Major Storms in Houston – Mobile Tech Saves the Day Once Again
Those of you not in the Houston area are likely unaware of the major storms and flooding that have passed through our area since last night. The flooding is even worse than in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike last year and my own yard saw flood waters reach halfway up to the house, a frightening experience.
Last night our power went out during the worst of the thunderstorms and it was off for more than four hours, until around ten o’clock. Mobile Tech Manor was prepared as always and I was able to use my mobile gear, all battery-powered, and Verizon 3G kept me online. This was important as it enabled us to keep up with the weather news online even though we were without power. Mobile tech is great at times like this, as the ability to stay informed is priceless. The really bad news is that more heavy weather is expected later today.
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So sorry for the bad weather, maybe in a near future you must travel to the mediterranean coast of Spain and once you know it, sure you soon forget the hurricanes for the next years!
Sounds like a great plan to me! :)
Good to hear you got through it OK
Next week i´ll be there, hope i can send you some images of these beautifull villages. In the meantime, please google “Feria Abril Sevilla”, it´s a wonderful city specially this week.
Yo soy muy celoso.
Hi James, sorry to hear about the bad weather. I followed last year’s Ike with considerable interest. I was wondering how you improved your disaster recovery plan over last year. And what you think you can do better with all that experience.
I would likely do the same as I did last year. The fact is a two-week power outage can’t happen all that often so I’m not sure what else you can do to prepare for such an unprecedented event.
I was thinking about these backup power supply units Xantrex XPower PowerSource http://www.backup-power.ca/office.html. These would seem to allow you to re-charge your MBPro, Phones, Etc.
long time reader of jk James, I always remember the storm posts you wrote last year and how you ended up using the car charger to power your gear. How the gadgets slowly died one by one because the battery went out. It is a story I will never forget, going to starbucks with a power bar and seeing people go online for the first time.
The same thing happened to me last week, up here in Toronto Canada. A freak storm took out power to 40,000 people and it lasted 8 hours. I had my thinkpad fully charged up so I just hooked it up to my htc touch and used the internet the whole time. Even if the computer gave up I had 3 spare batteries for the phone, which should’ve lasted me another day. It felt so good.
It is good when you can buck the odds and keep on keepin’ on, isn’t it?
Nice weather here in the Bay Area. Maybe a little cool, but sunny :)
You certainly put things in perspective when I think about how I feel we are having the worst when it rains all day and we get a few inches of rain. Power cuts are so rare here it’s a novelty when one happens. Glad to hear you got through OK and it’s must be a boon (of sorts) to be at home, when these things happen, rather than on site somewhere wondering what’s ahppening at home.
See how even the thought of a big Houston storm has affected my typing in that last posting.