Q: What would happen to electricity if Hurricane Sandy hit the Netherlands? A: Nothing. [View all]

[eridani]

http://www.latitudenews.com/story/q-what-would-happen-to-electricity-if-hurricane-sandy-hit-the-netherlands-a-nothing/

In Wessel Bakker’s hometown of Gouda, the Netherlands (like the cheese), there are wooden utility poles like the ones downed by Hurricane Sandy. But in Gouda, the structures are more nostalgia than infrastructure.

“In my neighborhood — it’s a small, nice town — there are the last remaining wooden poles,” said Bakker, Regional Director of Electricity Transmission and Distribution for DNV KEMA, an energy consulting, testing and certification company. “[The poles] have been marked as a landscape monument.”

These are not simply the last remaining utility poles in Gouda. They are just about “the only poles left in the country,” said Bakker. “Maybe there are two or three more locations.”

Nearly three weeks after Hurricane Sandy hit the coast, thousands of people still don’t have power. Many are living in shelters because their homes lack heat, hot water and electricity, while thousands more have completely lost their homes. The storm took over 100 lives.