Back to crunching after six days with no power my power is back on my rac took a hit. The power went off on Friday night at about 9:30 PM and my home was still cool on Saturday morning that would change and we spent Saturday outside in the 106-degree heat trying to stay cool in the shade off oak trees which was not cool and barbecuing the food we could before it went bad among the noise of all the neighbors generators four at first. The night we sleep under the stars on our deck. Sunday I pitched the tent as we stayed in the shade to avoid the 104-degree heat and still cooking the food on the grill. My wife said my dog is dying she is a 16 year of female dog long hair Chihuahua and she was lying there with her tongue out and unresponsive I was a medic when I was in the Air Force and I thought she might be hot and not dead so I poured some cool water my wife Liz got from the neighbors water cooler and poured it on her three times and she came around. The night we slept in the tent I was so hot and tired I fell right asleep but awoke of the noise of the six or so generators about 3AM but the noise soon fell silent as the they ran out of gas for the third or fourth time and the home owners found out how expensive it was to run those machines and they did not start up again The heat and humidity was too much we were using the car’s air to stay cool. Monday my neighbor started up his and the noise started all over again. I talked my wife to going to the shelter we went to Heritage shelter and it had moved to Sandusky and they asked if I had any medical conditions and I told them I needed insulin and my dialysis center was closed Saturday and they said I should go to Thomas Road I decide to drive instead of taking the shuttle there. They had set up a miniature hospital and shelter with free meals and snacks and they were giving away bags of ice and free clinic where I was admitted. I noticed they also had a place for people with pets. I left the clinic and went got my wife’s three little dogs and went back to the clinic and shelter. We set up my wife with her pets at the people with pets and I returned to the clinic where they gave me insulin and kept me for observations until 9PM. The National Guard was nowhere to be seen and I wondered why. The hospitals where swamped as people needed care so they sent people to the shelter clinic instead as they were evacuating nursing homes there to the clinic. Some people were dying I think seven died from this ordeal I don’t know if that was local or national or state level. They would send out medics to find me at the people with pets and take me to the clinic where they did blood test on Tuesday morning they had a little hand held device that did chem 8 and blood sugar and hemoglobin and hematocrit I was amazed we use the Hycell 17 from 30 years ago when I was a medic in the Air Force and that machine was big it required it’s own room and here they had it in a hand held device that uses a drop of blood amazing. They had free wi-fi there and we went home Tuesday for more stuff. I used my laptop to pay my bills and check on the news they said the power outage and storm went from the mid West to the mid Atlantic. I talked to a man from Columbus and he said he left Columbus and filled up two five gallon cans and had to travel on them because gas was hard to find and I know that was true because the areas of town that did have power the lines were long and mean. Wednesday night at about 7 PM my power was on because I would call my home phone since it was a voip service with nettalk and it rang which meant that the power and Internet was on and we went home and I started to crunching again. I think there was about five million people were at out power.

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Wow. Life.

Feel your pain ... We went through 2 extended outages last year. The first was 8 days in June because of the tornado. It missed us by about 1000 ft. The second outage in October was 11 days - the result of the freak snowstorm that took out most of the northeast. We are one of those familys that have a generator but I wouldn't run it overnight (to conserve fuel, which was difficult to find). I would strongly suggest buying one if you can afford it. I think it's only going to get worse, weather wise, and a generator can make these power outages halfway bearable. Ours is only 3500 watts, but it's enough to run the lights, fridge, and a space heater.

Every body thinks how wonderful and advanced America is but they are wrong the power companies are still stuck in 1900 by stringing wires instead of burying them in the ground and bring the system up to 21st century instead of the 1900's with poles were they can be damaged by wind storms. I think in my area there were 500 broken poles that needed to be replaced. Also water shortages if the country can have a network of underground pipe lines that criss-cross the nation how come they cannot do the same with water where there are floods they could pump that flood water to areas that are dry but no there is no profit like in oil and gas pipe line where they rupture or explode and do harm to nature and kill people instead of piping water to help people but there is no profit in that to help people but there is profit in oil and gas pipe lines that pollute when they break or worse explode and kill people that did happen here a few years ago when a gas line exploded and killed a bunch of people and that was ok because of profit. I am not sure if it killed any one but it could have we were just lucky it did not. But it did a lot of property damage.

