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For those of you who are unaware, the northeastern US just got pummelled by a relatively weak, yet still powerful hurricane which tore through major metropolitan areas between Washington DC and Boston. Although it was a category 1 which turned into a "mere" tropical storm, it was slow moving and thus we sustained strong winds for far longer than most storms. The northeast being very foresty, roads were quickly blocked, trees fell into power lines, and in the end half of Rhode Island was out of power.
The storm wasted no time knocking out power to my house. By 8am, merely an hour after winds really picked up, we lost power. Fortunately, since we had days to prepare, we weren't worried about our well-being. We had canned food, flashlights, a small portable range, and had everything except for a generator.
The storm generally lasted a good 8-10 hours. We had gusts over 50mph for most of the day and some winds reached as high as 71mph. After the winds died down, we carefully walked around the neighborhood to assess damage, and although all the houses we saw were in tact, there were downed powerlines all over the place, which we wisely avoided as we treked along. I knew then and there getting power back to our town was going to be a long, long process.
That evening, after it got dark, we listened to our hand-crank radio which we purchased ahead of the storm. The electric company made an official announcement that, although they will work diligently and non-stop to restore power to the half-million people who are left in the dark, but for those who are in isolated pockets or more rural areas, it could take up to 7 days to restore power.
People were already calling the radio station, fuming that they didn't have power back yet. "The storm has ended! Where's our power?" was the mantra that night. Bear in mind at this point, the wind had totally ended merely 2 hours ago. The electric company was just beginning to assess damage. For many communities, it wasn't just one or two things that was to blame for the outage, it was dozens of things. Busted transformers, downed trees in 10 locations in the grid, power poles completely down.
The electricians have to carefully remove limbs and trees from the area, then run new cable where the breach occurred, and then repair and in some cases completely replace transformers which had blown up... in hundreds of various places around the state. There were 3,500 workers who were going to be up all night doing this repair work, and it is dangerous, time-consuming, and above all, costly work.
The customers are calling in the whole night so angry about the outage, as if it was somehow unexpected to lose power for "so long." The next morning, I woke up to find the power was still out, but looked outside and saw it was a beautiful day. Looking at the sky, you'd never thought a hurricane just blew through the state until you looked at the ground.
By the end of yesterday, I got power back, but I still heard complaints from radio callers yelling about the fact that there was no cable TV. OMG! Look outside! You obviously have the day off from work, and it's one of the most beautiful days ever! Take advantage of this situation! Take a walk in the park! Drive to your friends and family's homes and see if they're ok! It's okay if you miss Jerry Springer for a day!
Ugh, people are so friggen stupid. We had a hurricane, and people are actually complaining about the outage. Even the radio host was losing patience, saying, "Guys, come on. Seriously? You are disappointed that 71mph winds for 10 hours knocked out your power? I was expecting these calls to come in 3 days from now, but I never expected them to come 3 hours after the storm stopped. It never even crossed my mind."
On a positive note, there were a lot of callers who were rebuking the complainers saying they were absolutely unrealistic and need to get a clue. I'm hoping the complainers are just a case of a "vocal minority" who don't understand the simple concept of a power grid and how a hurricane can affect it.
Was it only Rhode Island that got these stupid complaints? I have come to know this state as a community of whiners and asshats, but surely this was the story elsewhere?
The storm wasted no time knocking out power to my house. By 8am, merely an hour after winds really picked up, we lost power. Fortunately, since we had days to prepare, we weren't worried about our well-being. We had canned food, flashlights, a small portable range, and had everything except for a generator.
The storm generally lasted a good 8-10 hours. We had gusts over 50mph for most of the day and some winds reached as high as 71mph. After the winds died down, we carefully walked around the neighborhood to assess damage, and although all the houses we saw were in tact, there were downed powerlines all over the place, which we wisely avoided as we treked along. I knew then and there getting power back to our town was going to be a long, long process.
That evening, after it got dark, we listened to our hand-crank radio which we purchased ahead of the storm. The electric company made an official announcement that, although they will work diligently and non-stop to restore power to the half-million people who are left in the dark, but for those who are in isolated pockets or more rural areas, it could take up to 7 days to restore power.
People were already calling the radio station, fuming that they didn't have power back yet. "The storm has ended! Where's our power?" was the mantra that night. Bear in mind at this point, the wind had totally ended merely 2 hours ago. The electric company was just beginning to assess damage. For many communities, it wasn't just one or two things that was to blame for the outage, it was dozens of things. Busted transformers, downed trees in 10 locations in the grid, power poles completely down.
The electricians have to carefully remove limbs and trees from the area, then run new cable where the breach occurred, and then repair and in some cases completely replace transformers which had blown up... in hundreds of various places around the state. There were 3,500 workers who were going to be up all night doing this repair work, and it is dangerous, time-consuming, and above all, costly work.
The customers are calling in the whole night so angry about the outage, as if it was somehow unexpected to lose power for "so long." The next morning, I woke up to find the power was still out, but looked outside and saw it was a beautiful day. Looking at the sky, you'd never thought a hurricane just blew through the state until you looked at the ground.
By the end of yesterday, I got power back, but I still heard complaints from radio callers yelling about the fact that there was no cable TV. OMG! Look outside! You obviously have the day off from work, and it's one of the most beautiful days ever! Take advantage of this situation! Take a walk in the park! Drive to your friends and family's homes and see if they're ok! It's okay if you miss Jerry Springer for a day!
Ugh, people are so friggen stupid. We had a hurricane, and people are actually complaining about the outage. Even the radio host was losing patience, saying, "Guys, come on. Seriously? You are disappointed that 71mph winds for 10 hours knocked out your power? I was expecting these calls to come in 3 days from now, but I never expected them to come 3 hours after the storm stopped. It never even crossed my mind."
On a positive note, there were a lot of callers who were rebuking the complainers saying they were absolutely unrealistic and need to get a clue. I'm hoping the complainers are just a case of a "vocal minority" who don't understand the simple concept of a power grid and how a hurricane can affect it.
Was it only Rhode Island that got these stupid complaints? I have come to know this state as a community of whiners and asshats, but surely this was the story elsewhere?
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