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2M Americans Lost Power After 'Bomb Cyclone' (apnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Associated Press:
Tens of thousands of utility workers in the Northeast raced to restore power to more than 1.5 million homes and businesses just days after a powerful nor'easter caused flooding and wind damage from Virginia to Maine... Flood waters had receded in most areas, but Friday's storm had taken huge chunks out of the coastline in Massachusetts and other states... Residents in other areas, meanwhile, bailed out basements and surveyed the damage while waiting for power to be restored, a process that power companies warned could take days in some areas.
Power outages on the East Coast dipped by about 500,000 from a peak of 2 million earlier Saturday, but officials said lingering wind gusts were slowing repair efforts. The storm's aftermath also was still affecting travel, with airports from Washington, D.C. to Boston reporting dozens of delays and cancellations, while service was slowly returning to normal on rail systems throughout the region... The death toll from the storm increased by four, with authorities saying at least nine people had lost their lives.
Airlines canceled more than 2,800 flights, according to the Associated Press, while Amtrak suspended service along the northeast corridor (though it's saying they should all return to service on Sunday).
CNN reported roughly 1 in 4 Americans were in the storm's path, facing winds as high as 50 mph, while the Associated Press reports gusts up to 90 mph on Cape Cod.
Power outages on the East Coast dipped by about 500,000 from a peak of 2 million earlier Saturday, but officials said lingering wind gusts were slowing repair efforts. The storm's aftermath also was still affecting travel, with airports from Washington, D.C. to Boston reporting dozens of delays and cancellations, while service was slowly returning to normal on rail systems throughout the region... The death toll from the storm increased by four, with authorities saying at least nine people had lost their lives.
Airlines canceled more than 2,800 flights, according to the Associated Press, while Amtrak suspended service along the northeast corridor (though it's saying they should all return to service on Sunday).
CNN reported roughly 1 in 4 Americans were in the storm's path, facing winds as high as 50 mph, while the Associated Press reports gusts up to 90 mph on Cape Cod.
This just shows the differences in levels of preparedness for certain weather conditions of different airports. It takes some serious weather to bring down air infrastructure in North America.
In Europe on the other hand, temperature is below 0deg, there's this very subtle white powder falling from the sky, CLOSE EVERYTHING!
Facetiousness aside as climate change is expected to bring about more extreme weather conditions it's time the European airports looked across the ocean for tips on how to cope with a little bit of snow. Buying more than a handful of de-icing machines would be a start.
At least I was only delayed for 3h Friday and not cancelled.
It seems more and more like a third world country from my perspective.
Crazy cops that shoot each and every one once the words 'Shots fired!' are heard. People 'living' in plastic tents in the outskirts; people running around without healthcare and then – the fucking cables hanging around everywhere. Once this goes wrong, they simply put up new cables in the same spot, so that people can enjoy the next outage...
This 'driving against the wall' mentality has degraded large portions of the states into third world countries. There are even states where the schools open only four days a week, because the teachers need second/third jobs to make it. Insane - all this, while spending everything on weapons systems nobody needs!
But surely THIS is the last time a storm will blow down the powerlines and leave millions in the dark!
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
SpaceX are scheduled to launch a rocket on Tuesday, 05:33 UTC. Weather should be fine for the launch by then, but the sea states off shore are another matter.
They were going to recover the first stage on a floating platform, but the ships that would have taken it out should have left are still in port, with only 43 hours left to go - they'd take 42 hours flat out to even get there.
The reason for this seems smple - 14 foot seas. Even a 100 meter long platform isn't going to stay still enough in that. So it seems that this rocket will be expended instead.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
The United States spent 20 percent of the federal budget on defense.. more than it spent on Medicare.
Note how they are comparing the entire "federal budget on defense" to a fraction of the budget spend on healthcare (Medicare); conveniently ignoring Medicaid and the huge tax collected in the form of Obamacare premiums.
Pretty much all the power has been restored. No big deal.
Except for anyone who had solar panels blown off their roof, they have a far more expensive problem.
