Storm blacks out hundreds of thousands

By adamg on Sun, 10/30/2011 - 7:49am

UPDATE: MEMA reports 670,000 customers without power as of noon.

The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency tweets that as of 7 a.m., 656,688 electricity customers in Massachusetts are without power.

Topics:

Weather

Free tagging:

Snow

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Comments

The question must be asked

By anon on Sun, 10/30/2011 - 9:35am.

Why is the power failing so easily? This seems to happen all the time now. In reality, this was a rather average snowfall, despite the hysteria of the local TV news media who would have us believe it was the storm as the century, as they do with any snowfall regardless of time of year. Are power companies, like the T, not prepared for snow (or heavy rain)at all? I don't recall the power going out so frequently even just a few years ago for a snowfall like this. Now it seems to fail at the touch of a snowflake.

It was a heavy wet snow.

By anon on Sun, 10/30/2011 - 10:54am.

It was a heavy wet snow. Plus combine that with the fact that leaves are stll on the trees and branches can't support all that weight. Some of these fallen branches end up on power lines thus the outages.

Snow usually doesn't fall

By anon on Sun, 10/30/2011 - 10:58am.

Snow usually doesn't fall when leaves are still on the trees. That brings down more limbs than normal for the amount of snow and brings down power lines.

According to the power companies, it's a long story.

By Boston_res on Sun, 10/30/2011 - 11:17am.

I took a class in power generation a few years ago as part of my degree. The book assigned started off with a chapter which detailed all of the issues currently facing the power industry. Two of the biggest issues were aging equipment, and lack of qualified workers.

Aging equipment includes items such as large transformers, power lines, and supporting equipment. The power lines themselves are usually made of aluminum. Every summer when we all crank our AC systems, these cables flex due to the changing loads placed on them. In areas where the cables are hung from pole to pole, some sagging of the cables can actually be detected as they heat up, and cool off. Here in downtown, our cables are underground and cooled by running oil along side them.

The aging workforce is a big issue. Electrical engineers coming out of school now, don't want to work on generating electricity for the masses. There is some money in it, but not nearly enough as there is in writing software for iPods and other devices. So EE students are starting to concentrate more on smaller electronics, and prefer to stay away from power generation.

The power industry has also run into a lot of the "not in my backyard" mentality when trying to upgrade power equipment. Who wants power cables on giant poles running through their land?

Power generation is not a glamorous job at all. I did some contract work for power plants in other states and it is nasty. The coal power plant I worked at had a train of coal arrive several time per day. PER DAY! That's a lot of coal.

Nuclear also has issues. In some states, cracks have been detected in nuclear power plants. This is dangerous for workers to repair. If you have a chance to work in a nice warm office writing electronics code and making tons of money, or repairing cracked nuclear enclosures in rugged environments, which will you choose?

A really good book on the subject:
http://www.amazon.com/Systems-Analysis-Design-Dunc...

This storm was a little unique

By merlinmurph on Sun, 10/30/2011 - 11:32am.

We got heavy, wet snow on top of trees that still had their leaves on them, so the trees capture more snow, the limbs break, and fall on power lines. This isn't just a case of a few inches of snow causing the trees to break, there were other factors.

We just took a walk in Hopkinton SP and saw tons of broken limbs with only around 3 inches of snow. You could see the trees groaning under the stress of the heavy snow on them.

The Forecasts Said This Would Happen

By laurence_glavin on Sun, 10/30/2011 - 2:15pm.

All the forecasts Friday and during the day Saturday said this would happen, so it would have behooved (beehoven? I love his music) them to have people and equipment in place beforehand. Weathermen are fantastic:

http://www.tinyurl.com/3mvkwcn

They did

By Jeff F on Sun, 10/30/2011 - 3:14pm.

it would have behooved ... [the power companies] to have people and equipment in place beforehand.

They did. But you can't repair a downed line until it actually - ya know - blows down.

E.g. - A large secion of Rosi lost power around 1:30. It was back on before sunup. Now admittedly things were not nearly so bad here in Boston as in the rest of the region, but I still think that the utilities/public safety folks have done a pretty good job dealing with a truly unprecedented event.

***

My immediate neighborhood dodged an additional bullet - around midnight a tree lost a big limb right in the middle of Kittredge. Unfortunatly it took out the back window of my neighbors' car, but thankfully it didn't take out any of the power or comm lines that ran right through it.