Some of you may have noticed my absence from these forums the last few days and those of you from outside the US probably dont know why. But those of you in my country may have read what has transpired in Buffalo NY over the past few days as I understand it was front-page national news. At about 12 noon on thursday October 12th a series of freakish weather events set upon the great lakes area and specifically northern suburbs of Buffalo NY. An extreme cold snap coupled with south west winds over a still very hot lake Erie (68f) led to the worst snowfall in the month of October ever to hit the area. Beginning at around noon and continuing for perhaps 18 hours some of the heaviest snow ever recorded fell upon parts of Buffalo totalling two feet in my specific locale. We here are not un-accustomed to lake effect snow falls of this amount in that short time frame in this area (heck, we've had 7 feet in three days before) so normally two feet is no big deal. However on October 12th, leaves had not even turned color on most trees. So if two feet of snow falling on trees still with all their green foliage was not bad enough, imagine EXCEPTIONALLY water-logged snow falling in those conditions. To give you an idea, in a typical snowfall, 25 cubic centimeters of snow will contain one liter of actual water (your standard garden variety fluffy snow). The snow that fell on us thursday had about 4 liters of water in that same 25 cubic inches of snow... Thats right, it was four times heavier than normal.
Couple all these things together and trees around local suburbs especially in residential areas were RAVAGED, taking the entire power grid down with them. By 1am friday over 500,000 people were without power from downed lines, blown transformers, etc (myself included). Certain species of decorative tree and shrub no longer exhist in the area (pear trees especially) and the situation only becamew worse. It has now been 3 days since the power grid started going down and 200,000 people are still without power. Power repair trucks and workers have been seen by me personally from states multiple hundreds of miles away. I've personally seen trucks from pennsylvania, ohio, new jersy, indiana, and even kentucky. Most of those still without power live in areas with older mature trees and power lines ran right under those trees. Some areas are expected to be without power through this coming friday (one week total). Basements are flooding everywhere as the temperature returns to 50f and the two feet of snow melts, freezers are rotting away, and pets whom are reliant on power are in jeopardy all over the region.
I write all this to say that we as saltwater tank owners have a responsibility to our livestock and a responsibility to ensure their health in periods of extended power outage. Emergency backups need to be provided for our tanks to prevent a complete crash and loss of all livestock. In my case, a 750watt inverter ran via jumper cables through my house and to my car helped me limp along. It was enough power to operate my sump pump (in the basement), my 300watt heater, and my powerheads but not enough to run my lights. The power wasnt perfect but it kept the tank from crashing. As it stands, the only loss in the tank was unfortunately General Xavier. He found an emergency powerhead I put in the tank and snuggled up a little too close to it
. Everything else is very stressed out from having no light or food for 3 days but otherwise coming back nicely. Without this backup power source though, there is no way I could have sustained my tank for 3 days with no power. I would have been looking at a total loss of all livestock, but the presence of the inverter helped me limp through. An entire week would have required a generator to run my lights but 3 days was enough on the inverter.
I would just like to plead everyone here to have a backup power source for their tank to cover heating/cooling and flowrate. A generator is far superior but even an inverter with jumper cables can save your tank. Inverters are good low-cost options (only running around $70 for a larger model like mine) and I'd urge you all to have a backup energy source. This power outage has taught me a valuable lesson and I hope you all can learn from this as well. I'm going to see if I cant write a guide for what to do if power goes out for us reef enthusiasts to be posted up in the stickies (mods willing). Until then, stay safe out there and have your backups ready.
