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Des Moines storm (also some Iowa towns of less importance with worse pizza)

Wow!

from 250k down to only 21k

and the storm lake customer is back!

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Good morning, friends. Let's talk about Alliant and their outage map details.
We know about the email they sent out, letting all current outages know that they hope to have most everybody back up by Tuesday.

So, now their outage map "pins" for specific details on specific areas have this "hope" updated. There's a whole lot of "Wednesday 12:00 AM" now.

So...color me skeptical I guess. It is almost like they threw us all a bone because if one wants to know specifics about their area - chances are they really have no clue on it.


I'll be heading home tomorrow afternoon. There's a very good chance I'll simply drop off dirty clothes, pick up clean clothes and mail plus anything else I may need for another entire week's time - and head right back out of town.
Yeah I don’t believe this. We still have downed lines and limbs all over power lines. Haven’t seen one utility vehicle.
 
My issue is the box/meter was pulled from our house, found an electrician at a neighbors house and they came to replace it, but part of the meter is shot, and due to the demand, its back-ordered for a week they think. So if Alliant gets up and going, that's only half the issue for many people
 
I’m not telling you to do this, but If someone was so inclined, the person with power could install or use a 30A breaker, use some 10/4 SO cord, run it across the street, land the wires on another 30A breaker in the panel without power and backfeed their house. Turn off the main on the house without power.
Correct, with a 240V breaker on each end.
 
Sigh. I am very tired, but in a "my gawd I needed today" tired.

First, the particulars...at home (near Kirkwood) per the Alliant outage map, no change whatsoever to the numbers that have been there since Wednesday. I must live in The Forgotten Land.

My brother, west side of Marion near Donnelly Park - same deal.


Today, I decided to seek out adventures. Had a blast.

My SUV/boat launcher died a couple weeks ago. Electrical gremlins the best German vehicle mechanic in town can't figure out. So, knowing The Best Month Of Fishing In Iowa is coming up...I decided to order and mount a trailer hitch for my 2002 BMW 325i (that's right, laugh it up fuzzballs...gotta do what you gotta do). Installed it last week...wiring, the whole shebang. But only a class I, 2,000 capacity, 200 tongue weight.

My boat/trailer I'm guessing is pretty close to that 2,000 pounds. I only have 2.5 miles one way to the public ramp, but my frontage road is rocky, uneven, rutted from heavy rains - and the owners never maintain it.

It's not for the timid.

Gotta find out sometime...and with today being glorious, I gave it all a whirl. The 325i - all 2.5L I6 RWD of it - handled it with aplomb. Tires never spun, never bottomed out once (had 10 inches of clearance fully loaded at the hitch), pulled the trailer like a champ, and yanked the boat out of the water just as easily as my SUV does.

When I pulled the boat out, the ramp was very busy. I drew some crazy looks when I backed in - yet got compliments from a couple old Mississippi River Rats after I pulled my boat out with nary an issue.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND...I caught 2 very nice chunky bulldozer largemouth twins around 17" plus a couple crappies too (for dinner) - plus I had myself a long ass boat ride lock to lock and back on pool 11.

A very cathartic 7 hours on the river...
BMW FTW!
Love it.

Might have to get a hitch for the ‘ol M4! :)
 
My issue is the box/meter was pulled from our house, found an electrician at a neighbors house and they came to replace it, but part of the meter is shot, and due to the demand, its back-ordered for a week they think. So if Alliant gets up and going, that's only half the issue for many people
Yeah, meter hubs, meter sockets, and weather heads out everywhere. My company bought as many as they could Tuesday morning in anticipation of this and we’re still out. 30 Amp, 240 volt twist lock plugs are like gold right now too, because everybody wants them for their generators.
 
122 hours & counting. Tree still lying on the snapped power pole a few doors down. We also discovered there is still no internet, even if we did have power.

The promise of 'restored power by noon on Saturday' has been replaced by 'Saturday overnight.' Fun times.
 
My brother lives by Xavier in CR and just got his power back around 3pm. Hang in there CR!!
 
Marion IA going on 163 hours, still no power.

"Old Marion" got clobbered. All those old trees in that area...very heavily wooded.

