[aprssig] 3' snow emergency dumb idea...

[Bob Bruninga]

Stupidest Emergecny power Idea for me ever... 

With 2'-3' snow forcast, I parked my Prius down at the street end of my driveway so it would be easy to get out.  Went inside.. after suffering through a few hours of my wife's media induced hand wringing and hysteria over possible loss of power and other end of the world scenarios, I assured her that the Prius would power the house - no problem... 
See: www.aprs.org/alternative-energy.html 

To show I was doing everything possible, I even went out to pre-run the extension cord from the Prius to the house breaker box...  Looking for the right cord, I could either use a 50' cord that was too short or a 100 foot one that was too long.   

Thinking I didn't want to give up any voltage drop... I came up with the IDEA of backing the Prius right up to the garage where the breaker panel is, and that way my 12' male-to-male "emergency power" cord could connect the two directly without needing any long cords...  The wife would see that I had done SOMETHING in preparation, And it would make a nice picture if we used it. 

Wind blew, snow flew... power remained for me and you.. 

... 

And then for the next 18 hours I got to shovel a 100' long by 8' wide by 3' deep driveway to get the Prius out....   

I think I'll go with the 100' #12 cord next time instead. 

As backgroud, the second laughable tale was the euphoric mood we were in as we prepared for the snow... firewood, DVD movies, milk, snacks, chips, popcorn, toilet paper....  As two people with overburdened busy lives we were looking forward to 3 days straight at home with NO OTHER DEMANDS.  We were young again... 

Then spent all 3 days digging out (100' of driveway, plus the culdesac), protecting an acre of plants from breaking under the snow, chain-sawing broken limbs across access routes, continuously cleaning and  moping up the water tracked in on every excursion, removing snow from over 200sqft of solar panels, making contraptions to get the snow off the roof in preparation for the next 5" of snow forcast in 2 days, etc, etc... 

Then collapsing in exhaustion.. 

Bob, WB4APR