Queens Blackout: 100,000 people, SEVEN DAYS >

[Stephanie]

It's kind of astonishing. These folks are living in the center of the greatest metropolis on the planet, yet no one can explain why the power grid failed, and no one can fix it in a timely manner. Con Ed still can't say when the remaining areas will be restored. The frail and the elderly are truly suffering. I am trying to understand how such a massive failure could occur.

ABC News attributes it to neglected mainenance. http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=investigators&id=4388181

Greg Palast blames energy deregulation. http://www.gregpalast.com/ken-lays-alive

What's the root cause of the problem? Is Palast right? Did deregulation allow Con Ed to save money by neglecting to maintain its infrastructure?

The economic impact is enormous, not to mention the human toll. Who's to blame?

[ananda]

1. Palast is right.

Deregulation rules and screws ...

Viva Lay! :-(

[Davis_X_Machina]

2. Deferred maintenance is a fast way...

...to fatten the bottom line, so I'm guessing they're both right.

[Turbineguy]

16. It becomes a downward spiral

Early retirement as attrition gets experienced people to leave. Everybody moves up the ladder The new supervisors think they've got it made at first. But they are supervising people with lowered skill levels. People get disgusted and quit.

Working with electrical systems is inherently dangerous. I almost got fried once when there was a hidden source supplying 450 volts to a bus that was supposed to be dead. I would not want to work with unskilled persons. It's not worth it.

One of the reasons for the California blackouts was that plants were not maintained, then they were shutdown because catch-up is about 3 times as expensive. Thanks to de-regulation.

That's why people have public utilities. Like government organizations, they have built-in inefficiencies but they do work.

It's not just the prices that are regulated.

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. I grew up in that area

I can't imagine being there for a week in the summer with no electric. Those apartment can get like ovens in the summer. Add that to having no refrigeration, no hot water, no elevators, etc and life becomes very difficult.

[rocktivity]

4. They're probably so outsourced they couldn't gear up a full repair crew

Just like with Hurriance Katrina.

:headbang:
rocknation

[Systematic Chaos]

5. Pardon the tin foil hat but...

After this much time it almost makes me think someone is watching this situation and taking lots of notes. Are we really witnessing a power grid failure or is this some kind of social experiment? After one whole week you have to wonder....

[SmokingJacket]

17. That is a really, REALLY long time to go without any obvious

explanation. It would be bad enough if there'd been an ice storm or a hurricane, but just... because??

It freaks me out, frankly. I'm embarassed to admit I've never, ever gone longer than twelve hours or so without power. Maybe 24, but that's it.

[Stephanie]

19. I went about 30 hours during the Northeast blackout a few years ago

And after about 24 I stopped being a good sport about it. Remember we are in the city. You can't just sleep in the backyard. You can't fire up the barbecue. We don't have cars to drive off in.

[stepnw1f]

6. How is Deregulation Good for the Economy Again? (nt)

[Pacifist Patriot]

25. Which view do you want?

From the mail room or the board room?

[stepnw1f]

36. lol... not sure (nt)

[Warpy]

7. Deregulation allowed them to nail down every penny of profit

they could suck out of the system, and that means skimping on maintenance. When their profit was FIXED, they did the maintenance to avoid being fined for gouging.

[Stephanie]

20. Where could I find documentation on that?

Is there a watchdog group that would have the information. I want to research the connection. I'm not clear on exactly what rules were changed under deregulation. Any ideas where I could look?

[OzarkDem]

27. Check Palast

http://www.gregpalast.com/columns.cfm?subject_id=5&subject_name=Power%20Companies. There were also quite a few reports done when First Energy started a major blackout in the midwest a few years ago.

[OzarkDem]

26. Cutting maintenance workers, too

I've noticed that about most of the power outages in recent years - they have to call on workers from out of their region or state to fix lines and restore power. Years ago, they kept enough workers on the payroll to fix repairs quickly - it was a point of pride to hav service restored within 24 hours. There was good customer service in a regulated environment, because elected officials would come down on them if they didn't get things up and running fast. Today, corporate utility companies are accountable to no one, so customer service is an afterthought.

