Sunday, January
26, 2014:
There were white-out moments with
heavy winds blowing from the northwest.
Cold temperatures dipped to 20 degrees below zero. Add a wind
chill factor and you have 40 to 50 below zero.
Even the birds stayed home and away from the bird feeder.
Mark and Paula received an automated telephone call at 11:30 PM on
Saturday night from
Xcel Energy
with news that there had been a pipeline break and fire in Canada.
It was the line that feeds
natural gas to parts of North Dakota, northern Minnesota, and
northern Wisconsin. The call asked everyone to turn furnace
thermostats down to 60 degrees until the matter was resolved.
Mark immediately did that and turned on 3000 watts of off-peak
electric heat thus cutting gas consumption to only 25% of what it
had been. Not bad.
The problem lasted until Monday afternoon when they were advised to
turn thermostats up again.
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