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NASA Images of Puerto Rico Reveal How Maria Wiped Out Power On the Island (jalopnik.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Jalopnik: Hurricane Maria was the most devastating hurricane to make land in Puerto Rico in nearly 100 years and the country is still reeling in its wake. Much of the island still doesn't have running water, reliable communication or electricity. Recently, NASA published a set of date-processed photos that show the island's nighttime lights both before and after the storm. Here, you can see images of the country's capital, San Juan, on a typical night before Maria. It's based on cloud-free and low moonlight conditions. Conversely, the following composite image is of data taken on the nights of Sept. 27 and 28 -- nearly a week after the storm hit -- by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite, a scanning radiometer that collects visible and infrared imagery of land, atmosphere, cryosphere and oceans, according to NASA's website.
Obviously, however the reason why they put them on poles in the first place is because it's considerably cheaper than run them underground and if you've paid any attention to what's been going on there for the last few years you'll know they don't exactly have the money for this just lying around.
To put the cost into perspective, here in Finland, where we don't have the same debt and budgetary problems, they only relatively recently started mandating companies put a significant effort into moving the above-ground powerline infrastructure under ground and the current plan is to have 65% of the low voltage and 47% of the medium voltage infrastructure moved to underground cables by 2029.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
Yes, it was a really disappointing article. We know the power is out. 'NASA' wasn't needed to show us that. The whole article appears to be a puff piece. A gee-whiz article not suitable for Slashdot readers.
While other states have representatives to bring home pork spending, Puerto Rico does not. In addition, the median household income is $18K compared to Mississippi, where where the per capita income is $40K. How much can you really tax a household that only makes $18K? No companies will target Puerto Rico as a market. It's expensive to ship food there from the COTUS. In addition, if the island was already in debt, a substantial portion of the revenues are going to pay off the debug.
So it's easy to say the government "drove the island to bankruptcy" implying that funds are being mismanaged. Even a new government would not be able to change the status quo because they are starting from such a deep hole. When the federal government needs to get out of a recession, they use deficit spending, and the closest thing a state can do to do that (which is not really ethical but there are no other options) is to issue bonds, and then default on them (bankruptcy).
PR should become a state or become an independent country. There shouldn't be any middle ground. However I know many, many PRicans who do want the middle way. They want it to remain as it is. "This is what was agreed to 100 years ago - and we ought to stick with it."
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Failure rates for underground cables are higher in normal operation, and are more sudden and difficult to repair compared to overhead. You might get it for a residential subdivision, but not for the distribution network.
The real problem is that the poles are too far apart resulting in dramatically higher wind loading in a direction they have little capability to resist. Coupling that with the complete lack of maintenance, poor quality repairs, extremely high centralization of substation infrastructure, and transmission towers that are likely as under-designed as the island's cell towers, it is pretty easy to see why we are here.
We were trying to get a redundant feeder to a site there, and it was essentially impossible. Their grid was bare bones to say the least.