Next thing you know, they'll be sending us instructions on how to fix our own power lines.

[enough]

8. The two explanations go hand-in-hand.

Interesting post, Stephanie.

After just 48 hours with no power out in the country, I can really feel for those people going without power day after day in the hot city. You really start to go crazy, especially in the heat.

[Stephanie]

11. I know when the whole Northeast was out a few years ago -

I almost lost it after about 30 hours, when suddenly the lights went back on. It was horribly hot. Today is not so bad, but it's been a hot week. For those in ill health, this is a horrible ordeal.

[partylessinOhio]

9. It is another outrage like Katrina. There is no excuse to tolerate loss

of power for one week.

I know people are suffering especially the sick and elderly. I pray nobody dies.

[Stephanie]

12. It really has some echoes of Katrina in some ways

Especially since Con Ed initially announced that 1500 households were affected. By this they meant that 1500 complaints had been received. The underreporting caused a delay in getting help to the area, including the city and Red Cross, etc.

[smirkymonkey]

10. I propose that the management of ConEd be shut in the trunk

of a vehicle parked in the direct sunlight in the middle of sweltering Manhattan for seven days straight to atone for their sins of incompetence and arrogance. Next time they might not be so lackadaisical.

[blonndee]

13. Leaders press Pataki in NYC power outage: (request disaster area

declaration):

Leaders press Pataki in NYC power outage
By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago

NEW YORK - A group of political leaders urged Gov. George Pataki on Sunday to designate a section of the city suffering from a prolonged power failure a disaster area, making it eligible for federal aid.

"Anywhere else it would be," Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., said at a news conference in the borough of Queens, which officials often complain is overlooked. "If this were an area of 100,000 people in upstate New York, the governor would have declared it a disaster area.

A spokeswoman for Pataki, Joanna Rose, said the governor has spoken with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and offered any assistance necessary. The utility whose damaged lines are causing the trouble, Consolidated Edison, also bears a burden, she said.

"We believe that it is Con Ed that should make restitution to those who have suffered," she said.

full story at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060724/ap_on_re_us/nyc_blackouts_24

[Loge23]

14. 2006 - The future is getting further away

Let alone the fact that we have an administration that's bent on returning us to the stone age, but this NYC Con-ED situation is truly baffling.
Remember the great blackout? As incredible as that was at the time, service was restored - in comparison with now - very quickly. Here it is 2006 and the system is broken down to such an extent that an outage can last over a week.
In many ways, America today reminds me of visiting Odessa, in the Ukraine, in 1994. After years of spending mightily on the military, the Soviets left a crumbled infrastructure for their populace.
In 2006, a trained, competent, blue-collar worker is hard to come by. Labor has never been this broken in this country. Along with it is an aging infrastructure with no one and no money to fix it.
Mr. Dylan was right (again): Everything's Broken.

[TahitiNut]

15. Well, it's privateering and deregulation.

Take a public infrastructure, built by public works, turn it over to unregulated privateers who milk it for every last penny, and then tell the people about how "competition in the free market" is what makes America great ... and children die alongside grandma. Ain't it great? Don't like it? Then they should buy their power from the competiton, right? Except there isn't any in the Oligopoly handed control of the nation. This is the rape of working people - a slow motion rape that has been gaining speed for 30 years with the complicity of sociopaths and imbeciles.

[Stephanie]

18. And you can choose your power supplier, but not the lines it comes in on

And in this case the lines fried.

[SpiralHawk]

21. Mercury is Retrograde

until July 28.

And that explains EVERYTHING.

[Rosemary2205]

22. The entire infrastruction of this country is in deep cheese

the power grid is no exception. Our water treatment/sewage systems, roads and bridges, railways, gasoline delivery system, natural gas delivery system.....nearly everywhere the infrastructure has not been maintained. We are saddling our kids and grandkids with an enormous amount of debt PLUS $trillions in infrastructure repair.

[KittyWampus]

23. I'd like to at least see this on Greatest Page and thus am recommending

because this is like and unlike Katrina. Katrina... you had a MAJOR catastrophic and devastating weather event that destroyed nearly everything.

