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Gosh has it really been 4-days since I last posted. It feels like only yesterday.

We’ve been keeping busy with storm preparations and judging from the dairy cooler at the Twain Harte Market, so are you. The shelves were practically bare – it seems everyone needed milk today. Imagine that. We completed all our errands today and the topic of discussion was the coming storm. People are saying it’s going to snow all the way from the Nevada/California state line clear to San Francisco.

I’ve got my long-johns on and my heavy wool socks. The generator is gassed up and ready to fire, if needed — we sure hope it’s not.

I just popped outside and sure enough the snow has begun falling already and I’ve got the cold feet to prove it. Now for a little local news of interest — at least of interest to me…

I’ve been excitedly promoting the presentation scheduled for tomorrow night by Hardluck Lin (otherwise known as Linda Teigland Clark), unfortunately due to weather concerns the event will be rescheduled for safeties sake.

The Sonora OSH still had two 5500 watt Honeywell Generator’s and a 1,000 watt generator on the shelf when we were there this evening. Those won’t stick around long if the power fails again. Both OSH and the Twain Harte Market had a supply of wood and pellets for heat, as well as various fuels on-hand still.

I’ll post more weather updates as conditions progress. Be sure to tell us where you are and how the weather is progressing there, include your elevation if you know it. 

Stay warm!

Saturday in Twain Harte

I just received a recorded telephone message from PG&E informing me that they are working to restore power to the affected areas and that many area customers will remain without power for up to 3 more days.

We were a little confused by the message — since our power was restored 36 hours ago. I hope PG&E wasn’t calling to prepare us for another outage. We are used to having our power interrupted each year about this time — what we aren’t used to are these extended outages. In the past PG&E would have our power restored within a matter of hours — not days.

On a brighter note — and I do mean brighter… The sun is shining, the snow and ice are melting. The current temperature is 40 degrees.  All in all, a beautiful day. What a difference a day makes. If you’ve been putting off your trip due to Twain Harte weather conditions, it’s not too late to make the trip for a nice outting for President’s Day weekend.

Sunday in Twain Harte

Don’t forget, the post office will be closed on Monday. Why not take the day and make a trip up to Dodge Ridge or even a trip to Yosemite. The roads — while I wouldn’t call them dry — we can at least find pavement under all that snow.

I’m enjoying this wonderful break in the weather. We are expecting sunshine for the next several days. Be sure to get outside and enjoy all the snow we’ve been blessed with.

Some residents in Columbia (1-outage), East Sonora (6-outages), Soulsbyville (19-outages), Tuolumne City (6), Ponderosa Hills, Phoenix Lake-Cedar Ridge (33-outages), Twain Harte (13), and Mi-Wuk (3-outages) are still without power.

PG&E Electrical System Outage Map — Tuolumne County reports:

182 outage(s) affecting 5000+ customer(s)
Start Time of Outage: 02/20/2011 12:49:00 PM
Est. Time of Restoration: Not Available
Last Updated: 02/20/2011 12:58:12 AM

This report shows progress over my last report…

194 outage(s) affecting 5000+ customer(s)
Last Updated: 02/20/2011 12:58:12 AM

MyMotherlode Reports:

The majority of the remaining power outages across the Mother Lode should be restored by this evening, according to PG&E.

Tuolulmne County currently has around 8,800 customers without electricity, and Calaveras County has 7,800. The East Sonora area, including Phoenix Lake and Cedar Ridge, has 3,430 without power, Twain Harte has 1,845 and Tuolumne has 1,630. In Calaveras County, Arnold has around 2,000 customers without electricity.

The power was restored around 2:30 a.m — a special word of gratitude for those hard-working PG&E workers, who braved the rain and snow last night. I worked 3rd shift for much of my adult life, I know what a struggle it can be. Fortunately, I worked inside – out of the elements. And certainly not in the kinds of weather we’ve been experiencing…

Temperatures here in Twain Harte hovered around 35 degrees for most of the late night hours. Overnight it rained for a couple of hours, until around 2:00 a.m., when heavy snowfall started up again in ernest. Another fresh foot of Sierra Cement fell in the early morning hours.

If you managed to shovel (or snow blow) your way out from under all the snow that fell Friday evening, you can pat yourself on the back for a job well-done. (Ata-Boy!) I kept the back corner of our deck cleaned off and just a few hours ago, I went out to clear it once again, only to find that my once fluffy white snow, now weighs one-ton per square inch. Moving it will not be fun.

In just the past hour the temperature has dipped down to 31 degrees, all that wet slush is freezing, making everything an icy mess. I was hoping to venture out this morning to the post office but that’s not going to happen. It will be well past noon before road conditions are clear enough to allow for safe travel. Even chains and cables aren’t an even match for all this ice. It’s just not worth the risk.

So, keep an eye on the thermometer before heading out today. With all this rain and snow, the roads will be ugly until the tempertures sufficiently rise again.

The woodburner is stoked and we are cozy warm, which is where I plan to stay. I hope you are staying warm as well. What’s it like where you are?