Or when the power comes back on and they left the stove turned on. They had a TV news crew reporting on power resoration (in New Jersey?) when the unoccupied house behind them started smoking and caught fire.
-- Paul Hovnanian mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ professor; n, One who talks in someone else's sleep.
From a patent lawyer friend who lives on Staten Island...
"Thanks for your concern. We voluntarily evacuated our area (Staten Island) before the storm and it's a good thing we did. When I went back yesterday, I couldn't believe how much disaster there is. About
6 feet of water flooded the area at the height of the storm -- it has mostly receded now although the basement is still completely under water. There is no power, trees are everywhere, and the area is covered with slimy toxic mud. My neighbors (who have a 2-year old daughter) didn't leave before the storm and then ultimately had to get evacuated by boat.For now, we are staying with family in NJ and are much, much better off there." ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
If your state network is down every few years due to hurricane winds or icing, why not build some kind of underground HVDC cable network ?
This would be cost effective in the long run.
If I understand correctly, the US electric network is so unreliable, that a lot of private people actually have their own diesel generators.
In more technically advanced countries, small diesel generators are mainly used in hospitals and as emergency cooling systems in nuclear power plants, but not much more than that :-)
Most power outages are caused by tree huggers.
We do have hurricanes, tornadoes, brutal winter storms, lightning, floods, earthquakes, and the occasional tsunami. And lots of trees to fall over on things.
Few people have diesels. It's more likely that an individual would have a little Honda gasoline-powered generator. They can be handy for other tasks, too, like running power tools out in the back 40.
The power in most cities is very reliable, between hurricanes and earthquakes. In the '89 quake, we were dark for about 12 hours, something like that. After Katrina, my dad's house, way out in the country, was dark for several weeks.
I'd guess that we average one or two short, seconds or minutes maybe, power outages per year in San Francisco. Usually we're asleep, or at work, so we only notice because clocks and microwaves and things are reset.
The USA covers 3.7 million square miles. It would be expensive to underground all that wiring.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com http://www.highlandtechnology.com Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom laser drivers and controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro acquisition and simulation
And if it was all underground could anyone guarentee the water would not get into the 500000 volt system with resultant damage??? :-?
-- John G
Yes the south shore got hit bad with the tidal surge. A few fire departments lost fire trucks as the tide came in. (And this is on the bay side) Elsewhere, every other block or 2 had large trees down. Some snapped in half others uprooted. Of course they either fell on houses, roads, or power lines. You could see the constant Blue flashes of light as power lines/transformers failed Monday night. Luckly our big oaks stayed upright, and we have since had our power restored. The gas lines are phenomenal!
Cheers
[snip]
Most modern day (built in the last 40+ years) residential areas in Phoenix have underground electrical distribution, and we experience only around 8.29" of rain annually (30 year average).
Yet corrosion is still a maintenance problem. ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Back in my college days in the 1970s (Rochester, NY), the college had undergrounded all of the power feeders to the dorms and to large parts of the academic quarter. They knew about the bad winters there... and I can't recall our ever having a significant electrical power outage during the winter storms.
On the other hand... every second year, during the spring rains, I could figure that there would be at least one substantial outage in the dorms, when the main power line running underground around the back side of the dorm complex would suffer from water ingress and would short out. RIT is built on barely-reclaimed swampland :-)
A significant outage, for a similar reason, would hit the computer center on roughly the same schedule. Every two or three years, it would be "Roll the back-hoes out, boys!" time.
Yes, underground wiring is less vulnerable to wind, trees, and ice. On the average, though (from what I've read recently) it doesn't last as long as above-ground wiring, and thus requires more frequent maintenance. It's also significantly more expensive per mile than pole wiring.
I think it's a tradeoff with no clear winner. Above-ground wiring lasts longer on average, is less expensive, but when bad-weather outages occur they tend to occur in bunches (trees down due to wind, etc.) and a larger fraction of the power distribution grid in the affected area goes down. Underground wiring may be less prone to these mass-damage incidents, but has more outages over time due to cable corrosion and water ingress.
--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!
