My first update since Helene came through the southern part of the United States and basically bitchslapped everyone.
We're fine; no property damage, no loss of life for our family, but people have gone nuts around here!
Colquitt EMC outage numbers as of posting this episode (9/30/24):
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Speaker:Good morning. It is September 30th. It's currently 7.53 in the morning.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:Past several days have been interesting.
Speaker:So,
Speaker:if you're not aware, there was a little storm called Helene,
Speaker:Category 4 hurricane, that decided to bitch slap the southeast.
Speaker:Just utter destruction in Florida. It came up through Georgia.
Speaker:I live in Tifton, which is, we're kind of south central.
Speaker:We're roughly about,
Speaker:I don't know, 50-60 miles north of Adasta.
Speaker:It takes about 45 minutes on I-75 to get down there. I've never really
Speaker:looked at the distance. I just look at time.
Speaker:And that storm came through Georgia Thursday evening, Friday morning.
Speaker:It hit us around 2.30, 2-2.30 in the morning. We really started
Speaker:seeing the high winds around one o'clock, I think, midnight,
Speaker:at the earliest.
Speaker:And we were fortunate because the original
Speaker:projected path would have probably wound up with even more
Speaker:devastation in this area for us. And that's not to say that we don't have
Speaker:quite a lot. Trees down everywhere, homes destroyed or damaged, vehicles
Speaker:destroyed or damaged, swaths of the entire area without power.
Speaker:Last time I looked, and I've been mainly paying attention to the Colquitt EMC
Speaker:numbers because, well, we're on Colquitt.
Speaker:And last time I looked, of all of their customers, and they have
Speaker:about 66,000, as they say, 66,000 meters,
Speaker:there's still a little over 44,000 that are without power.
Speaker:And then it's divided up between
Speaker:Moultrie, Tifton, and Valdosta. If I remember correctly, I think Tifton
Speaker:is down to in the 13,000 range.
Speaker:Moultrie's in the 40,000 range, 4,400. Valdosta's still up in the like 26,000,
Speaker:27,000 range.
Speaker:Valdosta got hit hard. And it's not the first time.
Speaker:It's not the first time at all.
Speaker:So we were fortunate in that when our power went out at
Speaker:about 2 30 a.m. Friday morning, it came back on around 10 o'clock Friday
Speaker:morning. So we were that lucky handful of folks
Speaker:who not only did not have a very long to be
Speaker:without power, but have power now where there's still
Speaker:over 13,000 folks here in Tifton and Tift County
Speaker:that do not have power. Part of the problem,
Speaker:of course, you can imagine, you've got you've got trees that are down that have
Speaker:taken down power lines. So they've got to get the trees removed.
Speaker:We've got obstacles as far as road closures because of the
Speaker:fact that trees are down in the road. So you got to get those
Speaker:cleared up so that they can get to the areas where they can actually
Speaker:start working on the power poles and the power lines.
Speaker:And a much larger issue too is the transmission lines.
Speaker:The transmission lines are what supply power to the substations. And then, of
Speaker:course, the substations branch out and supply power to the neighborhoods.
Speaker:I think they said something like 13 of the substations were without
Speaker:power right now. Don't quote me on that number. I've been
Speaker:looking at a lot of numbers over the past couple of days.
Speaker:And the way it was explained, the CEO of Colquitt EMC explained, their crews do
Speaker:not work on the transmission lines. There's actually
Speaker:there's actually a company called Georgia Transmission
Speaker:because it requires certain knowledge, certain certifications, certain
Speaker:levels of education, expertise, etc. So all transmission lines, and I learned
Speaker:this, all transmission lines in Georgia are
Speaker:handled by Georgia Transmission. I don't know if that means they're an
Speaker:offshoot of Georgia Power. I don't know. Because down here that's also the other
Speaker:other big power provider is Georgia Power.
Speaker:Over in Fitzgerald in that area you have Irwin EMC. And I think all of these
Speaker:EMCs, I'm not entirely sure if they get all of
Speaker:their power from say like Georgia Power or they source it from multiple places. I
Speaker:do not know. That's beyond my area of expertise.
Speaker:But you would think the way
Speaker:people have been acting, and this is based on nothing that I have
Speaker:personally seen, because I have made it every effort
Speaker:to stay my ass at home. Because I don't want to contribute to the problem
Speaker:of congestion. We were getting reports and we were seeing on Facebook
Speaker:that Saturday '82 was basically gridlocked.
Speaker:You know people trying to get to Walmart, trying to get to Publix,
Speaker:trying to get the gas stations are overrun. People trying to eat,
Speaker:a lot of people just trying to get gasoline for their generators.
Speaker:And I get that. I saw a short little video from
Speaker:the Tifton Grapevine. They're kind of a friendly competitor of mine to the
Speaker:Tifton Talks Facebook page and the newsletter and all of that.
