You guys out east should be in demand very soon.
This is one time I can honestly say I would rather not be in demand.
New Jersey is a disaster. All the beach communities are destroyed or severely damaged. Even communities in the southern portion of my county were flooded by the storm surge traveling up the Hackensack River from Newark Bay. Trees and poles down every where, 85% of this area is with out power, I'm working on generator. Power Company says probably a week until we have power back. Looking at the pictures of southern New Jersey and over in Queens NY we got off easy.
I second that emotion. I'm in western Morris County and it's havoc. Personally I'm thinking I may get power back by Nov. 9th. I think it's worse than last year with that October snow up here. Gotta keep the generator cool and working for fridge, sump and a light or two. No well pump but got 350 gallons of hot tub water. Personal hygeine is going to take a hit since no one on mountain has any power. It's just like camping I keep on telling my wife.
How big is your generator? I've heard of people taking the wires loose in their breaker box and plugging them into an extension cord. I'M BY NO MEANS ADVISING YOU TO DO THIS BECAUSE IT LOOKS DANGEROUS. But desperate times may allow you to get some water going for a while. I know an electrician can put in a transfer switch and allow you to plug your generator into your house and let you power stuff that your generator will handle.
If you are somewhat familiar with working on electrical wiring, yes you can pull the pump wires from their breaker and splice them to a cord to run it from the generator.
Make sure the generator has the capacity to start the pump motor (probably 230 volts at lots more momentary surge amps than the breaker rating and more than a 16 ga extension cord will let pass), because an underpowered pump could stall and burn up. If it doesn't start immediately upon application of power, shut it off.
Whatever you do, DON'T backfeed your breaker panel. In the stress and confusion of these situations, you could accidentally send power out to the neighborhood. If they are all connected, you'll just trip off your generator's overload protection. But if a crew or a neighbor happens to be working on their lines and there isn't a lot of load connected, you could fry somebody. It's happened.