I drove the length of 8th Avenue and there are still parts of it that are one lane because of tree damage, trees leaning on power lines where the pole is snapped, etc. It appeared for about a 6 block run from Farmers State Bank east that nobody has even begun cleanup yet. The home owners, sure. But not street crews nor Alliant.

Marion Square was very sad to see. I used to live kitty corner from Zoey's, above the former Marion Maid-Rite. The square's trees were all torn up horribly.
 
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Yep. Same here. Highly doubtful their Tuesday estimate holds.

I drove through at dusk. Sort of looped around east on 8th Avenue, then west back down 7th and 6th Avenue where I grew up.

Not a single light on in the homes anywhere...
 
Marion IA going on 163 hours, still no power.

They just got the whole town up on generator power yesterday afternoon. Still saying late in the week before we get normal power restored. At least it isn't going to be hot this week.

Went to Marshalltown on Saturday and Pella yesterday. It's kind of shocking the difference. The whole drive up to M-Town looked like a bomb range, fields flattened, trees partially or fully down, all kinds of building damage. Down to Newton was the same. Saw a roof to a Morton building lying in the middle of a soybean field about 3-400m off the road...with no Morton building anywhere that it might have come from.

South of Newton...little to no damage. Spotty corn damage north of the river along Hwy 14, no damage at all the rest of the way to Monroe.
 
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Only 245 MidAmerican Energy customers without power in the QCA

Our friends finally got theirs back yesterday afternoon.
 
We just heard from a lineman in our backyard yesterday...another week. At this point signs are pointing to the house being deemed unoccupiable so idk if it even matters if the power goes back on.
 
Ol Weather Channel man is getting roasted a bit in the comments



As is a KCCI meteorologist



Edit: Nevermind, ol Kelley Moody deleted her tweets after attempting to argue her point that its “dangerous” to call a derecho a land hurricane.
 
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We just heard from a lineman in our backyard yesterday...another week. At this point signs are pointing to the house being deemed unoccupiable so idk if it even matters if the power goes back on.
Where are you at (general location). We have a good amount of houses like that in our area. Sorry to hear this, it’s a mess :(
 
Does anyone know of specific locations CR/Marion that I could just show up with a chainsaw to help? The CR website just shows volunteer for food bank stuff. Friends/family all seem good right now and my house is to the point of needing professional tree removal. Can’t do much more around here.
 
In a world where there is so much political divide... it's wonderful to see so many people willing to help others!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So many of you have my respect.
 
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Does anyone know of specific locations CR/Marion that I could just show up with a chainsaw to help? The CR website just shows volunteer for food bank stuff. Friends/family all seem good right now and my house is to the point of needing professional tree removal. Can’t do much more around here.

If you went anywhere a few blocks south of Linn-Mar HS I suspect that you would have no trouble finding plenty of places to help out. Although a lot of work has been done in this area, much remains from what I can see.

OR contact New Life Community Church on 29th Ave. They were organizing help last weekend, I knew someone that knew someone there and worked through them on Saturday. Overhearing a phone call there Saturday around noon, I sensed that they still had a list of people that were looking for relief, with more people still calling.
 
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Does anyone know of specific locations CR/Marion that I could just show up with a chainsaw to help? The CR website just shows volunteer for food bank stuff. Friends/family all seem good right now and my house is to the point of needing professional tree removal. Can’t do much more around here.

Here is a link to Samaritans Purse, a national organization based out New Covenant Bible in CR. You could sign up with them
https://www.spvolunteer.org/project-response/276
 
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Linn County/CR...jebus.

40% still without power in the county. 50% of traffic lights still not powered, much of what is running is generator only. The tree removal from streets is utterly massive so it's hard to make much progress, but they're working on it.

Now the hard questions are coming from the presser...
 
So our power came back on a little before 10am, on the phone with wife at home at noon, power went back out. Hasn't came back on since...

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So our power came back on a little before 10am, on the phone with wife at home at noon, power went back out. Hasn't came back on since...

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We've had blips like that every day since they got the generator power going. Runs fine for 10-12 hours, cuts out for 10 minutes of so, then comes back on. I don't know if it's because they have to cut the power to hook up other areas of town, but it's happened once or twice each day.
 
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