Current Power-outages in South West Florida and new River Flooding

[peapvp]

As they say, what goes in has to come back out.
I used to live in Cape Coral and the Florida Key’s , mile marker 92 and Key West back in the late 80’s until the early 90’s

I just talked to my Friend and her sister lives in Alva, 20+ miles inland from Ft. Myers where the Caloosahatchee Lock and Damn is.
The water authority closed all inland damns / lock in central Florida’s including Alva and all these areas are now flooding because of all the accumulated water inland .
My friends sister house was 8’ underwater as a result of this today.
Lee County Emergency Services had to conduct 600+ rescue missions today alone.
If anyone has extra generators available please pm me.

we will try to organize a generator relief effort for those areas in Lee County which won’t have any power for quite a while.

My friends Mom used to run the Cape Coral and Ft. Myers United Way and both, my friend & her Mom are leaving Chattanooga, TN tonight for Cape Coral as they still own a Sportsbar in Cape Coral and to be with her sister in Alva

Thank you for your help

Peter

 

[peapvp]

This is what Arcadia Fl looked like it about 4 hours ago. Arcadia is app 35 miles north of Ft. Myers and about 15 miles north east of Punta Gorda

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1576390361471012864

 

[Leonardo]

I live in Sebring , FL and went 6 days without power during hurricane IAN and 7 days without home internet (mobile only) Thankfully I had an MEP-803A and 400 Gallons of diesel on hand. I got this generator tuned up and running fine through the help of this forum about a month before the hurricane hit. What perfect timing!.

I also connected it to the house with the quick and dirty method of back feeding it into a spare breaker. As a safety measure I removed the main breaker so that there is no chance of someone coming along and accidentally flipping it. I know it is not exactly the ideal way to go but during an emergency you do what you have to. Now that the power is back on I am going to explore using a more legal method. The 803A ran my entire house including central AC and HWH and water pump as well as my 3 auxiliary garages. And i was averaging less then half a gallon per hour fuel consumption! At night when the electric load is low I believe I was averaging more like 1/4gph to 1/3 gph. That was amazing to me. This 1800rpm diesel is at least 400% less fuel consumption then a typical 3600rpm gas genny.

Ive been through many hurricane induced power outages before, the longest being nearly 40 days. But this is my first with a diesel generator. I just cant believe out quiet and fuel efficient it is!

Unfortunately I lost 1/3 of the aluminum roof on my pre fab home. I was able to tarp it off for now with an ugly blue tarp but I think it is going to take months for local roofing prices to come down enough for me to afford a new roof. No flooding though. I am near the top of a hill and about 60 feet above ground water level so I will never have to worry about flooding.

I am truly fortunate that all I lost is part of my roof.

 

[peapvp]

Good to hear you ok @Leonardo,

one 89 year old male in Lee County passed away. The medical examiner reports:

An 89-year old man who died Friday (09.30.2022) in Lee County was described as "oxygen dependent".
"Lost Power and had Generator failure," the medical examiners' report concluded.
"Decedent unable to use required equipment".

Sad story....

 

[juanprado]

1st, I do feel for all the citizens in sw Florida and hope for their recovery as here in New Orleans / Louisiana we are familiar with Hurricanes and remember Katrina still quite vividly. Unfortunately as we know quite well it will be a very long time like in 3-5 years for just something that even looks like normal......

But I am super pizzed this highly vulnerable individual was not evacuated and removed from harms way knowing of his need. That is just plain negligence and possibly criminal.

 

[swbradley1]

I feel bad for the family of the 89-yo.

My wife and I rode out Ian in Myrtle Beach. It hit south of us but all the water and winds hit where we were. Took out the power to two condo building and one of them we were in. Power was out overnight and I had no power for my stroke prevention device (CPAP) and the place would not give us another room in the other building with power. Then I had to stay awake all night and they had us move18 hours later by carrying all our stuff down a dark narrow stairwell in the dark because of the batteries running down. To top it off I hurt my shoulder (and now hand) carrying that stuff and had to cancel the trip to the rally today.

I think Juan knows we took two FEMA trailers to Baton Rouge for Katrina. Although the images are bad the smell just doesn't quite come across the video.

 

[Dave926]

We live in Alva, Florida. I have an MEP-803A that performed well up until the very end of our power outage during Ian. Ran the 3 ton AC, well pump, refrigerators and chest freezer. Fuel consumption was about 1/3 gallon an hour. I had previously installed hard start kits on the AC units. I turned off the main breaker prior to any brown outs to prevent damage to the the compressors in the AC, refrigeration and electronics. The only problem I had was I noticed fuel underneath the generator late on day 5. Found fuel leaking from the return lines on top of the Lister-Petter and also from the fuel filter off the fuel pump. I replaced the return lines. When I went to change the filter the fuel pump died. By now it was about 2200 and working with flashlights and mosquitos. I had a new fuel pump and I was trying to replace it when the power came back on.

The next day I remounted the new fuel pump which was not an exact replacement. Airtex E8131 has different connections for the fuel lines. I ended up replacing the fuel line from the tank to the fuel water separator instead of trying to adapt to the stainless steel hardline. I also mounted the fuel pump in a new location. It fit snugly just under the access door. Getting the cover off the top of the electronics/control section was a pain. Someone RTVed the cover in place. I used a heat gun and a putty knife to get it off.

 

[Light in the Dark]

Most sets I have encountered did not have the RTV seal in place... maybe a half dozen or so have. PITA when you have to peel it off when its applied.

 

[SCSG-G4]

As they say, what goes in has to come back out.
I used to live in Cape Coral and the Florida Key’s , mile marker 92 and Key West back in the late 80’s until the early 90’s

I just talked to my Friend and her sister lives in Alva, 20+ miles inland from Ft. Myers where the Caloosahatchee Lock and Damn is.
The water authority closed all inland damns / lock in central Florida’s including Alva and all these areas are now flooding because of all the accumulated water inland .
My friends sister house was 8’ underwater as a result of this today.
Lee County Emergency Services had to conduct 600+ rescue missions today alone.
If anyone has extra generators available please pm me.

we will try to organize a generator relief effort for those areas in Lee County which won’t have any power for quite a while.

My friends Mom used to run the Cape Coral and Ft. Myers United Way and both, my friend & her Mom are leaving Chattanooga, TN tonight for Cape Coral as they still own a Sportsbar in Cape Coral and to be with her sister in Alva

Thank you for your help

Peter

View attachment 880852

I wound up going to Arcadia the week of Oct 9-15 to work in a mass feeding kitchen. On Monday we put out 8000 meals at a time, by Friday it was down to 1300 because power was being restored. Chain saw team that I'm normally with was busy all week long. When we got there there were 4,000 requests for the blue tarps!