappointed.
At one point, someone 'proded' me into turning on the PFO LED Solaris lighting on my 360 as everyone wanted to see it in action. It did come on and lit up the tank as it usually does. About 30 seconds later, there was complete silence throughout the house. Seems the Solaris used enough extra power to kick the breaker to the generator in the motorhome. Next, about 6 or 8 of the guys went out to the motorhome to flip the breaker back on. About 10 minutes later, there still wasn't any power at all. Eventually, one of them finally found the breaker behind a child-proof
lock and got my tanks running again.
Randy (CWBY416) had brought a delicious casserole which was cold and needed heating to be edible. There was nothing in the house in which we could warm it, so it was decided to use the microwave in the motorhome. Well, that was too much again and the breaker tripped. We decided my tanks could go without flow long enough to heat the casserole. Once it was warmed, my tanks had flow again.
Colleen (Jesshimom), Scott (Szidls), Shilo and several others continued to prepare the other foods for our meal. Then we all started to eat. Lots of goodies had arrived and it was a GREAT meal. About mid-way through dinner, the power came on. There were cheers from everyone! It took me about 10 minutes to have all my tanks powered back up to normal
with all the lights back on. I also was then able to turn on the Holiday music and started up the DVD of "Finding Nemo". What a relief. It took the fish, corals and anemones a while to start perking up, but I do believe they all are going to make it now.
Then the party really got started. There was lots of reefing discussions going on everywhere. Lots of talk about what everyone had been through the past couple of days. Ed Hahn (EdHahn) was doing his thing of running around taking pictures when you were least expecting it. (Hey Ed, you left your TFH magazine here) The atmosphere was now upbeat!
The gift exchange was a lot of fun. We drew names and you got to choose which gift you wanted. The really fun part was that when YOUR name was drawn, you could pick any unwrapped gift, or you could 'steal' one someone else had already opened. Poor Matt (Matts125) had his gifts stolen about 3 times! It was FUN!
More people kept arriving thoughout the afternoon and I believe it was about 8:30 when the last left. I think we had about 30 total. I sure was hoping for a lot more, but with so many without any power, no Internet connections and no phone lines either, I think it's perfectly understandable. If you didn't make it, you missed a good time. Thanks
everyone who did make it!
Hugs to all!
Vicki
I even have this nifty gift that I have noone to give to now!
