Drudge is reporting this story as:
"DC TO BE DARK FOR DAYS"
Besides having the electricity cut, that headline works on at least 2 other levels that I can think of.
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nice of you to admit that not only are you an idiot, you're a racist, too
LOL must really suck to be you
Most of the officials quoted in that "article" are idiots...
It takes time to cut downed trees off the downed lines both power and phone...
If they want a more hardened utility system they need to look at the costs of installing underground utilities rather than putting wires on poles where storms can land trees on them and yank them down...
You know the number of trees down is severe if it has damaged enough of the local grids to impair land line telephone services and the 911 system...
What do these local officials think, that the power and phone companies can magically conjure up fully functional utility networks when a tree is down on almost every street and it will be house to house work to restore service ?
The jokes on you pal.
Saying that "DC to be dark for days" is demographically correct.
Any racism that you think is implied there is in your head.
(As if racism isin't alive and well in the USA)
Yes, buried electric would be nice but it would be prohibitively expensive.
The affordable solution would be for people to stop planting trees near power lines. Unfortunately we have too many idiot tree-huggers for that to happen.
Underground services is the ONLY solution. Power corridors above ground makes sense, but NOT local distribution.
Local conditions make a big difference in whether or not buried services make sense. A high water table (FL), rock (CO), or low population density (most of the country) make it prohibitively expensive.
That is being done more and more with new houses. In established neighborhoods, it is prohibitively expensive and not without a new set of problems.
More tree trimming is needed in many places, but the tree huggers don't want that to happen either. We got hit bad here in CT last October. Utility wants to take down some trees, but there are protests about that now.
I wonder how many people are willing to pay increased rates to go underground to save possible outages? Somebody has to pay for it.
As long as you *can* dig, something other than a well. In any case, under the pavement isn't a great idea in cold areas. Too much maintenance needed. I liked the system my mother had in her house. Water (and gas, under that where available) in the city right-of-way one side of the street, electricity on the other, storm sewer under the pavement down the middle, and sanitary sewer in the back of the lot.
Ed Pawlowski wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Exactly. Underground is the way to go, except if you need to pay for it in an established neighborhood. I hope that when the time comes, they know exactly where the gas lines lay ...
There is a mandate in my state that utilities in new developments must be underground.
The large power company that serves our area in PA changed gears maybe ten years ago and is really into tree trimming to protect power lines and it pays off. One of the reasons I think it works is that they hire tree companies that do a good looking job.
That's good to hear. With climate change/global warming, storm frequency and severity is only going to get worse.
Unfortunately, tree trimming is almost nonexistent here. My neighbors tree branches are rubbing on the power line primary. At night when it is misty out and the branches are wet, you can see tiny arcing and sparking as the branches blow in the breeze.
What did the power company say when you reported that?
In spite of their poor record, out power company responds to phone calls for that type of situation within hours.
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