Well I just got back 2 days ago from Mount Vernon, Missouri working on ice strom damage up there with my power company. Anyways while we were working on the farm roads out there alomost every ranch had Dodge 1 tons with the Cummins of course the 94-01 model trucks. I mean just about every one we came to had a Dodge. I saw just a handfull of Fords and hardly no Chevy's. Just kinda weird becuase where I live there are no Dodges at all. Just something Ive notcied while I was there in the hell of ice.

 

Dodges may be cheaper up there? I would consider owning a Chevy, but never a Dodge...

I have owned two brand new Dodges, a truck and my wifes car. Had major problems with both of them...Got rid of both...

The truck had less than 15,000 miles when I got rid of it (motor was knocking)and my wifes car had just a little over 36,000 miles (again, crappy motor)...Both were junk IMO

This is my first Ford truck, its been good to me...

 

That's kind of ironic.Today me and 3 other coworkers went to a seminar at another mill about 80 miles away.There was at least ten 04-06 F150s there and a couple 97-03s.I didn't even bring my truck.I was going to but one of my coworkers insisted on driving so I rode in a Taurus.

 

What??? You dont like our weather???? Wait 5 mins it'll change.

Guess what!!! Dont get to comfortable at home, there is suppose to be another one coming!



God I hope we dont loose power again. I was with out for 12 days...... running a small generator tha twas only 110v, at 8 gallons of gas a day = $16 a day and it wouldn't run everything, and definatly not all at once. Worst part was it wouldn't run the clothes dryer or the water heater (becasue they are 220v. I am looking into a second hot water heater to use as a booster for the one we have and will either be 110v so the generator can run it or propane so dont have to worry about it. Then I'll atleast have "warm" water next time. Unless I can find a 120v>240v ramp up transformer. I had the amps and the watts t oatleast run the water heater, just not enough volts to push them to it fast enough...... I dont think it has enough ***** to attempt to run the dryer.
With a transofrmer I could have atleast taken warm showers by lantern light.....

 

To tell you the truth though I had a good time up there (1 week) very pretty land up there and with all the dairy farms. The people really seemed thankfull bringing us coffee, cakes, etc really made our day.

 

They must be nicer down there than the people here, our line men were coming back telling stories of getting threatened, blocked in drive ways and been threatened with hammers and everything else. But that was the Electric companies fault, thier disister management plan wasnt very good, it prolonged restoration and made spoted areas of outages so the customers werent seeing any progress.

They should have used the trusted military tactics, start in a central location and spread out fro mteh center, dont move out of that sector until everything else is restored. That way people would have seen progress and known they were geting closer by the day.

Instead they broke it down into Primary, secondary and individules.
They went through getting primaries up, then secondaries, then went around and got all of us that the line had been pulled out of the transformer (individules).....
They spent more time running to each sector and prolonged the process by atleast 4 days.

Then when individules seen thier neighbors had power and they didnt then it got ugly. I know I was one of the last ones too. I didnt threaten and get that mad, but it was extremely aggrevating that there was power in the nieghborhood and all I needed was 3 mins to hook back up, especially since they were up my pole sunday when they got the neighborhood back on, I had already cleared all the limps off the line and had it untangled, all they had to do was carry it up with them and hook it up. Yet I had to wait 3 days longer because they didnt.

My wife works for a sister company of the local power co-op, shes at a fuel distribution plant, on wednesday there was 2 fist fights in the lobby of the electric comapny.

Normally people arent that bad around here and most are relitvely patient, it was just this co-ops management and strategy (or lack of) that caused it.

I hate to see the next members meeting, I'm afraid someone is going to lose thier job over this (and rightfully so IMO) the strategy planner had to be related to the guy that was the look out at pearl harbor, because they had the for sight of a mole.

We really do appreciate all the help that came to our aid, we even had people from Loisuanna comming up to volunteer to help clear roads. They said we came and helped them in Katrina so they get to return the favor.
Got to love Karma!

 

Yes we worked for Ozark Eclectric COOP and I think I do rememebr seeing them down on the coast with Katrina. All I can say they did take care of us. We still have 1 crew up there. And Im sure if another one hits I will be the first to go back up there.

 

Yea, I think there was about 100 guys came here to our town from Louisiana, we are Lacleded Electric, part of Show Me Power. They had 25+ Line men coming in per day to help and still coming in as far as I know.

If you get a chance, come back up in the summer for a visit after everything is cleaned up and it doesnt look like a toronado went through with all the busted trees and light poles. It's much prettier country then. I drive through Mt vernon about twice a year visiting family in Arkansas and maybe another 3 or 4 times on business. It's actually about 2 hours southwest of me.

 

Hmm... come to think of it, there are a lot of Dudge Cummins out here too in Rolla. 95% of them don't have a muffler on either Up in St. Charles, it's more of the Powerstroke or Durajunk scene.

 

Ugh, Dodge country. Ford and Chevy are fine by me, but i'd never own a Dodge, especially with all these Hemi jackasses running around.

 

Yeah, I want to move there.

Once I get our house sold, we might be heading your way Matt. I know we talked about it before, and I haven't forgotten about coming up that way to visit.

 

Hey Jamz, let me know what you're looking for, I'm 50 miles from Matt, and my boss is constantly buying and selling real estate and houses.

 

Sent ya a PM

 

Oh yeah, and not to be rude, but your name makes more sense to me now.

 

Hey, we'd love to have you up this way, but gotta make a deal...

You don't have to drive one of these:

if you'll take it easy on the BBQ joint patrons...

BTW, I heard yesterday that there are still a few folks up our way without power... We were down 7hrs short of 7 full days...