East Coast outages could last most of the week

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By JESSICA GRESKO and MATTHEW BARAKAT

WASHINGTON (AP) - From North Carolina to New Jersey, nearly 1.8 million people still without electricity were asking the same question Monday evening: Why will it take so long to get the lights back on?

Nearly three full days after a severe summer storm lashed the East Coast, utilities warned that many neighborhoods could remain in the dark for much of the week, if not beyond.

Friday's storm arrived with little warning and knocked out power to 3 million homes and businesses, so utility companies have had to wait days for extra crews traveling from as far away as Quebec and Oklahoma. And the toppled trees and power lines often entangled broken equipment in debris that must be removed before workers can even get started.

Adding to the urgency of the repairs are the sick and elderly, who are especially vulnerable without air conditioning in the sweltering triple-digit heat. Many sought refuge in hotels or basements.

FULL story at link.



Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20120702/D9VP36A80.html

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Baltimore city worker Joe Lane give away free bags of ice to residents at the Northwood Plaza shopping center, in Baltimore on Monday, July 2, 2012. Around 2 million customers from North Carolina to New Jersey and as far west as Illinois were without power Monday morning after a round of summer storms. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

[elleng]

1. MANY in Maryland are back now;

can't vouch for the numbers, but they are working, and its having good effect.

[applegrove]

2. Power crews are heading there from Ontario and New Brunswick in Canada.

[Grins]

3. Why?

Because every time this happens we complain about the same thing and noting ever gets done. The radio stations in Washington are soliciting questions from listeners and all of the say the same damn thing - Why wasn't Pepco/Dominon Power/etc. better prepared? Why does it take so long to get service restored.

The real question should be, "Screw the response time! Why haven't we put in place the infrastructure to prevent this from happening in the first place?"

Why have we not put an army of people at work to put cables underground? What about redoing the infrastructure and safety of the national electric grid? Are there ways to use/install neighborhood back-up systems to do the job for a couple days until crews can get the real work done? Why aren't there back-up power systems at water treatment plants so that our drinking water is not contaminated when main power goes out? It's not like those generators are that expensive for such a critical resource.

The power companies don't give a shit about service - they have a pretty solid monopoly. Hiring people costs them money and that goes to their bottom line and pockets. Their concern is making money, not providing a service.

It will cost a trillion dollars! OK. Fine. But you don't have to spend it all in one year. Take 10 or 15-years! But start it!!

We should have never let these bastard privatize public utilities.

[luv_mykatz]

4. Agreed.

Some services are too necessary, and the jobs too big to leave it to 'for profit' owners. They can't do the job properly and still have a healthy bottom line, or so it seems. Usually the only way 'for profit' owners can provide public services and still make a steadily increasing profit, is to do it on the backs of their employees. (Rip offs of pay and benefits, which results in turn-over of skilled and experienced workers.)

I know some here will disagree, but some services should be about providing the best service possible, and NOT about continually increasing profits for some corporate bottom line, so the corporation can please their (usually distant) investors. It is hard enough to do a good job of providing the big public services, and stay within a budget, let alone try to provide a steadily increasing profit. Public services often are 'high over-head' enterprises.

As you may guess, I am a public employee (though one of the much more low-paid ones.).

Also...the public is a very grudging employer. People seem to want Cadillac-level service, for a Geo Metro budget, when it comes to publicly provided services.

But, I still am with your central point: privatizing our utilities has not benefited most of us, overall.

[leveymg]

5. I agree about rebuilding the grid, but it needs to be decentralized and greened.

Putting a lot of money into burying transmission lines perpetuates the problem of the basic business model of a centralized power provider that must send current out over miles and miles of branch lines to substations, and from there along vulnerable pole-mounted wires and transformers to numerous residential neighborhoods. It's a nightmare to keep operating and fix after every storm.

If every home in the DC area had photoelectric cells on the roof, this would not be a major problem.

[bighughdiehl]

6. This is.....

the Soylent Green future the Reich has always wanted all along.
People dying from the effects of the "free market".
"dependency" is hunky dory as long as it involves a private
for profit power grid.