Interesting story:-
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
-- "it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
R.I.P.:
"Neighbors Recall Horror of Seeing Woman Electrocuted During Hurricane Sandy"
" Read more:
Lauren Abraham, 23, was barefoot in her front yard at 105-05 134th St. shooting video of the storm on her iPhone about 8:30 p.m. when she tripped and fell on a power line that had been knocked down by heavy winds, police and neighbors said.
"All we heard was one last scream," said Renny Bhagratti, who was watching helplessly from his second-floor window across the street. "She dropped back like a dead sack of potatoes."
Another man, whom neighbors identified as Abraham's boyfriend, was trailing just a few yards behind with a video camera. Cops arrived at the scene moments later and were able to stop Abraham's boyfriend from grabbing onto her, said Michelle Stephenson, 40, another neighbor.
"They saw him trying to get after her, and they managed to tackle him and hold him back," Stephenson said. "If not for that, we could be talking about two people dead here today."
The electrocution left a large black charred mark at the foot of the driveway, which neighbors said was a chilling reminder.
"My whole family hasn't slept, hasn't eaten," Bhagratti said. "We're all trying to forget what happened."
Bhagratti described Abraham as a thoughtful, polite young woman, and that her mother was working in a Connecticut hospital at the time of the incident. She was in disbelief when Bhagratti and his wife broke the news to her.
"She got weak at her knees and collapsed in the middle of the street," Bhagratti said. "She said, 'Not my Lauren. Please not my Lauren.'"
Abraham's family was in front of her home Tuesday but was too distraught to speak with reporters.
"I can't believe that," Abraham's devastated brother said over and over.
Stephenson said she was horrified Abraham had "paid such a horrible price" for venturing out into the storm.
"It's moments like these," Stephenson said, "where you say, 'Well I have no power, I have no heat, but I have my life.'"
"Another person killed by Steve Jobs's invention ! LOL.
Perhaps she wasn't too bright, none the less I feel sorry for her ! ;)
Bye,
Skybuck.
There are quite a lot HVDC cables crisscrossing the seafloors of both the North Sea as well as th Baltic Sea. Most of the problems has been with the on shore equipment.
I agree that earthquakes could be a problem for underground lines, especially when crossing a fault line, in which a few poles with lots of slack might be needed.
Trees should not be an issue on the high voltage network, since there needs to be on high poles and the rights of way should be wide enough, so that any tall trees that could fall over the lines, should be cut down well in advance.
Trees are a problem for the low voltage wires and especially to the medium voltage open wire lines feeding the local distribution transformers. Low voltage cables suspended on poles will usually tolerate one or two trees leaning on the cable, but the thin medium voltage open wires will snap even with a small tree is falling over the wire.
The low (2x120 V) distribution voltage in the USA, compared to 230/400 V in Europe, dictates that the distribution transformer must be quite close to the customer, which means that there must be a huge number of small distribution transformers all over.
This creates an other problem, how to feed these small transformers at medium voltages (a few kilovolts).
This requires a huge medium voltage networks with medium voltage (usually open wire) feeders every few street and hence the total length of the medium voltage lines for a given area is quite large compared to Europe.
Hence we see news clips with lots of blue flashes whenever there is a hurricane in the USA, when those open wires hit each other.
Aren't they replacing those with domestic DRONES?
On Nov 1, 6:19 pm, Jim Thompson Most modern day (built in the last 40+ years) residential areas in
If corrosion underground is that bad in Phoenix then it would be absurd in most other places, or is the soil pH in Arizona making it worse?
he
hat.
ad on
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yWhy? They're just redistributing wealth, getting their fair share. And, it forces everyone to buy replacement stuff.
It's a Barackian stimulus package. He promised to remove the gov't red tape. They're getting their fair share, without the red tape.
-- Cheers, James Arthur
Some of the drones are helicopters. There are some tiny, bird-sized, battery-powered helicopter drones.
--
John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com
Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom laser drivers and controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro acquisition and simulation
None of that makes any sense.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com http://www.highlandtechnology.com Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom laser drivers and controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro acquisition and simulation
I recently saw a consumer heli tied together with VR glasses. You can fly like a bird*!
Some, but they're keeping their pink helicopters for 'special cases'.
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