Day six of the storm

We're coming up on one week after the storm, and while there's been some progress, power outages remain.  Green Mountain Power tree and line crews continue to work.

25 Ripton households remain without power, as are 41 in Lincoln.  I can't find any outages in Middlebury.  Across the state of Vermont, 1240 homes are still in the dark:

This has been quite a storm.
Best wishes to everyone still offline.

Day five of the storm and aftermath: progress yet continued outages

Today is the fifth day of this storm and its bitter aftermath.  Many Riptonites are still without power, and trees continue to fall onto power lines.

As of this writing, 171 Ripton households are still out of power.  Nine Middlebury households and a whopping 317 Linconites are also offline, according to the Green Mountain Power outage site.

The Ripton Fire Department is opening up as a shelter this afternoon, starting at 3 pm.

Please come if you're cold, need a shower, or just want the company of other Riptonites.

Elsewhere in Vermont, thousands are still in the dark.  6,385 homes are out of power across the state:

Green Mountain Power crews are still at work.  Governor Shumlin toured several hard-hit towns by helicopter.

As always, stay safe and warm, friends and neighbors.  Come visit the Fire Department shelter this afternoon and evening.

Day four of the storm: some progress, continued woe

Today is the fourth day of this season's first major storm.  There are signs of progress, but also problems persisting.

Tree branches and entire trees sag under the weight of ice and snow.  Sometimes they fall, toppling lines, or leaning heavily on the cables.  For example, here's a tree down on a line a few yards from the Lucky 7 spring:

Here's what it looks like from underneath:

Do not do this.

Sometimes it takes several days for these trees and tree limbs to fall.  Green Mountain Power crews seem to be revisiting the same areas, as new problems hit ones previously repaired.

As of this writing, 8 separate problems currently knock 293 Riptonites offline.  Nearby, 20 problems keep 84 Middlebury homes in the dark, while 46 problems block 233 Lincoln households from the electrical grid and 9 incidents do the same for 159 in Leicester.

Elsewhere, more than 10,000 Vermont customers remain without power, as of this writing.

Green Mountain Power now says damage is comparable to what we endured during Tropical Storm Irene.  And things could take through Sunday night to resolve.

Please take care, friends and neighbors.  Stay warm and safe.

On a personal note, I'll update this blog as I can, until the crisis is over.  There's neither electricity nor phone at my house, so I've been writing these posts from whichever town I can get to.

The storm enters day 3; many without power

We've been clobbered, friends.  Ripton entered the third day of this storm, with power remaining out for some of us still after two days of snow, sleet, and ice.  Twenty Ripton households are offline, caused by five separate outages, as of this writing, according to Green Mountain Power.  211 homes are out in Lincoln, which is the source of some Ripton electricity.  Down the hill, 695 Middlebury houses are off.

For those who do have power, they might be offline, as Fairpoint suffered its own outage today.

Meanwhile, Green Mountain Power teams have been on the job continuously, but fresh outages keep occurring.  That's because of overloaded trees, bent down by ice and snow, breaking a day or two after the initial onslaught.

Much of the state is suffering, with 22,746 homes still without power:

Estimates of how many Vermonter households were knocked out range from 50,000 to 70,000.

Here's an astonishing fact, pointing to just how severe this storm has been and remains:

“We do prepare for the worst, and then we found out we needed to get even more crews. We have more crews operating in the state of Vermont in this event than we did during Hurricane Irene,” [Mary Powell, the president and CEO of Green Mountain Power] said. (emphases added)

Stay safe and warm, friends and neighbors.  Watch out for downed power lines.  Drive carefully.

Tonight's storm is doing its stuff

The snow is coming down tonight, along with sleet. The storm seems to be taking down power all over the state:

So stay warm and safe, friends and neighbors!

9-11 went down on Friday, but is back up now

Vermont's 9-11 emergency phone service went offline this past Friday afternoon and evening.

During the 5.75 hour partial outage, 45 people attempted calls to 911, according to data from FairPoint.
...It is not clear whether any individuals in emergencies were affected by the blocked calls.

What happened?  According to FairPoint,

"this outage was caused by a rare occurrence of the winter storm and a hardware failure, which impacted callers in the State of Vermont unable to place calls, including calls to 911. "

They fixed it quickly:

"Temporary re-routes were made [Friday] night, allowing for interim service; followed by permanent re-routes allowing for full restoration last night. The network in Vermont is working well now and has been since last night as of 8:45 PM.”

What do you do when 911 doesn't work?

(photo by Derek Kaczmarczyk)

Reichert Bible Talk this Sunday

This year's Rabbi Reichert talk is coming up on Sunday!
The following is from the press release:

  

Rev. Dr. Susan McGarry to give annual Rabbi Reichert Talk 

The Reverend Susan McGarry will deliver the annual Rabbi Victor E. Reichert Bible Talk at the Ripton Community Church at 4 pm on Sunday, October 26.  For the past two years Reverend McGarry has served as the rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church on the Green in Middlebury and has a PhD in Ancient and Biblical Studies from the University of Michigan.  In keeping with the Rabbi’s tradition, Reverend McGarry has entitled her presentation “A Talk About the First Mass Market Text in the Bible,” challenging her listeners to discern what “text” that might actually be.

 “We will be examining divine revelations and their progress toward useful community literature.  ‘What was said, when was it said, and how it was recorded,’ are all-important questions for Bible study.  When and how the biblical material becomes useful to the community will be the subject of this talk as well as the more speculative question, ‘why.’”

 The annual Reichert Bible Talk is a tradition that reaches back to the years just after World War Two, when poet Robert Frost invited Rabbi Reichert to visit him at the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference in Ripton. Frost had met Reichert while giving a reading in Cincinnati, where Reichert was rabbi of the Rockdale Temple, the oldest synagogue west of the Alleghenies, from 1924 to 1964. Their friendship deepened, and Rabbi Reichert and his wife Louise eventually bought an old one-room schoolhouse near Bread Loaf as a summer cottage.  For many summers, the Reicherts attended the nearby Ripton Methodist Church, and Rabbi Reichert would give a talk in the late summer on one of the books of the Jewish Bible, of those scriptures common to Jews and Christians. The “Bible Talk” became an annual event, and the Ripton congregation named Reichert the church’s “Rabbi in Residence.” Since Rabbi Reichert’s passing in 1990 at the age of ninety-three, Havurah—The Jewish Community of Addison County, and the United Methodist Church of Middlebury, East Middlebury and Ripton have collaborated to sustain this ecumenical tradition, co-sponsoring the Bible Talk every year. 

The Ripton Community Church is located on Route 125 in the village center.  Call Norm Tjossem at 802-388-0338 for further information. 

(thanks to Norman Tjossem)