This is a story that was a big deal for me today, and a question below.
It seems obvious to me and my wife that the weather has gotten steadily more extreme over the last 20 years, obviously due to human-caused global warming.
The great weather outbreaks, here in Maryland and across the country and the globe, are steadily getting more common and more severe.
This is a stupid small question about generators that I'd like help for, with context.
When SUPERSTORM SANDY was bearing down on us last October, they were calling for hurricane-force winds for two days over our area in Northern Maryland (Carroll County, northwest of Baltimore).
My wife and I freaked out and spent three days buying survival supplies.
The major expense was a gas-fueled generator from Home Depot, plus a fabulously expensive visit from our county's top electrical firm on the day that the hurricane was coming in, to install a "transfer switch," which lets us switch some circuits from utility power to generator power without using dangerous extension cords, etc.
Well, unexpectedly, Sandy pounded New York and points thereabout, but didn't hit us with what was predicted. So we never had to use the expensive generator setup.
One is directed to fire up a gas-fueled generator at least once a month to keep it working. I didn't do that for many months due to a shoulder injury. And one is also directed to put fuel preservative into the gas over the winter, and I blew that off. So I've been very worried the generator might have been damaged, although it never ran for more than 10 minutes in testing.
EDIT: The National Weather Service has confirmed that this was a dreaded "derecho," a term I had never heard of before last year. But, of course, there can't be global warming because ?