Taking Things for Granted

 I read another power outage post this week that prompted this one. We had a power outage last week, not too long, a couple of hours. Before I go any further, I want you to guess what caused the power outage and tell me your guess in the comments. No cheating as I will reveal the real culprit later in this post. Some in our area were affected a lot longer. Over 100,000 customers in four states were affected; western South Dakota, Eastern Wyoming and even parts of Montana and Idaho. 

The surge was so great that it popped the majority of the breakers in each and every one of those homes. Entire towns (including Custer) were without power; traffic lights, businesses, restaurants, all dead. Fires broke out throughout the outage area as a result of the surge. Many businesses were down for up to two days as IT experts rebooted and made repairs. We had over 9 breakers pop, including the hot tub, which we did not discover until we stepped in it later that night. 

The outage made me think of things we take for granted. You hit a light switch you really take it for granted that a light will turn on. You turn a faucet on; you expect water to come out. 

So, what caused the outage? Many of you that live in the area already know the answer. It started with the wind which was blowing upwards of 70mph. This wind started blowing tumble weeds, of which we have a lot of. One small tumble week rolls across the landscape and hits another tumbleweed. They become entangled and become a bigger tumbleweed..... until...you have mass of tumbleweeds bigger than a house that blows into a power substation and "Boom!", it shorts everything out for miles around. 

The resulting clog caused the system to trip offline, triggering a cascading failure across multiple connected grids. Crews spent hours attempting to reach the station, with one lineman reporting that visibility was “zero, like driving through a hay bale hurricane.” The pile was estimated to be “somewhere between 14 and 20 tons”

It really makes you realize how vulnerable we are. A coordinated attack on substations could bring the nation to a standstill for days. 

Two big milestones this week! One for Barb and one for me. Barb's was getting the flooring done in the camper! She finally laid the last piece of flooring on Friday of this week when she put the bullnose on the edging of the slideout. 

For my part, on Thursday, I finally put up the last full piece of steel siding on the garage! Going from this.....

To this....

We are both elated to have these portions of the projects behind us. There is still a lot to do on both. (Namely trim on both)

I helped Kevin one day this week with another concrete pour at Sam's house in Rapid City. If you recall, Sam's house looked like this in late October.

Now it looks like this.....

We were pouring the porch in the back of the house on this day. 10x50, a pretty easy pour and all went well. 

Did I mention that Sam is just 22 years old and building his first house? 

Deer hunting is going well, continuing to see lots of deer, but not the one I have my sights (literally) set on. I am seeing him on camera, but our cat and mouse came continues. In the meantime, here are a few of the beautiful animals I am seeing. 

This guy was carrying a branch attached to his antlers!

Next week is Thanksgiving! We have some very special guests arriving and staying for a few days!