Posted on 07/12/2024 5:27:17 AM PDT by Zhang Fei
Betcha they wish they had back all those coal and lignite plants they shut down in the Obama years, and the people back to work the power lines.
DEI and chix in the mix.
I’m sure there’s a ton of opposition groups who raise cane whenever a tree is threatened with removal.
In Texas as elsewhere, electric utilities are highly regulated entities, accountable to a public commission for their rates, service quality, and infrastructure. Strong, storm resistant utility lines are expensive though. When Texans want to harden their utility lines against storms, they can do like Florida and require it.
My son in League City is still out of power
My wife went to see the grandkids Friday morning and broke her arm Friday night and couldn’t drive home
Because of the power outage I couldn`t fly to drive her back until Tuesday.
There wasn’t that much damage anywhere. Just tree damage
Obviously maintenance of the shrubbery around the lines was the big factor
Because of this she won’t be able to have surgery until Tuesday, a week and a half after the accident
I agree with your point about the Feds trying to get the Texas grid under thei jurisdiction, and that it’s not good, but honestly the Texas regulators and utilities have done a horrible job. With the big push for renewables, Texas seems to have blackouts during every heat wave and cold snap due shortage of generation capacity. Shame on the State of Texas for allowing these morons to create one of the worst electrical systems in th country (note that the grid is not the problem….its the generation mix and rules).
Well, this was a real Houston hurricane:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Hurricane_Harvey_in_Texas
monopoly = bad idea
> Did they lose the capacity to produce or did winds take down their transmission lines? <
Lines are down everywhere. Transformers are blown. One nearby neighborhood reported 11 out of 19 transformers were out. The fix is to start at the trunk and move out to the branches. Though it is a simple process, it is also a time consuming process.
There are 12,000 crews working the problem. We got power back, but just a few streets over in our very large subdivision they are still dark. It will take time. Just because a tree took out a power line in your neighborhood, fixing that line may not restore power. There could be numerous other breaks upstream of that.
Houston was #2 in population growth in 2023. New construction is still ongoing everywhere you look. At the end of Beryl nearly all of the 2.5 million customers were without power. Three days later it’s down to 870,000 customers affected.
Houston is a sprawling city. The saying used to be “Houston is an hour away from Houston”. Now it’s an hour and a half away.
EC
The only difference between Houston and DFW, is DFW is divided between Dallas and Fort Worth. Whereas it’s just all Houston.
That's what I figured. Not a lack of production, but storm damage. We had a lightning strike take out a transformer near us earlier this month. People were bitching up a storm for a three-hour outage.
We do have it pretty good here in that regard, but I am definitely wanting to ensure we have at least refrigerators and heat when needed. AC is a pain to live without in the summer, but it's doable. Freezing in the winter is double-plus ungood.
You cannot really bury high tension in a swamp and Houston is built on a swamp.
Center point deserves some blame but the local government deserves more.
You cannot really bury high tension in a swamp and Houston is built on a swamp.
Center point deserves some blame but the local government deserves more.
You mean like just about every city in Europe.
I recall the power going out only a handful of times as a kid in the 60s and 70s. Now it's a regular occurrence. We used to be a real country. Now we're becoming a Third World s---hole because that enriches the business and political elites.
Thank God our house has a gas stove, gas water heat, and a gas furnace. A portable generator easily handled the load for everything buy AC.
Others with all electric houses had to leave to survive.
I met a dude exiting Dominos Pizza yesterday with an armful of large pizzas. He said he was tired of eating grilled steak and chicken and needed a fix of “dirty food”. It did bring a chuckle.
EC
HOWEVER--Centerpoint seems to avoid trimming back trees and maintaining lines so that when things like Beryl do happen, it requires MUCH more work to get things back to "normal."
So yeah--I blame Centerpoint.
Why should the power company maintain the grid infrastructure when the feds (taxpayers) will pay for the rebuild? That’s the way the world works now.
No doubt.
[You are suggesting private individuals should be trimming around power lines? Is that done anywhere in the country?]
Fortunately, I have a standby generator that's been running continuously since Monday.
-PJ
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