Rural Power Outages: Unprepared and Unpreparedness

[JasonRox]

Try August 14, 2003 some time just after 1600 ( 4 pm). It was about that time when the lights dimmed and my PC's shutdown as we had a voltage drop. The power stablized for a few seconds and then went out. We then learned the street, then neighborhood was out. Then we learned the state was out, and finally the entire northeast US and parts of Ontario.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_North_America_blackout

We were without power for about 36 hrs, and others were days without power.

Our house only lost power for about 3 hours. We're in Ontario.

 

[Astronuc]

Our house only lost power for about 3 hours. We're in Ontario.

Our local utility sold their generating plants, which are about 10-12 miles from us to Dynegy (merchant power generator), and became a electricty T&D retailer buying off the grid. The only problem - when the grid goes down - there's no electricity. Prior to that, the local utility could have isolated itself and stayed up - but noooo - that would make too much sense.

 

[mathwonk]

where are you anyway ivan? I own property in the northwest and have been hoping to move there for years. i was told the weather is always perfect. of course i only visit in july, but so far it seems true.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

where are you anyway ivan? I own property in the northwest and have been hoping to move there for years. i was told the weather is always perfect. of course i only visit in july, but so far it seems true.

I live near Eugene. And it is true: If you love the rain and fog, the weather is always perfect! Of course this only applies to the central valley and north, and the coast. Eastern and Southern Oregon and much sunnier. And even the valley can and often does have beautiful weather any time of year, but there can be months of rainy weather as well.

Where is your propery?

If you're going to be out this way, let me know and maybe we can meet for lunch or dinner.

 

[triden]

In this newer subdivision where I live all the power lines are underground which means we hardly ever get outages. When we do. it's usually because something in the substation takes a dive.

 

[Evo]

In this newer subdivision where I live all the power lines are underground which means we hardly ever get outages. When we do. it's usually because something in the substation takes a dive.

All of our lines are buried also, there are no poles in the neighborhood. However, the neighborhood gets it's electricty via overhead power lines at some point between us and the power station, if they're knocked down, we go out.

 

[turbo]

In our old subdivision, lines to the individual buildings were buried, but all the lines were overhead, right to the edge of each property, so any advantage that gave from tree damage was between the transformer and the house. Any ice-laden branch hitting the overhead lines would trip the safeties, so we lost power fairly often. Out here in the country, we haven't lost power often, though when it goes out, it might be out for hours or days, depending on the scope of the outage. We're lucky this time - the storm that has given others such trouble is staying an all-snow event. Despite the forecast for sleet, etc, the temp has been dropping all day. It's down to 18 deg F now, so the chances of getting anything but snow are slim. The wind has switched so that it's coming out of the northeast - usually that means that the bulk of the storm has passed and moist air from over the ocean will be supplying snow throughout the night - just as long as it doesn't bring warm air, we'll be all set - shoveling instead of scraping.

 

[hypatia]

I was without power most of the day, back up and running by 9 pm. Ice is still a inch thick on the lines, with heavy winds in the forcast overnight. Needless to say I have my back up power ready to go.

 

[turbo]

An update from central Maine - it is currently -3 deg F at 2:00 am. Our first nip of zero temps this year. In the late '70s I was the clerk of the works on a large apartment complex construction project, and part of my job involved tracking costs and physical data-points that impacted on costs, including temperatures. For two weeks about this time of year, the temperature never even approached 20 deg F during the day and was routinely -10 to -20 every night. We spent a ton of money on propane and space-heaters (and the labor to maintain them) to keep the project on-track.

My wife and I have a cozy little log house and the wood stove is keeping us toasty. We might burn 3 cords of wood this winter with no supplemental heat. We have an oil furnace, but after filling the oil tank after buying the place 18 months ago, we still have over 3/4 tank left, mainly from running the furnace in the fall and spring when a wood fire would have driven us out of the place, or when I expected to be outside hunting and unavailable to tend the stove.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

We finally broke 32F today but Portland was a DISASTER. They had freezing rain on 25F pavement, followed by up to three inches of snow. In many places people couldn't even make it up the grade at the freeway interchanges. The I-5 N and S were closed along with the I-84 coming into Portland. People were literally counting the number of accidents per hour in many locations. The local news was on all day with live coverage.

Yesterday I lost water due to a frozen pipe, but luckily no damage was done and the water came on again this morning after a night of directed heating. It turned out that some gravel had pulled away from the concrete slab of the pump house and let cold air reach the main pipe. But for a time it was starting to look like my pipe had actually frozen underground...which could be possible. Some of the original work done on this place was pretty bad. For example, one year I hit my septic line at about one foot [deep] with a trencher; in fact I cut it three times before I ever knew. . So after that I could easily imagine that the original water pipes weren't buried deep enough. It was starting to look ugly for a time. After a week in the teens and twenties, and with the water content in the soil being so high around here [pretty much saturated this time of year], there is no way to dig and probably won't be for several days at least. Whewwwww!

 

[turbo]

Man, Ivan! You've got a fixer-upper there. it is now 2:48 and the temperature has gotten down to -12 deg F outside according to my LL Bean inside-outside thermometer. Our house is comfortably warm (wood heat) and there is no danger of the pipes freezing at this mild temperature. If we got -10 for a couple of weeks, I'd monitor the temps in the cellar, but that seems like an unlikely scenario, given the warming trend. Today was the first day that the local snowmobile club got out their groomer and tried to make a base for their trails (IT-87 runs for a 1/2 mile inside my eastern boundary).

