robocall: upcoming power outage

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

(Are you reading this, Tom Champion?)

Earlier tonight (5:58pm to be exact), I received a robo-call informing me that NStar will be shutting off all power to my area (I don't know what they mean by my area; I live near Magoun Square) starting around 1:00am on Tuesday Feb 5th (i.e., seven hours after the time of the robo-call). The message said that they expect power to be restored by 6:00am.

The message also said that if I had any further questions about this, I could call 311. Considering that 311 was already closed for the evening by the time of the call, that's not exactly useful.

Given that the short amount of notice was not enough for me to make alternative arrangements for the contents of my refrigerator -- and according to the USDA, food in a fridge should be considered no longer safe after power has been out for four hours and this outage is supposed to last five hours -- what are the chances that I can get the City of Somerville to pay for the replacement of all my food?

I'm pretty pissed about this in case you can't tell. A power outage of five hours, even during the wee hours of the night, is still a major deal. It should have merited AT LEAST a full 24 hours' notice. Am I wrong??

Comments

[myselftheliar.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD? are you serious? are you absolutely serious? this is insane! This is insane!!! Everything in my fridge will be lost, Oh shit.

Seriously I would not have known had it not been for this post. I'm really afraid. I have hundreds of dollars of food, and absolutely no way of replacing it. This is serious bullshit.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Not to mention, it's the dead of winter, and most modern heating systems depend on street power to run fans (forced hot air), circulation pumps (forced hot water), and/or thermostats (nearly everything). They'd better have a darn good excuse for taking peoples' heating systems offline for that long.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Stop panicking for Pete's sake. Your refrigerator is basically a big ass cooler, designed to keep heat out and cold in. The USDA page is, as noted elsewhere, conservative in the extreme in their estimates, they have to be so as not to get sued.

Just don't open your fridge until the power is back on and you should have absolutely ZERO problems.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

As noted elsewhere on the thread, if you didn't get the robocall you are probably safe (assuming you're on the list for robocalls). If you aren't on the list you should sign up asap; you can do so on the city's website.

Anyway, it sounds like the food should probably be okay, although I'm still pissed about the whole thing.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Shaw's in Porter is open 24 hours. They sell ice. Ice boxes predate fridges. Get yourself some, and then you won't have to throw away your food tomorrow morning.

[myselftheliar.livejournal.com]

I have absolutely no way to do this as I A) do not drive and b) am on crutches. So what am I supposed to do? Throw away my food, that I could barely afford in the first place, and then buy more?

[knowthyself.livejournal.com]

That seriously sucks. Hope you can figure something out. :/

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Although this is obviously as annoying as fuck, I'm not sure why you're blaming the city of Somerville for NSTAR's decision to shut off power?

And the good news is that it will be in the mid-30s tonight--same temperature as your refrigerator. So you can put your food in a watertight container and set it outside to keep cool (your frozen food is probably a lost cause, though).

[alphacygni]

Not at all. That same USDA page (which I would personally view as extremely conservative) says that freezers can keep their temperature safely for 24 (at half-full) to 48 (completely full) hours.

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

oh, excellent point. no food lossage! yay

although you may want to hang the food from a tree or somethnig to avoid attracting bears. (or, more likely raccoons.)

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

I'm blaming the city of Somerville because it's the city of Somerville that called to inform me of the issue, thus implicitly taking responsibility.

Also, the wording of the call seemed to say that it's related to the Somerville Ave construction project -- although unfortunately I didn't record the call or anything like that, so I can't say whether that was actually stated, or just implied/inferred by me.

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

I would suggest either putting everything from your freezer into your fridge (in lieu of ice) or make lots of ice yourself. 3 hours should be enough time right? maybe?

But yeah, they should give you more warning, enough time to have made more ice at least.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

what are the chances that I can get the City of Somerville to pay for the replacement of all my food?

That would be zero, because NSTAR isn't part of the city.

Maybe you can get a reduction on your electric bill?

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

well, won't be using any electricity for 5 hours or so, so that'll make it less

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

You are certainly not wrong to be pissed -- they did the power outage to us too, a few weeks ago I think, and we got notice in the mail a few days ahead of time. This probably isn't Somerville's fault, though -- it's NSTAR's, or so I would think.

However, if you normally turn your heat down at night, and you don't open your fridge for those hours, I really can't imagine the food would go bad or not be safe. If something looks or smells funny, be safe and get rid of it, but after a power outage of 5 hours or less in a cool house in winter if the fridge door is not open -- honestly I suspect you won't lose anything at all, and certainly not the vast majority of fridge food, which just doesn't go bad/turn unsafe that quickly. Nothing in our fridge went bad or anything like that, and I think the outage was about that duration.