Trump didn't get to the latest school shooting and confront the shooter because it was over before he could get on AF One, but surely he could have faced this storm off.
Don't those people also have power lines to their houses?
As for the solar panels ... that's what homeowner's insurance is for. We're thinking of getting panels put up. The saleperson reminded us that we need to let State Farm know so that they can adjust (increase) our homeowner's policy.
And, yes, we will still have power lines to the house, even though I hope to be independent of the power company for 7 months of the year. (I hope to get on-site battery backup for nights and cloudy days.)
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
A "huge expensive job" that you hardly ever need to do beats constantly repairing overhead power lines and trimming trees by a, well, hugely expensive amount.
I've seen the power company restore the same lines at least five times over the years. When does it become more economical to accept the upfront investment of burying cables, like all the more advanced countries have been doing for a couple of generations?
And go to three-phase for all homes, for that matter...
Maybe in your little town sure, but according to PECO's own outage map southeast PA still has 123,715 people without power as of 9:38 on Sunday. They have a real-time outage map that anyone can look at, it shows just how widespread the problem is with 3,209 individual outages; each of those outages is marked on the map, the amount of damage is really impressive.
Not one mention about the weight of the snow. We barely had any wind, but the heavy snow was snapping lines and trees all over the place. Typical snow to water ratio is 25:1, this storm was closer to 5:1.
As for the solar panels ... that's what homeowner's insurance is for.
Don't confuse "insured" or "subsidized" with lower cost. The cost is the same, the only difference is who pays the bill.
Burying lines on new development is relatively easy compared to burying existing infrastructure. You have to deal with crossing under roads, driveways, and sidewalks. You have to avoid existing buried telephone, internet, cable, water, sewer, and gas lines. You have to deal with homeowners that don't want their yard and shrubs dug up. Dealing with all this is a headache, time consuming, and expensive as hell compared to just repairing an existing overhead line every couple years.
Don't know what a bomb cyclone is, but in the 'North East' region of the US a storm that tracks up the coast as this one did is called a Nor'Easter. Generally around here storms that take this track are above average regarding impact, although it is usually just a lot of precipitation and a little wind - this was the opposite with the sustained winds being the predominant factor.
And yet...
Number of people affected by the storm: ~80 million,
Number of people who lost power as a result of the storm: ~2 million.
Number of deaths attributed to the storm: 9.
Compared to Katrina, not all that big a deal. IOW, what's the fuss about? Slow news week?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Maybe those tunnel boring machines can be useful after all
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
You have to avoid existing buried telephone, internet, cable, water, sewer, and gas lines.
That's an opportunity to use those. Smart companies make chutes that can fit extras, and then burying becomes even easier than stretching overhead cables. And even where there are old buried cables, they can often be replaced with newer cables that can carry both the old and new infrastructure. This is how many homes got their fiber hookup[*] - the old copper was pulled out, trailing new cables that had both copper and fiber.
[*]: At least in parts of the world where true fiber connections are offered, and not "fiber" which is copper the last mile.
Winds of 50MPH with gusts of up to 90MPH and you have 2 million power outages? Here in the UK we spend a great amount of winter having those kinds of wind speeds as we get hit with several winter storms with those and everything just carries on as normal with the only real issue being certain bridges and high elevation roads being closed to high sided trucks.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
The reason for this seems smple - 14 foot seas. Even a 100 meter long platform isn't going to stay still enough in that.
That's because they're doing it wrong. If they want stability, they have to go semi-submersible.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Title says 2M and CNN says 1 in 4 Americans. Wikipedia says that the census bureau says there are around 327 million folks living here in the US. Something doesn't add up. Assuming that 2M means 2 Million, one in four would mean that there are only 8 million Americans? No CNN, I don't think that is right. 25% of 327 is about 82 - if that number was the actual impact of the storm, "82 million impacted" would be a much more interesting headline.
I'm in Florida and since we do get hurricanes frequently I have to say that ninety mph winds are hardly a breeze to us. The idea that 90 mph winds would cause much loss of power to our homes would invoke hostility from the public. The idea that a home would come apart in 120 mph winds is absurd. Apparently the construction requirements for these northern states is set way too low.