Speaker:But they were down in Waycross and they were showing this one particular
Speaker:gas station. And I mean there had to have been a
Speaker:hundred plus cars in the right lane waiting to get into the gas station.
Speaker:They had people directing traffic in and out of the gas station.
Speaker:You had people walking up to the gas station
Speaker:with gas cans. And they zoomed in and there was a line of people,
Speaker:a line of people. If I had to make an educated guess, I'd say
Speaker:easily 50, 75, 100 folks standing in line
Speaker:with their gas cans trying to get gas.
Speaker:It's almost like we're operating in a third world country now.
Speaker:This was an unprecedented storm.
Speaker:Some of the weather folks are saying this is the most devastating storm this
Speaker:area has ever seen. And I'm starting to believe it.
Speaker:I remember when Michael came through here and I mean that was bad.
Speaker:But damn.
Speaker:Damn. You know there's fear mongering and there's
Speaker:disinformation and misinformation now because
Speaker:something potentially is brewing, and I say brewing in quotes,
Speaker:in the Gulf again. And I get it. The meteorologists and all the people
Speaker:that really pay attention to the weather. And I follow this one guy,
Speaker:Ryan Hall on YouTube. He's from Kentucky.
Speaker:There's only about three things that are good about Kentucky.
Speaker:And that's the three people that I know that live in Kentucky.
Speaker:But he goes ahead and I mean they're doing
Speaker:their due diligence. They're saying, "Hey, there is a possibility something may
Speaker:form down here. But so far, and we're early into this,
Speaker:all of the modeling says that this could be weaker. It could be nothing.
Speaker:We just don't know." And now we've got people sharing
Speaker:on Facebook that another major hurricane has headed this way.
Speaker:And that you better go and start stocking up now.
Speaker:So you know anybody that looks at that it's going to freak the fuck out.
Speaker:We're going to have this mass run on supplies again. We're already
Speaker:having supply issues down here. Not just in Georgia, but in Florida,
Speaker:Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina. It literally kicked the shit out of the
Speaker:southeastern section of the United States. I'm not kidding.
Speaker:And that's the last thing we need is more fear-mongering.
Speaker:I took, Ryan did a video and I took it and I put it on the Tifton Talks
Speaker:Facebook page and I simply said, "Look, stay vigilant,
Speaker:but don't panic." This is the type of information
Speaker:that we need to pay attention to. You see posts on Facebook of people
Speaker:talking about the end times are near because there's another major storm
Speaker:heading this way. You need to fucking ignore these people.
Speaker:You need to go to reputable sources. Maybe that's your
Speaker:maybe that's your local weather person. You know, WALB is out of Albany.
Speaker:They're trustworthy. Watch the Weather Channel.
Speaker:Jim Cantore and all those folks. Find people. There's a guy called Mike's
Speaker:Weather Page. Look it up. He seems to be credible. I don't know that
Speaker:much about him, so I'm not going to put my
Speaker:my reputation on the line and say he's the deal.
Speaker:But I started following him when this when Helene started being a thing and
Speaker:he seems to be knowledgeable. I think he's located down in northern Florida
Speaker:somewhere in there. Follow Ryan Hall. Not only is he a
Speaker:meteorologist, but he does good things with with the Y'all Squad
Speaker:where they they take up donations and then they go into areas and they try to
Speaker:help with supplies and money and what have you.
Speaker:But this area took a hell of a beating. A hell of a beating.
Speaker:And I mean we're fortunate. We really are.
Speaker:I said something to my wife the other day and she told me it it was kind of a
Speaker:positive thing, but then you know she I go to the extremes on
Speaker:certain things and I said you know what in my older age I think I'm
Speaker:I think I'm gonna start adopting the prepper
Speaker:attitude. And she's like it's about time. I said yeah but I'm getting a
Speaker:standby generator put in. I've already put in to request a quote.
Speaker:I already know that it's gonna cost me probably close to ten thousand dollars.
Speaker:Fortunately they say they've got financing and I think I can swing that
Speaker:as long as my sources of income don't dry up or
Speaker:or get stunted because of this storm.
Speaker:And I mean if I could swing it I'd not only have a standby generator
Speaker:but I'd have a solar panels and backup batteries.
Speaker:Because even with a standby generator you gotta have propane or natural
Speaker:gas if that's the type you're gonna get and
Speaker:that's the type I'm looking at is going to be propane.
Speaker:So I'm gonna have to have a propane tank minimum 200 gallon.
Speaker:I've been running over these numbers with Tyler he looked up some stuff it
Speaker:looks like it at about a half load of what a 14
Speaker:kilowatt unit would be we could probably run 100 hours almost
Speaker:five days I guess before we ran out of propane. And as long
Speaker:as we could keep that tank filled up you know every three days
Speaker:you know at that point I don't give a shit what it costs.
Speaker:I'll just have to go in debt and then pay it off.
Speaker:I have no idea what propane costs now. I haven't I haven't had anything that is
Speaker:that is gas fed for well practically
Speaker:Lee and I've been married 34 going on 35 years she does not like gas appliances.
