It Snowed Again

All day. All the day long it snowed, and I watched as the local schools had an early dismissal as the snow piled up. School was canceled all last week, and it's canceled tomorrow.

An hour ago I looked out on the patio. Our table out there has about three inches of accumulated snow on it. For me? That's nothing. That's barely good enough for sledding.

But for once I don't wish to make light of this situation. Last week's ice storm proved me wrong, and I understood how very lucky we were to have electricity and heat. I know the schools are just playing it safe. The country roads outside Lexington are hazardous in snow. School buses + country roads + snow = super liability. But this blog entry is not about the school closings or the bus routes or the sad reality that we live in a litigious society.

Something has to give. I fail to see why the state of Kentucky should be in crisis mode every five or six years. How much did this latest storm cost in terms of manpower and cleanup? And how much would it cost to bury the power lines?

What's that old saying? Oh yeah, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. See also: a stitch in time saves nine.

Comments

[Ally Bean]

We're buried under with snow and ice too. Often times we lose electricity when the weather turns bad-- and we have buried lines. But this time we lucked out and I am grateful.

It does seem like the reliability of utility service could be improved. But who is held accountable for such things? After watching Enron fall apart, I wonder about any utility's ability to care about doing the right thing. Greed trumps all in that world. Or so it seems to me.

[Mike Carroll]

Seattle went through the same thing in December. Lots of finger-pointing (and some really misguided self-congratulations by some Seattle city officers).

But not as bad as the storm in Chicago back in the 70's that effectively "un-elected" then-mayor Bilandic, and got Jane Byrne as a replacement. The city's snow removal was overwhelmed by on-going storms over a couple of months, and Bilandic was seen as responsible.

I guess you can buy and sell pretty much any public office in Chicago and no one will care much, but you'd damn well better get the snow removed.

[LittleMike]

2 years ago, St. Louis was hit by a single line of thunderstorms that knocked out power to over 500,000. In December of the same year, we were hit by 1" of ice, and the power company said "Anyone who lost power in July will lose power again". And, we did, 4 days. After that, the State stepped in and said "No more", and mandated that the power company start putting lines underground. Since then, no longterm power outages. Good on em. (Even though my power bill is much higher, I don't mind paying for reliability)

[jeorg]

the last time this happened there was discussion of burying the lines. and when push came to shove, people realized that it wouldn't have prevented it... sure downed polls are a problem, but the transformers are above ground and that IS the issue... when a tree limb takes down the transformer, it doesn't matter that the lines are buried, no one has power.

[joe maher]

Hey! Funny thing happened today while I was looking for people that traveled to the USSR.

Enjoyed your blog today!

Look me up on facebook. (yes, the grammar, I know)

Joe

[The CEO]

You have already hard the answer to the problem. Burying the power lines is expensive. The transformers have to be buried too, and yet be accessible too. Now if something happens to the national power grid, even if it's just at your local connection, who knows what can happen. The more electricity going through the wires, and the greater the distance you want it to go, the more interesting the problems.

Obama has said that the national power grid is an area he'd like to explore upgrading as part of his stimulus spending. Don't hold your breath. The first problem is in figuring out who actually owns it, because it desperately needs maintenance. Next will be the cost.

Don't make me go on, you're already depressed, and we haven't gotten to the snow removal issue.

Go to either Home Despot or Loews and you should be able to find a home generator for less than $3000 that will power your house for 4 or 5 days in the even of power loss. Easily installed, and you and Allan can relax, or buy a place where it's warm in winter and migrate. I know, Kentucky basketball.....

[Tiffany]

A coworker's husband works for a company that puts power lines back up. Yup, he got sent to Kentucky to help and made a killing. It costs that state as much to do that a few times as it would to bury them, for sure!

[kikikentucky]

Public Service.

I know, that's sounds a bit like "Soviet Union", but still, a bit more of that would prevent USA to look like third world when it comes to energy, education, health etc ...

[beanie]

I'll weigh in, a day late and a dollar short. ;)

We have buried power lines here in a 30-year-old development in semi-rural Ohio. It helps, but not as much as you think. And the problem is, when you get a lot of heavey freeze-thaw, the ground shifts, and if it's heavy clay or at all rocky, the power lines get pinched or cut. Then they need to start digging up your yard and the neighbors' yards to find the repair area. It's slow, expensive work. Been there. No fun.

With all that said, we've had more than 72" of show this winter and haven't lost the power once. (Probably because we're not having ice here.) Um...so there ya go; it's so cold that I'm rambling now. ;)

[Karan]

I have great sympathy for the Kentuckians enduring your nasty weather. We've had the same sort of weather related issues...ice storms, snow, wind - not to mention the occassional skidding driver Even though trees are regularly cropped to reduce limb damage to lines and attempts to minimize damage by zoning power to smaller areas, it happens again and again.

For us, power outages which also means we lose water, so it's like a double whammy. After a particularly grueling outage that lasted 11 days, we decided that because we have no control over the outside, we opted to create a happy little electrical environment inside, albeit still water free. We created what we call "a storm room" that involves a gizmo called a gentran that connects to our generator with a single line and powers selected circuits within the house. We identified those things we couldn't live without...the fridge, the microwave, the TV, the video games, the DVD player, the computers, a heater, etc and hooked 'em all up to the generator. It works pretty well for us...but I wish we had water too.