Anyway, I'm not trying justify the short notice, just comfort you that you aren't going to have to throw out hundreds of dollars of food.

[ifotismeni]

no offense but this is seriously overreacting. out in the burbs where i grew up, we'd have power outages lasting DAYS, not hours. and our food didn't go bad. just keep the door shut to the fridge and you'll be fine. the USDA has to cover its ass because some moron will forget to refrigerate rancit meat and then sue the gub'mint or something.
i've left cooked foods OUT overnight (fish, meats, pastas) and it was perfectly fine. meaning that food was room-temp for over 8 hours. so your food in 5 hours in a chilled environment you won't notice anything.

[faster-gun.livejournal.com]

i agree. Just don't open the fridge (shouldn't you be sleeping anyways?) and your food will be fine. I'm pretty young but I understand the concept of a refrigerator and that things need maintenance/repairs/and that interruptions in service are pretty common. The same thing is happening to other people, the city of somerville and NSTAR are not singling anyone out, I'm sure they have to do this for a reason and not to ruin your life and make you bankrupt. Also, to myselftheliar-- if you can barely afford your rent, you should really look into getting food stamps, the program here is very helpful to those in need!

[ceo]

Data point: I got the same call a couple weeks ago, and my power went out once, for maybe 10 seconds. The sense I got was that NSTAR might have to shut off power for greater or lesser periods of time, but is trying not to.

Also, if you didn't get the robocall, you're probably not in the affected area (assuming you do get robocalls about e.g. snow emergencies).

That said, I agree that more notice ought to have been given.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

Ours was definitely out longer than that (several hours), but we also had more notice. We had no food or heat problems -- it may have been warmer outside, I forget. I forgot to set my cellphone alarm, but my alarm clock's backup battery worked anyway. (Despite the advance notice, I forgot to warn one of my housemates, but he didn't even notice.)

Since this was a few weeks ago I would guess it is not related to the Somerville Ave project and thus not the fault of the city (though really I have no idea). I feel like the NSTAR letter said something about necessary equipment upgrades...?

[maelithil.livejournal.com]

While more warning would have definitely been nice, your food is going to be perfectly fine. If you absolutely have to worry, worry about your heat. Remember to pile on some extra blankets and let some water trickle from your faucets, that should be enough to prevent any worst-case-scenario pipe damage.

[abilouise.livejournal.com]

At our house we got the robocall, but we also got a letter, which arrived several days ago from NSTAR that says that we can expect short interruptions during this time, which is not the same as a total shut-off for hours. The exact wording of the relevant paragraph is:

"To make improvements in your area, we will need to interrupt your service for short intervals of time during the period indicated below. While we try to avoid doing so, you could experience at least two interruptions lasting up to 30 minutes each"

I imagine that if you did not get a letter like this, your service will not be interrupted.

Let's all run around screaming...

[an-art-worker.livejournal.com]

It's hard to take all this hyperbolic over reaction seriously - but as other people have pointed out: just don't open your fridge a million times between 1am + 6 am checking to see if the food has gone bad and all will be well.

Aside from flashing clocks that need to be reset you won't notice a thing.

[cowsandmilk.livejournal.com]

your power won't be out for five hours probably. They always give you a longer time just in case something goes screwy, they won't have people call and complain. I'm betting if things go to plan, your electricity will be out for 2 hours max. and as other people have pointed out, they will probably be rolling outages off and on.

[ron_newman]

OK now it's 10 am, so what actually happened?

[frederic.livejournal.com]

Nothing here on Medford St (*). Although there is some rotting produce in my fridge I'd like to blame on NSTAR after reading this thread.

(*) We might be on a different power grid despite being only a couple of blocks from Trum Field - observation based on a previous outage that affected us but not neighbors on that side of us

[divakelly.livejournal.com]

i'm on Broadway between Ball Sq and Magoun Sq. Our power went off twice, for a few minutes at a time, in that 1am-5am time period. Of course, i thought something happened because my boyfriend neglected to show me the notice that we got in the mail...

[resistat.livejournal.com]

I also live in this area; we had a previous outage last week as well. The letter from NStar said specifically that there would be one or two outages lasting up to 30 minutes sometime in that 6-hour period. That's very different (in terms of heating and cooling) from a 6-hour power outage.

I'll let the folks in Communications know, though I bet Tom Champion has already read this...