IN Queens, its limited to the electrical grid and dysfuction that is way out of proportion.

But in both cases, neglect and callous disregard for infrastructure end up punishing working class Americans.

[Stephanie]

29. That and people left stranded for DAYS

First Con Ed underreported the number of people affected so relief was not provided. Many old people suffering there.

[Crankie Avalon]

24. And that's five!

I'm planning to sell my Manhattan co-op and get into a bigger and more reasonably priced place in Queens of all places. Now I'm not so sure.

[Stephanie]

28. I spent the day in Queens yesterday

And I am a prisoner of Manhattan Island. Queens is lovely. Very cute houses. It's the next wave as artists are priced out of Brooklyn now. If I had some dough I'd definitely buy in Astoria. Check out Astoria Park - beautiful, huge pool!

[Crankie Avalon]

30. I was thinking Long Island City...

...lots of news condos seem to be going up there with some of the prices advertised being in my reach, but Astoria would be very convenient, too, if I could find a nice apartment in a big, solid apartment building. Can't afford a house.

[foreverdem]

31. I live in Astoria - it's the wiring

Loss of power is not uncommon in Astoria, it happens every summer. Not for this long, but at least once. We have at least 4 manhole cover explosions every summer. When we had electrical work done on our house a few years ago, the electrician used to work for Con Edison and told us that Astoria was wired like no other area in any other borough and it was not planned out nor thought out in any logical manner. The wiring is haphazard at best and every person on one street could be hooked up to a separate generator. That's why when power is restored, not everyone on the street gets power back at the same time. In my own house last week there were rooms where had power and rooms where I did not.

I took a walk around on Saturday - many stores closed, the supermarket has been closed for an entire week. Many have backup generators but that's not helping most.

I can't imagine being out all this time. Those houses become like ovens, they heat up and don't cool down.

[AbbyR]

33. My daughter lives in Astoria, too....

said she went to the Salvation Army twice yesterday to eat. I never thought I'd be glad to live in Arkansas.

[Ravenseye]

32. Who's to blame? Republicans

This is just another obvious sign that we have the infrastructure of a third world country even in our biggest and arguably most important city. Why? Because the Republicans don't want to pay taxes to improve the system. So they band aid'ed it for so long the whole thing is falling apart.

We have some of the worst infrastructure in the world, and it's all due to not having enough to pay to improve the system because republicans are anti-taxes anti-government anti-american and what there is goes way too much disproportionatly into building bombs and tanks.

[Up2Late]

34. What the hell happened? Did they fry a power sub-station?

WTF? :wtf:

[Tesha]

38. See my reply slightly below here... (NT)

[AllegroRondo]

35. Theres 300,000 people without power in St Louis since last Wednesday.

They've been slowly turning on power all week, but estimate that they wont have it all fixed until this Thursday.

[Tesha]

37. Data on the cause(s):

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/energywatch/features/article_1183586.php/Anlaysis_New_grid_woes_in_Queens

<snip>

In a nutshell, Burke explained, the genesis of the outages was the
failure of 'feeder lines' that carry 27,000 volts of electricity
through ConEd`s 57 distribution areas. Feeder lines connect to
transformers that 'step down,' or reduce the voltage down to the
120 volts found in household outlets.

The system is resilient enough that if two and even three primary
feeder lines in a service area fail, there will be enough backup
capacity to keep power flowing to the point that consumers don`t
even notice it.

Last week, however, the Queens distribution area lost about half
of its 22 primary feeders for reasons that were still unclear Sunday.

'We lost at least 10 feeder lines,' Burke noted. 'It`s something
I have never seen before.'

The loss of feeder lines was blamed for the (1999) Washington Heights
outages, which according to a report by the New York State Attorney
General was traced in large part to insulation issues in the oven-
like environment of underground utility vaults.

But as it did in 1999, the loss of the feeder lines in Queens caused
higher volumes of electricity to run through the remaining feeders,
transformers, and the lower-voltage lines, which were subsequently
fried one-by-one by heavy power loads that they simply were not
designed to handle.

<more>

[knitter4democracy]

39. Oh my goodness! How can we help?

That's awful!!! Is there any way to send help?