Community Chat

[Krimpette]

I live in a community with underground lines.  However, we are not immune to outages from the feeder lines, etc.  We have more outages than I would have expected.

[dancingwoman]

Well we just now have had a couple blips with the electricity.. we've had 6 inches so far of very heavy snow.  I'm not resetting the clocks again for a little while.  Lol 

Electricity must be out in town.  Went to our providers webpage and there are outages all over.. Honestly up here on the Mesa we very rarely have outages.  DW

[carlycat]

Hi Desert Lily, 

I don't know why your power is going out. There are so many factors. I have underground wires, and mine rarely go out, but I've had blips 4 times in the last two weeks (and had to reset everything). My brother lives two miles away and has underground lines and his goes out all the time. The power company said, bad wire. It's about 35 years old, underground, through neighborhoods. Terrible to replace it all, so they repair. Transformers blow; we had a huge thunderstorm last summer and my office was out for 2 days while they replaced it. It's a very complicated system with many possible break points. Equipment wears out.

When I worked at the utility, there was a huge emphasis on safety, predictive maintenance, and speed of restoring power. Entire company got bonuses based on how well the lights stay on. 

Really, our power is very stable. There are places in the world that only get 12 hours per day. 

[proudlyfromNJ]

The power in my hometown goes out often. It's an old town founded in the late 1800's so there are still many things not up to date. The problem with the power lines there are the trees falling on them. Happened last week in a storm with extremely high winds and low temperatures. It was out so long. The trees had to be moved and the winds were so strong, the utility guys couldn't go up in the buckets. Town should keep the trees trimmed and under control, but it sounds like they don't.

[Stelladorable]

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@wagirl wrote:

Not an expert here at all, but from the few things I have heard--the power grid in this country is too freaking old and antiquated.for all the technical advantages, the power grid is not up to par. will take trillions of $$ to over haul it and with the political climate now days--I would not expect anything to be done until something catastrophic happens--isn't that always the case?I'm sure there is alot more to it than my feeble atempts and way beyond my brain power too.

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The Infrastructure and Jobs Act, passed a year ago, is worth $1.2 TRILLION in infrastructure improvements. The money is flowing to the states. Find out where your state stands on receipt of that money and what projects will be funded as a result. It's a lot of money and as citizens we should be watching what our states are doing with it. 

[RedTop]

My area of WV has power outages because we are very rural and our above ground lines run thru heavily wooded areas where limbs and trees can easily take out power.  

It's been over 12 years since right-of-way crews came thru and cut/sprayed the vegetation in the 15 ft area under the power line in the deep woods behind my house.  Keeping this path clear is vital to my power, and the houses down the road.  My county does not have underground power lines.  

Our last 2 power outages were due to blown transformers.  Nearly every week a driver takes out a power pole somewhere in this area.  

[DottieBlue]

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@Desert Lily wrote:

Hi @carlycat  Thank you for the in-depth information.

I still have questions as to the why, even with that great info.

Your wrote: Distribution lines "distribute" power to end users. They exit the substation. They may be underground or above ground. So, any disruption to lines along the way can cause outages; wind, trees, lightning, snow, ice, squirrels are a big problem!

I've lived in 7 states. For 22+ years I lived on the desert West coast with underground lines, and since April in a new construction home in PA with underground lines. I lost power in the West coast a few times; there was no storm then & it was about 60 degrees out in January. I lost power on 12/23/22 in this PA home with underground lines. The power was lost during the winter storm with 35-40mph wind. It wasn't due to excessive demand because it wasn't extra cold yet then, and thankfully power came back on when it was extra cold.

I've lost power with underground lines, so I'm still unclear as to why we have so many power outages and what should be done to prevent them.

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@Desert Lily:

You lost power because not all of the powerlines that bring power to your home are underground.

Perhaps write a letter to your power company and to your Congressmember and see what information they can provide to your questions.

[Desert Lily]

@DottieBlue   Power outages occur nationwide. I was hoping someone knew the reason(s) and how they can be prevented in the future. Last week's storm brought focus on the issue again.

[EastCoastGal]

@Desert Lily.... Yes! We lost the lives of many wonderful people in Buffalo NY because of this horrible blizzard !!! ...and there's still people here without power! How many more people are they going to find that are no longer alive from this horrible storm?!?!?! Isn't six days long enough to fix the power because they think they're going to find more victims! I'm heartbroken over this !!! 😥 😰

[Sooner]

@Desert Lily Because it is too expensive to build and maintain and update.  Because it is too massive, too complicated and we can't afford it. 

There is a lot we can't afford or can't control that people seem to think we can.  A great example is the recent storms and related deaths due to that and to travel during storms.  No guarantees.  People expect life to run smoothly and it simply doesn't and won't.