About 1,000,000 people are without power in New England

[endarkenment]

Anyone notice? Anybody care? It has been two days and counting. This is a major disaster and the federal government has done NOTHING. What a shock.

[Bluebear]

1. I notice. I am at work on generator power but lost power at home Thursday. Still nothing.

I don't even see power crews out, although they tell us they are on their way from Ohio and Maryland.

[endarkenment]

3. Yeah I just drove 40 miles to take a shower.

We are shivering at home with three very frail old pets. The response so far is underwhelming. On my drive I saw exactly zero power crews out working.

[glowing]

4. I heard all the way from South Carolina... You know the Carolina workers are cheaper.

They don't have Unions.. I learned that during the clean up of 2004 when we had Carolina electric crews in to clean up.. Progress Energy was giving them free loding and more overtime than their own local crews because they were so much more cheaper and not under Union constraints.

[Davis_X_Machina]

19. Our highly compensated...

...union crews go down there after hurricanes, though, and cost seems not an object.

[Idealism]

How long did people in Texas go without power for?

If Bush doesn't care about the state he was Governor of, why would he care about a Democratic stronghold like New England?

[glowing]

2. My parents, I believe, are still sitting in the dark.. I'll have to call later and check.

Its not so bad as long as you have a wood stove or pellet system. But if you are relying on elecric for heat, its not so good.

[Hannah Bell]

29. pellet = electric.

[bluestateguy]

5. I hope upgrading our power grid is part of the Obama stimulus plan

I have heard nothing to suggest that the problems that led to the 2003 blackout have been fixed.

[hedgehog]

7. That's a suggestion I haven't heard in this connection before.

I think ice storms are getting more frequent, and there really isn't a good way to protect above ground lines from ice. The cost of burying all the lines would be incredible, but balanced against the cost of repairing entire grids.....? We've had ice storms in New York State that actually took down transmissin towers, not just local lines.

[gollygee]

6. Is this due to a snow storm?

Around here it's pretty normal to lose power for a couple of days every every winter or two.

[Bluebear]

8. No, a major ice storm. Snow we can handle.

[gollygee]

13. Ice storms are harder for them to get fixed

So that explains why it's taking so long. But when that happens here, we get power crews in from other states, which I understand you're expecting. Hopefully things will start coming together soon.

[eShirl]

9. ice storm

[endarkenment]

10. No - a rather unusual ice storm.

And losing power for a day or two is one thing, there is no indication that power is going to be restored anytime soon outside of the cities. The damage is very widespread.

[Vinca]

11. It was an ice storm and is reported to be the worst power outage

in New Hampshire history. We're on day 2, but have a generator that runs almost everything so it's not as bad as it could be for us. Our property is a mess with fallen trees, but the house wasn't damaged. We have yet to see any utility trucks and we're only a mile off a main route. It's a real mess, but the full moon was certainly beautiful through the ice-covered branches last night.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

12. I notice. I have friends out that way.

Also, when I first saw the news story I was confused by all the talk of beetle larvae.

[endarkenment]

14. Oh that is the other subplot

those f'ing beetles have made it to worcester county in mass and are now going to get spread all over the f'ing place as infected trees get shopped as firewood.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

15. Quick, you get the poison, I'll get the flamethrower.

At the very least we can use flaming beetles for heat.

[ima_sinnic]

16. Here in Maine I lost power for almost 24 hrs, it came on early this a.m.

I went to bed in 3 layers of polar fleece, a sleeping bag with 2 wool blankets over it, and a comforter over that. I was actually TOO warm and had to throw off the comforter.

I'm in a small town in the Bangor Hydro service area. Yesterday afternoon a customer service person told me they still had 7.000 people without power. Hearing that temps were going into the teens last night, I called around to see if there was an emergency shelter in my area. Nothing at all in the entire county.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

17. The ice storm of '98 was way worse.

This was a nasty ice storm that lasted over a week and it impacted a large part of northern New England and eastern parts of Canada. At least this one was only a day.


http://bangorinfo.com/Focus/focus_ice_storm.html

[Davis_X_Machina]

20. Only a day for us....

...folks down Worcester-Fitchburg-Leominster way could be out for as long as we were (for me, 11 days) in '98.

[StudsT]

27. this much worse in terms of scope of impact - Northeast ice storm leaves 1.25M without power

"Utilities reported more than 400,000 homes and businesses without power in New Hampshire, including 320,000 served by the state's largest utility, Public Service Company of New Hampshire. By contrast, the 1998 storm left 55,000 Public Service customers without power."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081212/ap_on_re_us/ice_sto...

well, for NH anyways... worst in our history according to news reports.

StudsT

[gristy]

18. Certainly we've noticed. Response is best left to local governments and the power companies.

This event is so widespread (yet diffuse) and temporary that the federal gov't would be ineffective and probably just get in the way. By the time they were able to mobilize any help, most of the power would be back on.

[Bluebear]

22. We are so far unimpressed by their performance

[alarimer]

21. My folks near Albany are without power.

Probably until mid-week. Fortunately my sister never lost power at her apartment so they are cooking showering there.

[DonEBrook]

23. Not to defend the feds but...what as a practical matter can they do?

Loan every house a generator?

[Mari333]

24. sending love and the warmest thoughts possible

to every DUer in NE, from Michigan. I know how cold winter is. :hug:

[Thothmes]

25. Exactly how many thousand qualified power distribution linemen

does the Federal Government have on their payroll?

[mnhtnbb]

26. We were there in 2004--what an ice storm in NC. Took almost a week

to get power back and we were just off the main street in Chapel Hill.

Hang in there!

[AllieB]

28. We just got our power back this afternoon.

We have been staying with my sister in the city after one night in a hotel. All the hotels north of Boston have been booked solid.