The state power company helpfully explains that I can count on getting power by 11:59pm on Tuesday night. This is discouraging.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Hey, at least they’re giving you an estimated time of restoration, which they didn’t do in the past, judging by how things go in my state. How reliable it is, well, we shall see.
Reminds me of the days when I commuted by train to Boston, and all those lovely midwinter times shivering on the platform, checking my watch against the arrival time scrolling across the electronic message board….
I’ve had them tell me in the past that it would be on within three hours and had it turn out to be more like forty-eight, but more often they will give you a pessimistic estimate so you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I’ve never been given a four day estimate before, and that’s including the mother of all ice storms in 2013 and SuperStorm Sandy (during which I miraculously did not lose power at all. )
This storm wasn’t even that bad where I am, and it was basically over when we lost power.
So the damage was on another part of the grid that feeds to yours. That sounds like a piece of transmission line rather than distribution, or maybe a substation transformer blew up. Those kinds of thing take a lot longer to fix than a pole or two coming down.
Also: When one part of the grid gets damaged, there are safety relays that will shut down a given segment to prevent the problem from cascading all over the place as other parts of the grid suddenly have to support a larger load than they’re rated for, even under emergency conditions. The relays operate automatically, much faster than a human can react, and while it’s a bitch to get caught in the outage area, it sure as hell beats another East Coast blackout.
For example: I lost power twice in this storm. The first time it was only a couple of hours while the downed pole got replaced, and my friend down the other end of the street didn’t lose her power because she’s on a different circuit even though we’re only an eight of a mile apart. The second, longer time, she, I, and several surrounding towns all went out together, and it took nearly 24 hours to get restored because they needed to fix a lot of damage before sending power into our area again.
Power outages sure give us a rude wake up call on how dependent we are on electricity.
Hope yours is restored as scheduled, if not sooner.
PECO, an Exelon Company. Only one of several utility companies in the PA. Is even one of them owned/operated by a municipality and therefore, can be referred to as a state company?
State/municipal electricity companies in this country are the exception. The largest one is LADWP and was the only major CA provider that didn’t crumble during the 2001 energy manufactured by private sector energy companies.
Many municipal electric companies have insufficient generation to support their service area, if they have any at all still in operation; the more common pattern is for the municipals to provide distribution services while purchasing power from the IOU (investor-owned utility) in their region. If the failure is at the transmission level, which the IOUs are responsible for, municipals are out of luck till that’s fixed.
My town has an ancient power station that formerly generated electricity via hydropower from a small dam but that would never be able to handle the current load; instead it purchases its electricity wholesale from National Grid. We had isolated outages from downed poles in the distribution system but what took out several towns simultaneously was the failure of a transmission feeder line in a wetland that was extremely difficult to get to and repair.
The regulatory scheme for IOUs, regional authorities like the TVA, and municipals varies considerably between states.
There was a short bit on our local news last night about our utility department sending workers and equipment to areas hit by the storm. So if you see trucks marked DP&L, you’ll know it’s Dayton Power and Light.
Good luck!
It’s called mutual aid, and it’s common throughout the country, in fact there are organizations like the American Public Power Association that have formal coordination schemes and networks to expedite disaster relief. Crews can be dispatched from halfway across the country and even Canada to help out local distribution companies in the recovery effort. In fact, it’s not uncommon for a utility in the path of a forecast bad storm to arrange for mutual aid before it hits, so the relief crews can be on the road, even arrived and prestaged, before it actually hits.
There’s a cost to this, of course; the incoming crews’ costs are paid to their home utilities even if the storm damage turns out to be less than expected and their services aren’t needed; their travel, maintenance, and time costs still get covered. In a really bad event there sometimes just aren’t enough crews to go around, or expected mutual aid winds up having to take care of their own territory before they can be dispatched, so despite the possible expense of getting in crews they don’t need, utilities face the need to bring them in anyway, get ’em before they’re gone elsewhere. There are also private contractors (have bucket truck, will travel) who can be hired with experienced linemen.
If you’re in a disaster recovery area and you see a bunch of utility bucket trucks gathered in some motel parking lot, and you wonder why aren’t they out there getting to work, dammit, well, they have to be dispatched according to the disaster recovery plan, and outside crews need local guides to find their work location, which have to be determined by damage reports provided by local authorities and utility scouts, such reports graded by urgency, critical facilities on the circuit, and order of restoration that gets power restored most efficiently and safely. The general order is transmission –> subtransmission –> major distribution circuits –> branch circuits –> individual customers. Complicating this is whether the system is radial, loop, or network.
I’d better stop here; I’m just skimming the surface of the subject.
Years ago we were hit with a bizarre wind storm from Hurricane Ike. It was so strange to have nonstop winds in Ohio from a hurricane that blew up from the Gulf. The damage was staggering; trees, power poles, structures all were blown over. Transformers blew out across the area and our power company was in no way prepared for the amount of damage. My inlaws lost power to their house for ten days!
We were grateful for aid from other counties and states. It’s good to know we can rely on the help of others in times of disaster.
Yes, it is a good thing indeed! Just when I’ve had a bellyful of human beings, displays of humanity like that restore (some of) my faith.
. . . will travel” reference (old teevee show “Have Gun, Will Travel”, right?).