There's a fundamental problem with the system if this keeps happening storm after storm. It's not the utility workers, it's the system itself. After the damage from last year's ice storms and Hurricane Irene, how the hell do we have more than a hundred thousand people left in the dark again? How many storms do folks have to suffer through before we get this right? I know Governor Patrick's leading the charge with the utility companies, but the bottom line is we need to get this straightened out before the worst of another brutal New England winter, period." - John Kerry
I may be in the minority here, but I really am not sure that this particular problem could have been solved by anything short of COMPLETELY revamping how electric energy is delivered to homes, but there likely had to be a way to clean it up faster. As long as electricity is carried by wires connected to telephone phones in heavily treed areas, the trees were going to fall and they were going to take down telephone lines. I do understand the frustration Kerry expresses here and am glad that he did defend the utility workers.
In my area, like western Massachusetts, there are still many people without electricity. The problem was a heavy freak early snow storm when leaves were still very abundantly on the trees. This led not to just large branches falling - something I've seen in storms in the past, but thousands of huge trees - that looked healthy a week ago - falling. Following detours to get out of the lake community we live in, I saw trees where root systems easily over 5 or even 10 feet in diameter were pulled up as giant trees fell. It may be that in our rocky, high clay soil, the roots were less deep than in other parts of the country. (I also learned we were extremely lucky to retain power because we were near where it entered the community and there were no problems affecting the wire in our direction. Friends who are about a 10 minute walk away were without electricity for 3 days.)
From the explanations in the local paper, the electric companies had to first survey all potential dangerous situations to insure there were no live wires - before any tree removal could be attempted. Then the trees had to be removed before the wires could be fixed. This meant that the power company had to go to each location at least twice - and meant that no work could start on the trees until the electric company had deemed the wires safe. Given this, the question is how to more efficiently get everything fixed.
The first thought was whether anything could be mechanized. One question I have is whether there would be a way that the first step could be done automatically without impacting safety- ie if the wire going from pole A to pole B - with the power coming from A were to fail, it would seem that a sensor, obviously with battery backup, at pole B could signal pole A that they were not getting power and to cut the power there AND turn on a prominent green light on both A's and B's sensors. This would assume that it is possible to turn off the electricity at each pole. There then has to be a safe way to test that the line really has no power. I am not an engineer, not do I understand the electrical distribution network, but this is conceptually something that is obvious - but the flaw (if it were possible) is that it would be helpful too infrequently to accept the cost and the false alarm turn offs that very likely would happen as sensors failed which would quickly take a huge number of homes off line.
So as making the wires safe and repairing them must be done by skilled electricians, the question is how can they quickly get a larger force than they had. As it was, there were many trucks from the parent company of the utility and many independent electrical contractors were working on the wires. Could a national emergency force - similar to the National Guard - be given the extensive training to do this - and simultaneously given electrical work in their regions needed on federal projects (that the Republicans will vote down)? It would seem the National Guard - if allowed to stay in country, could help with the trees. If not, it seems that my utility - which was heavily criticized after hurricane Irene may have pulled in all the resources available to them.
It may be that a state or federal investigation and task force to improve response could streamline the process so situations are minimized. The other thing is that towns may need to consider that emergency info should not just be sent by internet, but maybe by short cell phone messages. My town had several public buildings open for people who needed them, but all the info was by a very efficient email - that many without power (or without internet) could not get.
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