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Feel your pain ... We went through 2 extended outages last year. The first was 8 days in June because of the tornado. It missed us by about 1000 ft. The second outage in October was 11 days - the result of the freak snowstorm that took out most of the northeast. We are one of those familys that have a generator but I wouldn't run it overnight (to conserve fuel, which was difficult to find). I would strongly suggest buying one if you can afford it. I think it's only going to get worse, weather wise, and a generator can make these power outages halfway bearable. Ours is only 3500 watts, but it's enough to run the lights, fridge, and a space heater.

In 1993 we had an ice storm and went without power for three weeks. I would rather be without power when it is cold because camping stoves will keep me warm and cook my food while in the summer I cannot get cool. I think there are still 1.5 million people without powere just think of all the crunchers that are not crunching and all those poor people without power. My rac is still falling it will take a while to recover. Meanwhile I need to go to my dialysis treatment I will be gone for several hours. The treatments cost 24.000 each month and medicare pays about half of that and I am billed about 700 a month such is our great health care system in the good ol US of A.

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Feel your pain ... We went through 2 extended outages last year. The first was 8 days in June because of the tornado. It missed us by about 1000 ft. The second outage in October was 11 days - the result of the freak snowstorm that took out most of the northeast. We are one of those familys that have a generator but I wouldn't run it overnight (to conserve fuel, which was difficult to find). I would strongly suggest buying one if you can afford it. I think it's only going to get worse, weather wise, and a generator can make these power outages halfway bearable. Ours is only 3500 watts, but it's enough to run the lights, fridge, and a space heater.

In 1993 we had an ice storm and went without power for three weeks. I would rather be without power when it is cold because camping stoves will keep me warm and cook my food while in the summer I cannot get cool.

Camp stoves consume O2 and produce CO/CO2. Couple of deaths, 20-30 hospitalized and several houses burned to the ground because of people using grills/campstoves indoors after the October snowstorm. Not recomended.

Generator won't run the kitchen stove, but will run space heater for heat and provide electricity to run fridge/freezer, griddle, crock pot, toaster/toaster oven, coffee pot, hot plate, etc. Note that midsized generator costs approximately the same or less as replacing a freezer full of spoiled meat.

Every body thinks how wonderful and advanced America is but they are wrong the power companies are still stuck in 1900 by stringing wires instead of burying them in the ground and bring the system up to 21st century instead of the 1900's with poles were they can be damaged by wind storms.

[informational post from a 40+ year power lineman]
The cost to go underground is 5 to 40 times the cost of going overhead. That cost is passed on to the rate payers. It is not an issue of advancement but an issue of costs. Undergrounding LID cost thousand$ of dollar$ to each property owner. Underground will last about 25 years in most places where as overheard can last 50 to 75 years in most places.

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In germany the power lines are overhead also but i cant remember when we had the last power outage more than 5 minutes.
Its almost 30 years ago.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

Every body thinks how wonderful and advanced America is but they are wrong the power companies are still stuck in 1900 by stringing wires instead of burying them in the ground and bring the system up to 21st century instead of the 1900's with poles were they can be damaged by wind storms.

[informational post from a 40+ year power lineman]
The cost to go underground is 5 to 40 times the cost of going overhead. That cost is passed on to the rate payers. It is not an issue of advancement but an issue of costs. Undergrounding LID cost thousand$ of dollar$ to each property owner. Underground will last about 25 years in most places where as overheard can last 50 to 75 years in most places.

Where I live the power line the TV cable and telephone lines are buried so no tree fell on them where I live and in the newer upscale neighborhoods are also buried and my parents requested that their lines to be buried and was a nominal fee of a couple hundred dollars. The lines were buried in 1985 and are still there going strong with no increase in electric, cable TV, or telephone fees. That is like in the 1900's when cars came out and there was resistance to cars because horses were still in use and working very good at the time but cars replaced them even though cars cost more than horses. Tell about how expensive it will be when every time the power goes out and the power company is not making money and all the labor and material and disposal costs and making the customers very mad already the power companies are the most hated companies in America right now according to a national news broadcast I saw on TV while I was getting my dialysis treatment.

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Feel your pain ... We went through 2 extended outages last year. The first was 8 days in June because of the tornado. It missed us by about 1000 ft. The second outage in October was 11 days - the result of the freak snowstorm that took out most of the northeast. We are one of those familys that have a generator but I wouldn't run it overnight (to conserve fuel, which was difficult to find). I would strongly suggest buying one if you can afford it. I think it's only going to get worse, weather wise, and a generator can make these power outages halfway bearable. Ours is only 3500 watts, but it's enough to run the lights, fridge, and a space heater.