Lived in Germany for decades and lost power only once because some dude with an excavator ripped the lines out of the ground by accident. Now in the US with the infrastructure from Edison's times I can't buy battery backups fast enough. Given how much utilities charge for service they ought to spend some of the money on improving the network. I bet they wait for government handouts instead.
Note that you need to take the advertised imperial spending amount and double it. Hundreds of billions of money spent on imperialism is counted separately, and dishonestly in other parts of the budget. Like the Department of Energy managing nuclear weapons, interest on past imperial debt, the GI Bill, the VA, etc etc.
I've seen the power company restore the same lines at least five times over the years. When does it become more economical
How are you going to keep so many union line workers employed unless you deploy a lot of infrastructure you know will need regular work?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You have to deal with crossing under roads, driveways, and sidewalks.
In my neck of the woods, I see these all the time.
You have to avoid existing buried telephone, internet, cable, water, sewer, and gas lines.
All neatly displayed on maps.
True for copper in the air.
Ones you go underground the problem is less.
For a power - fiber combination there is no problem and who in his right mind would in this day and age still dig in copper data cables?
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Efficiency.
Of course there might still be outlying homes and farms with a single cable, a good ground is the return.
Single or dual phase is a bit like the old community phone lines, a great idea 80 years ago.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
....was due to both their personal unpreparedness and a continuingly decaying infrastructure, especially up in the upper Midwest and NE regions of the country.
They gotta start burying that stuff too; that would help a ton.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Good thing that these are good white people living in these areas. If they were brown people like Puerto Rico, they would be without power for months.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
that comes out of this story are the silly ass names they come up with for these storms.
You can't just call it a Winter Storm. . . . oh no, that's too boring. Not American enough. :|
We have to go and name it a " BOMB CYCLONE ".
I swear, our entire culture absolutely glorifies War, Death, Demise and Doom.
And folks wonder why some people are goin all crazy anymore.
Yes. I half expect them to do that at some stage. But a fitted out barge is a much simpler thing to start out with.
You know, they are currently working on a new droneship, quixotically named "A Shortfall of Gravitas". It will probably be just another Marmac 300 series barge with thrusters, but we'll have to see. This is SpaceX, who put spider arms on a ship a few months ago; they could do anything.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
You could insulate the power lines with fiber and everything would be fine. It's the copper plant that would be a very bad idea. Now it's not a good idea to put the fiber that close as it makes maintenance an issue.
No sir I dont like it.
Not when underground is a cost the power company incurs vs trying to get FEMA and the like to pay for massive overtime etc. They do not bury as they make big piles of cash from the feds to fix most of the big outages.
No sir I dont like it.
You never run communication cables and power cables together.
You most certainly do. Ground cables are shielded. They cost 2-4 times as much per length as a result, but you get less interference on a data cable buried next to a power cable than from an overhead cable that receives all kinds of EM interference.
Ever got a quote for burring cable? We have on several occasions, and prices are around $25 to $50 per FOOT. That's completely impractical for anything except new construction where they can do whatever and plan ahead. Same reason why most houses don't have natural gas in Southeastern PA, even though there's plenty of it. That costs $100/foot to run pipe. It would be cheaper to burn dollar bills.
I don't know, but it works for me.
You have to avoid existing buried telephone, internet, cable, water, sewer, and gas lines.
All neatly displayed on maps.
In theory, but not really true in the US. They send out utility locating companies all the time because the exact location is generally never specified. It's all within a few dozen feet or worse. Even then you have to hand dig much of it. Heck, Comcast drilled through our sewer line at work running a cable. They won't pay, naturally.
I don't know, but it works for me.
So, umm, how many Puerto Rican's lost power, how long ago, and how many are still waiting for power to be restored?
They are also citizens of the USA, you know.
And yet a quick scan shows no comments obviously comparing continental USA with island USA?
Interesting.
So, how is Puerto Rico going, US friends?