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Man, Ivan! You've got a fixer-upper there. it is now 2:48 and the temperature has gotten down to -12 deg F outside according to my LL Bean inside-outside thermometer. Our house is comfortably warm (wood heat) and there is no danger of the pipes freezing at this mild temperature. If we got -10 for a couple of weeks, I'd monitor the temps in the cellar, but that seems like an unlikely scenario, given the warming trend. Today was the first day that the local snowmobile club got out their groomer and tried to make a base for their trails (IT-87 runs for a 1/2 mile inside my eastern boundary).

A fixer upper based on a pipe?

Go to bed.

 

[turbo]

A fixer upper based on a pipe?

Go to bed.

Or perhaps an insulator-upper?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Well, there is a lot of work to do around here [I am currently slugging it out with two major projects, and three seriously overdue], but I had to laugh considering that the problem occurred in my new $20K pump house!

 

[turbo]

Well, there is a lot of work to do around here [I am currently slugging it out with two major projects, and three seriously overdue], but I had to laugh considering that the problem occurred in my new $20K pump house!

Holy cow! $20K? That's some water project. When this place was built, the owner relied on ground-water and put in a dug well with a pump in the cellar. Later, after a very dry spell, he had a well drilled with a submersible pump installed in that, so we have two independent sources of water, either of which can be piped to parts of the plumbing. Currently, we use the dug well for watering the garden, washing the cars, etc, and the drilled well for in-house consumption. All that piping is in a cellar that is normally unheated aside from radiation from the living quarters upstairs, so I watch the temps down there during very cold weather, lest I end up with a skating rink.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

In addition to what you see [which is oddly skewed for some reason], there was a load of major landscaping, tree removal, driveway modifications, electrical, etc to be done. We still have the original pump house down in the pasture which has the primary pump, and then we have a constant pressure booster pump and filters system seen in the new house here. It is all fully automated and only requires servicing three times a year [chlorine and brine tanks]. I used to have to service the old one every month, and even then the water was still a huge problem. Also, this one is right next to the house which makes it much more convenient.

http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/6977/img00030smbw1.jpg

We have never gotten around to the planter boxes that will go along the outside of the left wall. This would have prevented our little problem. But is was a simple as some cold air leaking in under the slab.

This area has bad water [high in iron and sulfer compounds at times]; hence the elaborate system.

 

[turbo]

Wow! That is some system! No wonder you've got such a pile of dough sunk in it. I was wondering how you could possibly sink $20K into a pump house...you've got a whole water-treatment plant in there. Too bad about the mineralized water...we've got great ground water throughout most of Maine. In fact, if you buy Poland Spring bottled water, that comes from here, and they are expanding operations tapping at least one or two more aquifers in Maine. The municipal water district that serves my father's town has had their water judged the best municipal water in the state, and perhaps the country - I don't remember.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Wow! That is some system! No wonder you've got such a pile of dough sunk in it. I was wondering how you could possibly sink $20K into a pump house...you've got a whole water-treatment plant in there. Too bad about the mineralized water...we've got great ground water throughout most of Maine. In fact, if you buy Poland Spring bottled water, that comes from here, and they are expanding operations tapping at least one or two more aquifers in Maine. The municipal water district that serves my father's town has had their water judged the best municipal water in the state, and perhaps the country - I don't remember.

Way back in the bad old days, people around here just lived with the water or provided only primary filtering. When it gets bad, which is usually when the water table gets low in the summer months, to me it is like drinking rust. I don't see how people could stand it but I guess you get used to it. Of course, you would still ruin all of you clothes and water appliances if you use it, which in fact is what happened to us when the old system started to fail. This was when I decided to buy what you see.

Now the area is growing with expensive homes going in that come with a decent filter systems, but I'm told by all that we definitely still have the best water in the estates. Of course, eventually we will be annexed by the nearest town and municipal water will be piped in, so this system was purchased with the idea that it must last until about the time that should happen; which I think will be in no less than ten, and likely more like twenty years.

 

[Astronuc]

It's a balmy 16°F (-8.9°C) here, and this morning, it was a mild 8°F (-13.3°C), and still no snow yet. Further north, they had an ice storm that knocked out power to about 50,000 during the weekend, and some folk are still without power.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Yesterday afternoon, the snow in Portland melted just a bit - for about an hour - just enough to add to the ice problem today. It was so bad this morning that people were seen driving snowmobiles on major roads.

 

[hypatia]

Wind storms kept us in a brown out all day, so we cut the main power to the house and have been running on generator all day, and now into the night. One last fill up, then I can go to bed.

 

[turbo]

It's gotten up to 7 deg F this morning with a light breeze, so I may get out a bit today. Yesterday was colder with a brisk NW wind so I pretty much stayed in and tended the wood stove. I used to be much more tolerant of cold - as a ski patrol member at Enchanted Mountain I used to get to work early every day to inspect the trails and recommend drift-busting, packing, grooming, etc. Many mornings, the manager would make us wait until the temperature got up to at least -20 deg F before he would let us on the chair lift. Walking out to the ski rack, the snow would make high-pitched squeaking noises.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

That just isn't right...

 

[Moonbear]

That just isn't right...

Yeah, the one in pink is definitely too fat for a bikini!

 

[Math Is Hard]

Yeah, the one in pink is definitely too fat for a bikini!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Yeah, the one in pink is definitely too fat for a bikini!

Maybe that was it! I kept thinking that the pink flamingo was out of place.