Power to the People
When we hear about power we usually think of political control or economic clout. But the windstorm that hit the Pacific Northwest last week reminded us of another meaning for that word. We live in a natural world, and nature has the ultimate power. We can produce our own power, by harnessing some small part of nature’s, such as generating electricity with a river dam or a windmill, but the power of natural phenomena can easily overwhelm us, as we saw with the Asian tsunami and with last week’s storm.
The fragility of our electrical grid, and especially of the overhead wires, was made abundantly clear by this storm, as was our utter dependence on the flow of the current. No electricity meant loss of heat via furnace fans, no house lights, refrigeration and freezer storage, computers, wireless phones, battery chargers, TV, radios (once the batteries failed), gasoline (since station pumps would not work), heat-o-lators for fireplaces, traffic signals, and some parts of our commercial food chain. Loss of heat was the biggest problem, since this is the coldest time of year.
Puget Sound Energy reported 700,000 people (about 70% of their customers) lost power in the storm, and as this is written four days after the storm, about 150,000 are still without power and may have to wait a few more days. The unprecedented impact of this storm on electrical service should prompt investigations into needed upgrades to prevent a recurrence. We live in a heavily treed part of the earth and rightfully appreciate its beauty and contributions to our health and well-being, but we need to do a better job of making our electrical system compatible with those arboreal treasures.
Gas powered generators were in high demand, joining wood smoke from fireplaces in contributing to pollution of the stagnant air following the storm. People mistakenly bringing generators and other fume producers indoors caused some medical problems and even a few deaths. Shelters did not seem to spring into action, and those that did were not put to much use, indicating an area open for improvement. The absence of input from Homeland Security and other emergency service agencies makes one wonder about our preparedness for a terrorist attack on our infrastructure.
With a few exceptions, such emergencies bring out some of our better behavior. Dark traffic lights become four way stops and most people are good about complying. Drivers seem a little more courteous in accommodating each other. Those fortunate enough to have kept their power willingly take in family and friends who lost it. We were in the lucky minority and opened our home for a few days to my son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren, enabling us to spend some close time that otherwise would have escaped us.
posted by Tom Blake | 11:59 AM
2 Comments:
Many of my relatives in the Seattle area were affected by the storm. I spoke with my niece Anne on Sunday. She and her family spent many cold and dark nights in their home. She finally went to her mom's (my sister's) house to bathe herself and her family, and warm up. Anne said one of her sisters is expecting to be out of power for several more days. I asked Anne what caused it. She said that I had no idea of the magnitude of the storm. I told her that is true, but what did the storm do? I said that trees blowing over will knock out a few neighborhoods, but would not cause the widespread blackouts that have happened. Tom, your article seems to be saying that trees did cause the widespread blackouts. Is this true?
John from Phoenix
It seems the affecting wind damage was mostly due to trees falling on lines, though some wind could have downed poles or directly damaged substations and other paraphenalia. I think sometimes the downing of a line can cause a surge which is not adequately contriolled by protectors and thus causes other equipment to fail.
But new to me is the loss of many of the huge overhead high power transmission lines. These are on very tall towers with enormous clear cut areas surrounding. I doubt the wind knocked over any of these towers, so either the wind knocked wires off them or perhaps the damage was incurred where the wires come down from the towers to the substations. Hopefully there will be a damage assessment and report with helpful recommendations at some point down the line.
Yesterday I read an article about the continual attacks on the 9 transmission lines into Baghdad, resulting in crippling electrical service to that city. Transmission towers in the US are similarly vulnerable to attack.
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