Crews From 31 States in Texas to Restore Power

[ensho]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/us/17ike.html


-snip-

In Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city and the center of its oil industry, signs of prolonged blackout are everywhere — in long lines at the few gasoline stations with power to run pumps, in the huge demand for ice at government food-distribution centers, in the low number of grocery stores that are open, and in the grumbling of ordinary citizens. Refineries in Texas remain closed.

Most of Houston was coping without refrigerators, air-conditioners and pumps to provide water pressure both for drinking water and for sewage plants.

-snip-

Throughout the day, tree-trimming crews and line workers were arriving from states as far away as California and Pennsylvania to help the local utilities, which had already deployed about 8,500 workers.

Beleaguered residents, many of whom have been without power since Friday, treated the utility workers like heroes.

-snip-

Herman Marino, a line worker from Denver, said the damage to Galveston’s power lines was the worst he had ever seen, including the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

-snip-

In eastern Texas, near the Louisiana border, the hurricane knocked down more than 100 towers holding high-voltage transmission lines, damaged 272 substations and flooded the Sabine Power Station in Bridge City, driving snakes and wild animals into the plant, officials at Entergy Texas said.

-snip-

A former Texas governor, Mr. Bush took a rapid helicopter tour of the devastated areas around Galveston, then jetted back to Washington to meet with economic advisers about a different sort of storm on Wall Street.

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[cobalt1999]

1. 272 substations were damaged!?!

It's going to take weeks to get all that damage fixed.

[Hestia]

2. Gee and gee what, they will jack up hugely the electric rate, because

the utilities will be reimbursed for the cost of the outage. They'll go crying and whining
to the Texas utility regulation commission that they didn't make enough money this quarter and the hurricane wasn't their fault and they need their money now. Ain't deregulation great?

[Igel]

6. Yep.

It'll take a while. More in some places than in others. W. Houston's in fine shape for fairly complete power restoration in a few days. Kemah and places on the Bay ... not so much. And on Ike's dirty side, E of the Bay ... yeccchhhh.

It's one reason that I can't really muster outrage at the power situation in Houston. Even with everybody connected, there are still some downed transmission lines that used to bring power into the city. It'd be interesting to figure out what would have happened if everybody had had power Saturday night, when it was still hot and muggy.

Probably rolling blackouts. Just as well it's cooled off a bit. Just hope it stays cool. Well, relatively speaking.

[tnlefty]

3. 100 towers is gonna take a while.

My husband always hated climbing those things - tall poles anyday, but he hated towers.

[Allyoop]

4. Line workers

We drove back to N Carolina last Sunday and passed caravans of power line workers from New Jersey. I'm sure many of them from N Carolina are also there to help. I know they get paid for this work, but what a hell hole to work in! I'm so proud of the many Americans who are willing to go to these hard hit areas and suffer much the same difficulties as the residents are coping with as they attempt to put these areas back together.

[cobalt1999]

5. We had a crew from PA restore our power after hurricane Ivan

We all made sure they had water and whatever we could share with them. Great guys who got a huge round of applause when the power came on.