irma

[djwarner]

Our friends in Miami got it worse than we did in Central FL. I got less damage than Dave. Just lost a few plants.

[Mike]

Looks like Key West was a big hit, glad to know some of you guys are doing well...

[JSM]

Finally my phone is starting to work. Power went out at 4:15am. Came back on at 3:30pm same day. Really weird some neighbors don't have power. No real damage. Feel very blessed. 

Still no cable or internet. 

[Captain Obvious]

What about the Miami and east FL coast guys? Anyone heard from any of them?

[26th-Z]

I never lost power but it is only 110 power.  220 for air-conditioning is out.  FPL says restoration guaranteed by September 23rd.  Trees down everywhere.  I have this lovely Carrotwood in my backyard.  It isn't on the house, just missed.  I think the cars are OK.  Haven't been out to see 26th.  27th is Ok.  The garage only flooded up to the bottom of the jack stands.  Downtown Sarasota seems to be fine.

[djwarner]

Appears you lucked out as well.

Note on your electricity, your electric service is 220v made from two 110 volt circuits setup back to back. In your distribution panel each circuits feeds different 110V circuit breakers. Your 220V service has two breakers tied together each fed by one of the two 110V circuits. If one 110V power feed is down, you should have several circuit breakers without power, not just the 220V service.

If all your 110V circuits breakers have power, then you have 220V service to your house and one of the two circuit breakers in your AC circuit has tripped. Try resetting the breaker.

If some of your 110V circuits are out of power, it may be wise to flip off all your 220V breakers until power is restored to prevent stress on those loads.

[26th-Z]

Yep.  One of the power feeds is out.  Perhaps this one.

And here's a better picture of the tree.

[Mike]

That looks like a ground wire (no shielding).  Definitely want to get that fixed..

Edit:  I just noticed the arc'ing pits..  wow, that must have caused some serious sparks.  Hope the electrical equipment in your house is ok.

[gundee]

26 minutes ago, 26th-Z said:

 

Yep.  One of the power feeds is out.  Perhaps this one

 

Actually on a service drop to the house from the power company is 2 insulated power conductors plus 1 bare neutral wire

that is the return path. I hope that is not the neutral wire. 

[gundee]

You want to call the power company right away. Tell them the neutral appears to be broken. Trust me that is a extremely dangerous

situation! They will put you at the top of the list. You or someone in your family could not only get a very bad shock but ELECTROCUTED!

Your power will be going directly into the earth. Very bad.

[26th-Z]

Ok, ok.  The power company knows that about 50% of Sarasota County is without power at the moment.  I realize how dangerous this is.

Yea, Mike!  Those arc pits are pretty cool, eh?  You should have seen the fireworks when that happened.  Watched the whole thing from my couch at about 9:30 Sunday night.  I thought my neighbor's house was on fire.  It was that spectacular.  Not just a few sparks, no; explosions!  Yea, we had spikes and blinks but remarkably the power never went out completely and my electronics weren't damaged.  Just after that, the tree blew down in my yard.  Watched that happen also.  I heard this deep, thudish crack, fairly loud, beyond the howl of the wind.  And then the tree settled right in front of my patio doors.

Early Monday morning, still blowing some and raining lightly, I walked up and down my street and around the corner was this.

[djwarner]

Out of curiosity were the arc marks on the half of the wire connected to the house or the pole?

My understanding is that the steel cable provides the strength of the connection between the pole and the house and mechanically supports the copper wires. As a matter of safety, lightning strikes, etc., the cable is connected to the local earth ground at the house.

If this is the case I would expect the arc marks to be on the half connected to the house. I went to check mine today but my service is underground.