Also, justin in Fairfax County alone, Dominion Energy has gotten 80,000 out of 120,000 without power as of this time last night restored. Considering how much of that damage must have been structural and required rebuilding structures for downed lines, that’s pretty impressive.
No power for 48 hours, so glad to be back on the internet!
I should rephrase that as, no power, internet, cell phone service, water, or sewer.
PA still have 50k people without power.
Sounds like my brother-in-law near Boston has been without power for a couple days and likely without for a few more. Hopefully all you New Englanders are doing ok.
So IANAElectrical engineer, but I was wondering if some design exists that can prevent mass outages. If it does, it’s likely prohibitively expensive, but I was wondering about that expense vs. lost wages and commerce and how long it might take to pay off.
Underground lines would be a start. In some places along the east coast, it’s happened, but it’s expensive infrastructure to upgrade.
I assume a lot of the areas through New York, New England, and down through the Mid-Atlantic and even southeast share the same problem: lots of above-ground powerlines, and lots and lots of very old trees.
I suppose those may be susceptible to earthquakes and other ground-borne issues, but yeah; no trees (although roots could be problematic if the pipes aren’t resilient enough).
When I lived in NH every God-damned year there’d be some wind storm/ice storm/snow storm that would cause us to lose power for 24-72 hours. Every year.
Since living in CA, I haven’t had 5 minutes of power loss. In four years, combined.
I don’t miss NH.
I have underground lines and have lost power in at least two hurricanes. All underground lines come above ground at some point today and those points tend to get damaged.
True enough, but both Dominion Energy (Virginia) and Pepco (Maryland) have done their own studies and cited government studies noting that old infrastructure – including above-ground power lines that run sometimes through miles of old forest – are the biggest component of mutli-day outage events over the last 20 years.
Oh I’m not arguing that it doesn’t help, just that it’s not foolproof for major storms like this one.
We’ve been talking about the need for the US to upgrade our power grid for years, since at least the great East coast blackout of 2003. People even speculated that maybe, just maybe, Trump’s mania for buildings could be diverted into infrastructure projects like the electrical grid.
Hasn’t happened yet, and probably isn’t possible with the current state of the Republican party.
This is Aarhus, Denmark, today in spring. It’s let up now, but it’s been snowing for 4 hours. Normal temperatures in Denmark is quite a lot more than we have today. Fun times!
Day 4, still no power (and none to the traffic signals either). New storm approaching for wednesday. Gas stations empty. Gonna be a shitty week.
Ughhhh, my condolences, DF :(
Hope you guys can get through okay.
Thanks, I’m just bitching into the void :) It’s been really frustrating to watch zero progress be made, in a county that literally has the highest taxes in the country, grrr.
4 days has to be brutal. I know there are still gas stations near me that have lines early in the morning. The county I live in still have 40k people without power, but all are expected to be restored by Tuesday night, just in time for the next storm.
Yup our estimate is for tomorrow at midnight, right as the next foot of snow rolls in.
Man, that sucks - I’m sorry to hear that. We had a water shortage for half a day, and nearly panicked, so I assume this must be hell.
Apologies about the picture I posted - it was in poor taste, seeing how people like you are having real difficulties! Best of luck and I hope you get power back soon!
This is why I lost all my trash cans! That was a super nasty (wind) storm here near DC.
No worries, I actually love the snow! It’s the poor response (from a very well off part of the country) to a known strong storm that has us vexed. We have recently gotten access to a generator, but I haven’t done the serious and expensive work of having the generator hooked up to a “switch over box”, we can power the fridge and some lights via extension cord, but the well and furnace need to go through the mains. Not willing to risk a catastrophic fire by splicing extension cords into the wiring.
4 days later and major roads still look like this.
