Power still out for hundreds of thousands in Ohio (Hurricane Ike)

[Robbien]

Source: Reuters

And another headline:
Some 430,000 Texas customers still without power

That was down from 2.15 million CenterPoint homes and businesses out at the height of the storm. CenterPoint serves much of the Houston area. On Sept. 24, CenterPoint forecast it would restore power to most customers in the Houston area by Sunday, Sept. 28.

. . .

CenterPoint said Ike knocked out service to about 99 percent of its Texas customers.

Ike hit the Galveston-Houston area as a Category 2 storm with winds of 110 mph. Overall, the storm cut power to more than 7.7 million homes and businesses in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia as it marched from Texas to the Northeast from Sept. 12 to 19.

And then over In Ohio:

Sept. 21—When Hurricane Ike got as far north as Ohio, the media called it the “remnants” or “remains” of the storm. For millions of working-class households here, that was a poor choice of words. While the suffering in Ohio cannot compare to Texas, the damage in 84 of Ohio’s 88 counties was enough for the governor to declare a state of emergency.

Nearly one week later, hundreds of thousands of households are still in the dark. The majority of those without power are in the southwest part of the state. . . .


Profit motive drives delays

One would be hard-pressed to blame electrical workers’ laziness for the crisis. Many around the state have been working 16-hour shifts, a schedule that increases the likelihood of injury in an already hazardous occupation. Since Ike hit, more than one utility worker has been killed working to restore power around the country.

However, since 1992 when Congress voted to allow states to deregulate the energy industry, massive layoffs have occurred throughout Ohio. Unions have blamed these layoffs for declining service. A 2001 report by the Utility Workers Union of America stated that “in a recent survey of its locals the UWUA found that its staffing levels around the country are down 35 percent compared to 1991. Workers are worried about system reliability, their own safety, and safety of the public.”

After a power outage affecting 50 million homes in August 2003, due to a cascading problem with the country’s energy grid, a news release from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers charged that, “In the 10 years since utility deregulation was first introduced, power companies have built or updated very few new transmission lines. Today demand continues to climb, but transmission investment in 2000 was less than half of what it was in 1975.

http://www.workers.org/2008/us/ohio_1002/

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN2628305120080926

[Longhorn]

1. My mother finally got power Saturday evening. She lives in Spring, TX. nt

[Robbien]

2. A family friend living over in Munster Indiana still doesn't have power

but that is the least of their worries. They also don't have a house. It was completely destroyed in the Ike flood. In fact half the town was destroyed in the floods.

There has been so much devastation across this country due to the hurricanes and so few barely even know it happened.

[Dover]

3. Wow...you're right. I had no idea there was serious damage beyond Texas.

And no one seems to be reporting much on what must be an enormous number of homeless from all the hurricanes and the mid-west floods. Where are they?

[TheWraith]

4. Why, why, why are we not burying our electrical grid?

Yes, it's a little expensive to start, but can you imagine the long-term payoff from not having power go out to hundreds of thousands of people every time a major storm hits?

[JonQ]

5. Driving through houston this weekend

I was thinking the exact same thing to myself.

I was wondering if anyone had any data on the extra cost initially vs. the savings in maintenance and decreased likelyhood of outages (those have to impact the local economy significantly).

[Dover]

6. How do buried lines do with flooding?

And how hard are they to get at to repair?

[TheWraith]

7. You put them in watertight conduits, like they do with fiber optics.

It's true that buried lines would be a pain to get at for repair, but the flip side is that they're a lot less easy to damage. No tree branches, broken poles, car accidents, etcetera.

[WriteDown]

10. Extremely difficult.

You would have to tear apart roads, yards, even some folks houses to make the update happen. It is a LOT more feasible with new construction.

[TheWraith]

14. They're already doing that in a lot of places to install fiber.

Yes, it's difficult, and you have to screw up people's lawns a bit for the trench. But I suspect most people would put up with it if the benefit was that they almost couldn't lose power.

[WriteDown]

15. Not necessarily....

They can actually run fiber and piggyback on the copper phone lines to the houses. That is exactly what they did in Dallas. The problem would not be the lawns so much as the roads. Also, if they dug up your yard, would they put it back in any recognizable form? Doubtful.

[crazylikafox]

8. That means no TV, political ads. How will that affect the race?

Will that freeze support where it was when the storm hit?? Do we have campaign folks on the ground in those areas?

[truthisfreedom]

9. “In the 10 years since utility deregulation was first introduced, power companies have built

or updated very few new transmission lines. Today demand continues to climb, but transmission investment in 2000 was less than half of what it was in 1975."

Again with the deregulation. Our infrastructure is 70's technology, like Mexico's, because under DEREGULATION big energy has sought to maximize profits and minimize investment into stability.

So now we have a pile of junk. Towers that collapse, outmoded systems, a weak grid. I've looked at transmission towers in my neighborhood... ground wires oxidized away, hulking metal framework rusting and corroded at the ground... they've gone without paint or maintenance as if the world stopped decades ago.

[peace13]

11. The real problem is the fact that the rest of the country has no idea about this.

What else don't we know about our country? Who else is in trouble that the media is blocking out? Martial Law will not be a blip on our media screen. Very scary stuff.

[texanwitch]

12. I live in Houston and we got our power back on Friday about 6 pm,

We got a cable back today.

[madrchsod]

13. cedar rapids iowa has finally restored 100% of it grid

they had to go through every piece of equipment,dry out connections,and do repairs on the generators. to restore power to hundreds of homes the company had to have the houses certified for safe connection.