In listening to the reports of people without power for the last couple of days am I alone in thinking that complaining about a service with a 99.98% up-time reliability is a bit of a moan.
(Guessing that she's in her 50s, so she's had 5 days downtime in
20,000+ days.)jgh
I agree that some people expectations are too high when there is such widespread disruption. Communications can always be improved , if you are prepared to pay, but I suspect that a personal detailed phone/text service is only feasible for small scale problems, anything larger has to be web based . With smart phones accessing such information has become feasible as long as the local Mobile network is not down. Expecting accurate forecasting of time to fix is unrealistic , all that can be provided with any accuracy is a "it wont be fixed before" time.
The more we rely on technology and get used to resilient services the more we are unprepared and suffer when they do occasionally fail. I see a market for "urban survival courses " !
I heard one woman complaining that she couldn't get through to talk to anyone on the phone about the situation.
I think the powers that be knew about the fault and were busy deploting their workers.
Many people don't know who to contact when it is a distribution fault anyway.
I just looked up "electricity" in the phone book and there was an entry for UK Power Networks, and similar in the YP.
I'd imagine the point is when its happened. In them old days you would see bods going along all power line routes checking trees and cutting them where there was a danger of them hitting the lines. I don't think this is done or at least not done so often as it used to be. t This is the main issue here. Obviously, the other issue is putting sub stations etc, on areas formerly as flood plains. The water damage aspect could be mitigated by better builds of course. In the end its all trade offs against cost and profit and reliability in extreme weather. We are apparently notorious for being unprepared for anything, which is odd considering we can have all four seasons in a day here.
Brian
The substations are only where the houses are.
I know that anyone here might find it astonishing, but a good proportion of the population don't follow news or have much idea about anything.
This remains true whoever is running the show.
Well it depends, dunnit. No point in having large numbers of snow ploughs in areas where you get a snowfall every five years. Equally, here, even when it does snow the temperature is close to zero, meaning that the snow will be slippery. In e.g. Scandinavia, or anywhere where the temp is -20 or less *every* winter, not only are people gonna be equipped in terms of clothing and winter tires, but the snow will *not* be slippery, it'll be more like sand. You don't slip on that. It's easier to drive on and easier to walk on.
Not astonished at all, most of the population *are* as thick as two short planks. But then dinner table conversation here tends to be on subjects such as particle physics, faster than light travel theory, cell biology, current space exploration, etc etc
That is the problem, the planks haven't put any thought at all in how to cope with a simple power cut. So they just panic and blame everyone else for *their* failure to prepare.
We could start a list of what simple things could be taught or even put in a government booklet along the "Protect and Survive model" though hopefully it should be advice that works.
I'll kick off,
G.Harman
Which in the event of a wide area power outage the mobile networks are very likely to be down. Very few cells have much, if any, backup power.
The mobile networks are anything but resilient. If they were resilient they would stay working short of the aerials/masts failing. A simple loss of mains power should not be a problem for *any* half decent resilient system.
Agreed, I wonder how many people have a reliable, non-tech, backup for their satnav, in the car where they are most likely to need it? And of those how many would know how to use that backup?
In message , Brian Gaff writes
It is round here only they fly over in helicopters
My power supplier has a website to show outages. Last time there was an outage they did not show it since the outage "affected only a few people". I told them that I wouldn't have to phone them if they updated their website. Naturally I have an emergency power supply so that I can run the computer, broadband, phone, TV and lights. But I need to know if the outage is going to be more than a few hours, then I'll crank up the generator and maybe run an extension lead to my 80 year old neighbours.
Euthanasia seems an extreme reaction to a power cut.
Bill
satnav, wots one of them? I use something called "a map", backed up with "my eyes".
jgh
You should be prosecuted for dangerous driving, trying to read a map and drive at the same time. Those days are gone, thank goodness.
Bill
. . . deftly weaving in the epistemological concerns of structuration theory (and others!) as the small hours approach . . .
. . . leading to the explanation of all things!!
Oh how the winter's evenings must fly by.
There's a chap on the news at the moment who lives in a house- on-stilts (garage and entrance stairway on ground floor, living accommodation upstairs) and is complaining that all the stuff he had in his garage was flooded and ruined and demands better flood defences.
Err... the flood defences were building your your b****y house with the accommodation up above flood level.
jgh
I don't think people ar thick. Its more to do with the expectation that the state will provide. Its Health and safety and the success of the hype of how advanced we are. In the end, its up to us as has been said. What often frustrates me is that I am only not prepared due to a lack of suitable stuff blind folk can operate etc, I do try to think of the what if xxx but am frustrated by the one size fits all commercial world.
Brian
On Friday 27 December 2013 23:53 Dave Liquorice wrote in uk.d-i-y:
I'm reading Mr Tompkins to my 8 and 10 year olds - they seem to get it which is encouraging. My 10 year old spits in the general direction of One Direction and agrees with me that Bieber is in fact the missing link...
Have you noticed how few people even have a few candles stashed away. When I was a kid we had a boxfull and that was before the 3 day week.
On Saturday 28 December 2013 00:10 Dave Liquorice wrote in uk.d-i-y:
It is an extremely poor state of affairs considering how solid the wired system is. This is why, despite using VOIP a lot, I will always have a POTS line.
On Saturday 28 December 2013 08:16 snipped-for-privacy@mdfs.net wrote in uk.d-i-y:
Duhhh... That is indeed the pattern around here for new builds. Seems reasonable too given it is a) easy to relocate a car; b) the losses are limited unless you operate a machine shop in your garage.
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