Hurricane Isaac... and xPAP

Once you go from running lights and small appliances and recharging batteries to running AC and freezers, you are talking BIG generators. We can't even run a microwave with our Honda 1000, and we tried our small trailer air conditioner with a friend's Honda 2000 and that was also a no go. Best to go with a marine battery and a small generator to recharge that battery after in poops out.

brucifer wrote:Kiralynx, those Rubbermade sheds are nice, but I wouldn't want to take a chance on one surviving a hurricane. When I lived in Slidell, I tore down my old wooden shed and replaced it with a Sears 6' x 8' shed. It looked very similar to this model I saw on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Arrow-SA86-A-8-Fe ... B001F0A3NI The advantage is that I was able to anchor it to the old slab. Of course, if you had one of these, you could use it to store a lot more than a power generator.

I hope you're able figure out some way to get an emergency generator. I hate hearing that in addition to dealing with the post-hurricane problems, you had to suffer without your xPAP therapy. You went through enough without having to deal with that as well.

Slidell sure took a beating on Isaac! This was nearly a worst-case scenario -- storm coming in just west of the city, with the wet north-east quadrant shoving water in through the Rigoles, and on into Lake Pontchartrain, and the Lake Maurepas, and from there, LaPlace got hit. (Pretty as it may be the rest of the year, you couldn't PAY me to live in lower Plaquemines!)

I may go look at Sears, or Lowes, or some place, and see how much a shed of that type costs, and then talk to the contractor for how much he would charge to put it up. I know my husband. He's a top-mark design engineer, but he is NOT a handy man.

The hurricane was bad enough, but yeah, no restful sleep and the pain that resulted was pretty hideous.

I am, frankly, looking into a whole-house generator, because with the cost of a decent smaller generator, and a shed to keep it in, and all the rest, a natural gas generator might not be that much more.

My bigger Honda EM6500SX was about $2700 if I recall ... And that is a portable ...

For whole house 7000 - 10000 watts should be enough ...

Kiralynx wrote:The hurricane was bad enough, but yeah, no restful sleep and the pain that resulted was pretty hideous.

I am, frankly, looking into a whole-house generator, because with the cost of a decent smaller generator, and a shed to keep it in, and all the rest, a natural gas generator might not be that much more.

now you are talking, imo propane is the way to go, much less maintenance

Maybe someday, I'll VISIT Florida.
Those lithium ion batteries are very interesting.
Some guys we know were running a scooter on a little bitty one the other night.
Very compact. I will be watching the prices for now.

chunkyfrog wrote:Maybe someday, I'll VISIT Florida.
Those lithium ion batteries are very interesting.
Some guys we know were running a scooter on a little bitty one the other night.
Very compact. I will be watching the prices for now.

We have two in the house for Dads scooter. It never clicked that i could use those in power outages! Now I will have to try and read those battery threads and figure out how to hook them up to my cpap. This summer has been bad with tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings. They never quite hit here but it is always a possibility, one cut a swath through Edmonton 25 years ago. And of course winter is coming fast with blizzards and other issues.

Kiralynx wrote:All I can say is -- the people who think they are going to take a vacation and "not bother" to take their xPAP with them because it would be "too much trouble" are stark, staring out of their freaking MINDS.

I would not want to do without some form of apnea treatment, but I decided not to bother to take my APAP with me on my vacation because it would have been too much trouble. The Provent I used instead worked really well for me, and was much more practical, especially when traveling on a train with no over-seat luggage racks. If Provent does work for you, it is a simple, cheap, easily stored back-up for power failures and machine problems.

pats wrote:I would not want to do without some form of apnea treatment, but I decided not to bother to take my APAP with me on my vacation because it would have been too much trouble. The Provent I used instead worked really well for me, and was much more practical, especially when traveling on a train with no over-seat luggage racks. If Provent does work for you, it is a simple, cheap, easily stored back-up for power failures and machine problems.

I have no idea if Provent would work for me because of the complex issues I have. But yeas, IF it would work, it would be useful.