Speaker:So we got our double wide in 96.
Speaker:So I haven't had gas appliances since 1996.
Speaker:Everything's been electric electric heater
Speaker:well heat pump electric stove electric water heater
Speaker:electric dryer.
Speaker:So no need to have any kind of propane around here.
Speaker:If you lived in the city you'd have access to natural gas
Speaker:but anyway so that's my prepper mentality is
Speaker:first and foremost is getting a generator. Then I'm going to start
Speaker:looking at how to stockpile
Speaker:other supplies maybe a little bit of gasoline with some stabilizer in it
Speaker:because I was looking that up this morning and you can get stabilizer that
Speaker:will keep gas good for up to
Speaker:24 months. So you know if your vehicles run out of gas and
Speaker:or get low and you can't get to a gas station or the gas stations aren't
Speaker:aren't available because that was another problem too is you could get gas
Speaker:at a lot of these places you could get supplies at a lot of
Speaker:these places they were cash only because they didn't have internet.
Speaker:Every single every single place that does business should have a backup method
Speaker:of being able to process credit cards and debit cards
Speaker:because people don't fucking carry cash. I think I got forty
Speaker:dollars that I just carry in my wallet for emergencies that's it that is it
Speaker:and as much as I have advocated for a cashless society
Speaker:I realize that in times like these that's dumb.
Speaker:So I'm having to rejigger and rethink my my my ideas about this stuff.
Speaker:So yeah I'm coming up on 55 in in a handful of months roughly four
Speaker:months actually three months. Lee's birthday is next week she'll be
Speaker:54 and then roughly three months later I'll be 55.
Speaker:But coming up on that I'm really starting to
Speaker:I'm backing away from all of the tech stuff a little bit.
Speaker:I mean don't don't get me wrong it's still my core business I still love tech
Speaker:I still love technology but I'm gonna have to look at going a
Speaker:little bit more quote analog because I don't think these storms are
Speaker:gonna let up.
Speaker:Whether you're a believer or not you cannot deny that these storms have
Speaker:gotten worse over the last 20 to 30 years and that
Speaker:is due to climate change. Again you can believe me or not if you
Speaker:don't believe me you're wrong. All the data indicates that you're wrong
Speaker:but I'm not going to have that argument with you because I don't care enough.
Speaker:You don't want to believe it that's fine.
Speaker:I'll be the guy with the generator that still has lights on in his house
Speaker:has adequate food for several weeks and gasoline stores
Speaker:and maybe even possibly solar panel and batteries.
Speaker:I don't know I can't swing both of those.
Speaker:A good solar system solar system not not like where the planet's but
Speaker:a solar powered system for your house for a whole house
Speaker:would be like two times the cost of having a generator installed.
Speaker:So anyway that is the update here on the 30th.
Speaker:Schools are still closed around here until Wednesday.
Speaker:Like I said still a lot of people without power
Speaker:and their place is down in Valdosta. Valdosta may not have power for a couple
Speaker:of weeks if not longer. And that that's the other big issue is
Speaker:is folks are coming up from Valdosta. I mean it's
Speaker:it's bad enough and look I'm not knocking these folks I'd do the same
Speaker:thing if if I had the need and I'm not saying that I won't get to
Speaker:that point at some point in my life. But we've got people right now that are
Speaker:trying to get food and trying to get gas and just trying to
Speaker:trying to get some semblance of normalcy
Speaker:in their lives for the next several days while
Speaker:all these these men and women these these line crews at the power company
Speaker:and and all the crews that are cleaning up
Speaker:and all you know tip of the hat to them. We we need this area needs
Speaker:access to all of those resources but we got folks coming up from Valdosta and
Speaker:probably even north northern part of Florida
Speaker:coming up in through here and I'm not going to say ransacking but
Speaker:they are draining the resources. And I get it. Love your brother right? I
Speaker:get that. I'm you can't say no.
Speaker:But it's it's putting a tremendous strain on the area
Speaker:to not only have to deal with the folks who live here but to deal with the folks
Speaker:who don't.
Speaker:They may have to divert and go go southwest to other areas where they can
Speaker:get food and and gasoline if they can get there. Go
Speaker:to Columbus. I don't think Columbus was hit. Go go into Alabama
Speaker:if you can make it. Otherwise be cordial to everybody. Everybody's
Speaker:stressed. Everybody's burned the fuck out. Everybody's tired.
Speaker:Everybody's aggravated. Everybody's in fear.
Speaker:It's not a good time. It's not a good time and we're coming in
Speaker:into what is supposed to be one of the happier times of the year.
Speaker:The last three months. October, November, and December.
Speaker:Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. This is supposed to be our coasting
Speaker:quarter where we look back on all of the trials
Speaker:and tribulations of the first nine months of the year and
Speaker:go holy crap. I think that's all I can say. I'll end it
Speaker:right there. Holy crap.
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