From a Cat 1 no less. That is truly ridiculous.
Tropical Depression 2
- Thread starter ggunn
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From a Cat 1 no less. That is truly ridiculous.
OP
If your MV distribution lines are underground or overhead with no large trees near them, power restoration can be pretty quick. Such is not the case in Houston.
OP
No, it's not. See post #130.
One other thing about Houston: Many of the trees in the city are very tall pine trees with all their branches at the top. They don't do well in high winds, and previous storms have taken out other trees that had been sheltering them. The house across the street from my friend in Garden Oaks took a hit from a pair of these trees in their neighbor's yard that tore off the front part of the house and did major damage to both of the cars in the driveway. My friend sent me a picture; the homeowners have been out of town for a while; they will get a nasty surprise when they return.
Restoration time also depends on your grid location. My house is not rural, but it is the end of an overhead that feeds only 3 houses. Ian took nearly 2 weeks. The repair workers were only there for an hour, but the focus is on getting bigger chunks of outage done first.
Regardless, it is a ridiculous amount of time. Any trees that could take out distribution lines should have been removed a long time ago and kept trimmed back. Also, as much of the grid as possible should be moved underground. Houston gets hurricanes, many much stronger than Beryl. To not take steps to prepare/harden the electric grid feels like incompetence or stupidity. Without that, you will just keep having outages of weeks after major storms. Hardening the grid is the only logical long-term solution.
They are often completely rebuilding the entire network in some areas from transmission lines to the distribution poles.
Now FPL has been very active strengthening the network since Charlie. Which includes much more actively trimming trees and replacing many of the wooden poles with concrete.
IMHO any power company along the Gulf coast and Southern Atlantic Seaboard that isn't doing the same is being negligent.
B-I-N-G-O
OP
That is armchair quarterbacking, no offense intended. Moving all the distribution lines underground in older, densely populated residential areas would be hideously expensive, and removing every tree that could fall on an OH line isn't feasible when the trees are much taller than the poles supporting the lines. And who would pay for all that? Sure, recovery is expensive but it's far cheaper than conversion would be.
It is easy to say what should be done if you aren't the one who would have to do it. Incidentally, Houston is indeed working on hardening their internal grid, but it cannot all be done at once. It has been ongoing for decades.
It's your state/city. You guys can do what you wish. Florida is taking a very different approach and is hardening the grid over time. FPL has been working down here in SWFL pretty much non-stop since Ian to meaningfully harden the grid. You don't have to get to 100%. Not sure that is even possible. But steps can be taken over time that really start to make a difference.
Who pays for it? We all do! Pay now, or pay later, we are all paying regardless. Taking steps over time to harden the grid in ways @Manatee Diver has mentioned is the only logical path forward IMO.
I live in a Galveston County neighborhood that has underground utilities, built in 1980s. We lost power at 9am then was back on less than 12 hours later. Maybe one should evaluate the power situation before buying in the gulf coast.
Dave Dillehay
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