In 1993 we had an ice storm and went without power for three weeks. I would rather be without power when it is cold because camping stoves will keep me warm and cook my food while in the summer I cannot get cool.

Camp stoves consume O2 and produce CO/CO2. Couple of deaths, 20-30 hospitalized and several houses burned to the ground because of people using grills/campstoves indoors after the October snowstorm. Not recomended.

Generator won't run the kitchen stove, but will run space heater for heat and provide electricity to run fridge/freezer, griddle, crock pot, toaster/toaster oven, coffee pot, hot plate, etc. Note that midsized generator costs approximately the same or less as replacing a freezer full of spoiled meat.

That's true about the carbon monoxide but a little ventilation works good and beside the mono detector should sound off when levels are high I never had a problem but then again I worked around dangerous and poisonous gasses for 17 years so I am no dummy to gaseous chemicals which are very toxic. A full house generator that has a five gallon gas tank will run for about 8 hours so that is about 20 dollars for 8 hours of juice very expensive. My daughters live in Dayton Ohio area and the last power outage they were paid for their groceries that was lost some were on food stamps and some were not on food stamps they all got money to replace their groceries.

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I think a state in the northeast considered the power company complacent in the power outages last summer.

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Recent power outages in Milano were caused by underground cables overheating, no high tension cables. A big outage covering Northern Italy was caused in winter by a tree branch overloaded with snow falling on a high tension line from Switzerland to Italy.
Tullio

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[informational post from a 40+ year power lineman]
The cost to go underground is 5 to 40 times the cost of going overhead. That cost is passed on to the rate payers. It is not an issue of advancement but an issue of costs. Undergrounding LID cost thousand$ of dollar$ to each property owner. Underground will last about 25 years in most places where as overheard can last 50 to 75 years in most places.

Yep- and overhead lines can be designed & built to remain up under extreme weather conditions- it's just a matter of initial cost, and maintenance- keeping their easments clear of trees.
Undeground power is great- untill something goes wrong. Then it takes considerably more time & money to rectify than with overhead lines.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Underground cables are limited by overheating, so cannot be overloaded to the same levels as O/H cables.

Also U/G cables have greater capacitance and therefore are not used for long distance transmission.

Massachusetts looked into undergrounding it's power grid ... The low estimate was 99 Billion, the high was 1 trillion. I expect it would be somewhere in between. That works out to somewhere between $14,000 and $140,000 per resident, approximately, and would take decades to complete.

Here's a couple of articles on the topic ...
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2011/10/31/patrick-1-trillion-to-bury-power-lines-underground/
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/11/power_outage_in_hampden.html

It could be done as wires are replaced in neighborhoods or as new lines are being setup. This would eliminate the waste of changing lines that aren't in disrepair.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

It could be done as wires are replaced in neighborhoods or as new lines are being setup. This would eliminate the waste of changing lines that aren't in disrepair.

That is the way it is done here as new subdivisions are built the cables are buried.

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Every body thinks how wonderful and advanced America is but they are wrong the power companies are still stuck in 1900 by stringing wires instead of burying them in the ground and bring the system up to 21st century instead of the 1900's with poles were they can be damaged by wind storms.

[informational post from a 40+ year power lineman]
The cost to go underground is 5 to 40 times the cost of going overhead. That cost is passed on to the rate payers. It is not an issue of advancement but an issue of costs. Undergrounding LID cost thousand$ of dollar$ to each property owner. Underground will last about 25 years in most places where as overheard can last 50 to 75 years in most places.

I'd say that 25 year lifespan is pretty accurate. The part of the mid-Atlantic I live in now was developed in the late 80's with pretty much everything underground. My places was built in '86 or '87 I forget when at the moment. For years I was plagued with brown/blackouts. With several outages lasting 12+ hours for no apparent reason. In that there were no storms or excessive heat at the time of the outages.
A few years ago the power company replaced/upgraded the lines feeding the pad transformers across the area. I think they might have just bolted up secondary feed lines and left the old ones in place. I didn't ask, but since then the power has only briefly flickered once or twice.

In contrast where I grew up in Oklahoma power outages wouldn't last very long. Even in situations where a tornado took out some lines. Power would be back in just a couple of hours at most.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

the bad thing with burying electric lines is that it becomes more difficult to determine where an outage occurs. A downed line is pretty easy to see. A short underground not so much.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

the bad thing with burying electric lines is that it becomes more difficult to determine where an outage occurs. A downed line is pretty easy to see. A short underground not so much.

A perfect example of which was the recent downtime at the Seti Lab.

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