storm over here

[PoodlesAgain]

It is rather bad when even plain cell service does not get through.
All calm but it is like camp cooking in ventilated garage as power restore may take a few days
Two local wind speeds 94 in Provincetown and 92 on M. Vineyard.
Several trees that had seen other storms before had their central, tallest cores taken out, very odd pattern.

There. Not even sure of the extent of the storm, but it seems the whole south shore places like new Bedford are out.
We will see.

[ID10t]

Glad you're okay.
I'm curious about if you will have any insurance claim? I am months into an excruciating claim and I am truly feeling like they are toying with me. I know insurance wants to keep all the money and I am not prone to conspiracy feeling for me, but this is beyond reason.
Good luck.

[PoodlesAgain]

No damage to house. We are driving around town and it does not look that bad. Somehow I must have been in an area more exposed to high winds?
I feel a bit like a zombie though, no quality sleep. Snacking in the dark in the kitchen in middle of night will do that to you.

[mickey]

News has been saying that something like 600,000 people in Mass are without power.

Very (extremely?) few cell sites have backup generators. The sites run off batteries, but without generators
the power goes out and the batteries go flat & your cell service dies. It was never considered important enough
for the telcos to install generators at all sites. Unlike landline phones. Besides, you wouldn't want to pay the extra
per month to "harden" the sites.

[PoodlesAgain]

From tLocalhe end of the driveway. tv app says late Saturday for power.
We eat all kinds of weird stuff combinations form the freezer...

[Chocol8]

News has been saying that something like 600,000 people in Mass are without power.

Very (extremely?) few cell sites have backup generators. The sites run off batteries, but without generators
the power goes out and the batteries go flat & your cell service dies. It was never considered important enough
for the telcos to install generators at all sites. Unlike landline phones. Besides, you wouldn't want to pay the extra
per month to "harden" the sites.

I have a work and a personal cell phone on different networks. Whenever there is a fairly widespread power outage, the Verizon tower is phone calls only for a little while, little or no data, then if the outage lasts too long it’s dead. AT&T on the other hand never has gone down, even after days without power. My experience with both in this location goes back to 2002 so not a small sample size of power outages, but it is one location. It makes me wonder what metric they are using when Verizon claims they have the most reliable network. They clearly put little priority on backup power and haven’t since 2G was all the rage.

[PoodlesAgain]

All this is good to know for dealing with a future extended disturbance.

I was actually getting minimal news about the situation via the FM radio on my phone or phones: I keep older, off-network phones charged for that purpose. Handy pocket flashlights as well!
But, but.. some phone makers stupidly refused to include the tiny onboard FM bit, so what could be last resort to pass vital news is not available.

[mickey]

News has been saying that something like 600,000 people in Mass are without power.

Very (extremely?) few cell sites have backup generators. The sites run off batteries, but without generators
the power goes out and the batteries go flat & your cell service dies. It was never considered important enough
for the telcos to install generators at all sites. Unlike landline phones. Besides, you wouldn't want to pay the extra
per month to "harden" the sites.

I have a work and a personal cell phone on different networks. Whenever there is a fairly widespread power outage, the Verizon tower is phone calls only for a little while, little or no data, then if the outage lasts too long it’s dead. AT&T on the other hand never has gone down, even after days without power. My experience with both in this location goes back to 2002 so not a small sample size of power outages, but it is one location. It makes me wonder what metric they are using when Verizon claims they have the most reliable network. They clearly put little priority on backup power and haven’t since 2G was all the rage.

Good question.
The only thing I can speak to is when Category 5 Hurricane Michael came thru here in 2018 and decimated nine counties of Floriduh & Georgia,
Verizon went belly up almost immediately and was down for months. AT&T and T-Mobile never hiccupped. All the others were somewhere between those two experiences.
A bunch of companies and government agencies learned not to get all their cell service from a single company.