I talked with my sleep doctor about Provent before I went on vacation, and he's really not too enthusiastic about it. He recommended that I try "PureSleep" before Provent. He was saying that it will only bring your AHI down to 8 at best (which is better than nothing, that's for sure), but the big problem is that of his patients that have tried it, NONE "accepted" it; i.e. wanted to use it after trying it. He did give me a prescription for Provent, that I haven't had time to fill. I don't think that he has any vested interest other than having healthy patients, at least that's my strong impression.

I thought that if my choice was Provent or nothing, I might give it a try, but then read about how easy going the battery route with my current CPAP was, ended up going that way instead. I still might try it at some point just to see how it goes, but am not in a hurry at this point. The data after my vacation showed that my AHI was my usual 1.6 during my camping trip, so that's fine with me.

Kiralynx wrote:

brucifer wrote:Kiralynx, those Rubbermade sheds are nice, but I wouldn't want to take a chance on one surviving a hurricane. When I lived in Slidell, I tore down my old wooden shed and replaced it with a Sears 6' x 8' shed. It looked very similar to this model I saw on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Arrow-SA86-A-8-Fe ... B001F0A3NI The advantage is that I was able to anchor it to the old slab. Of course, if you had one of these, you could use it to store a lot more than a power generator.

I hope you're able figure out some way to get an emergency generator. I hate hearing that in addition to dealing with the post-hurricane problems, you had to suffer without your xPAP therapy. You went through enough without having to deal with that as well.

Slidell sure took a beating on Isaac! This was nearly a worst-case scenario -- storm coming in just west of the city, with the wet north-east quadrant shoving water in through the Rigoles, and on into Lake Pontchartrain, and the Lake Maurepas, and from there, LaPlace got hit. (Pretty as it may be the rest of the year, you couldn't PAY me to live in lower Plaquemines!)

I may go look at Sears, or Lowes, or some place, and see how much a shed of that type costs, and then talk to the contractor for how much he would charge to put it up. I know my husband. He's a top-mark design engineer, but he is NOT a handy man.

The hurricane was bad enough, but yeah, no restful sleep and the pain that resulted was pretty hideous.

I am, frankly, looking into a whole-house generator, because with the cost of a decent smaller generator, and a shed to keep it in, and all the rest, a natural gas generator might not be that much more.

My daughter sent me a picture of her house in Slidell (see below) with the flooding from Isaac. She was fortunate that they didn't get any water in the house or garage. A lot of folks in her neighborhood did. During Karina, the water reached all the way to the top of the bricks, and the house on the far left was completely submerged. I love Louisiana, but I don't miss the hurricanes.

brucifer wrote: My daughter sent me a picture of her house in Slidell (see below) with the flooding from Isaac. She was fortunate that they didn't get any water in the house or garage. A lot of folks in her neighborhood did. During Katrina, the water reached all the way to the top of the bricks, and the house on the far left was completely submerged. I love Louisiana, but I don't miss the hurricanes.

We had some water similar to hers -- yes, she WAS fortunate, from what I'm hearing about some parts of Slidell.

We hope to move north of the I-12 after Harry retires, but that's not an option until after my Dad is no longer with us... and I hope it's a few years yet!

I suspect a whole house generator would add to the value of our home.

If you get flooding like the picture, looks like you might need to put the generator on the roof or up in a tree *sigh*.

Stilt houses. Cool pictures.

moving above sea level would help
as would keeping a houseboat in the driveway
instead of a camper like the rest of the world

Guest wrote:moving above sea level would help
as would keeping a houseboat in the driveway
instead of a camper like the rest of the world

Slidell actually is about 10 feet above sea level, at least where my daughter lives. The problem is that if a hurricane passes just west of Slidell, the storm surge from the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Pontchartrain overflows the northern bank of the lake and floods the southern side of Slidell. Slidell has a four-foot levee that was easily topped by Isaac. Although Slidell has a large pump and a canal system, when there is a storm surge like what Isaac produced, there is no place to pump the water. The people of Slidell simply have to wait until the water level of the northshore of Lake Pontchartrain lowers on its own. A lot of folks do have flat boats (Jon boats) that they use to get around if there is a flood.

It seems that no matter where one lives there are natural disasters with which to contend. In SE Louisiana, it's hurricanes. Fortunately, I didn't need a CPAP machine when I lived there.