Why they call Connecticut "Patheticut"... & Ro

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...Tropical Storm Irene (note-- not Hurricane, TROPICAL STORM) hit us last Sunday. And I still have no power. Neither does my entire town!

Neither do other large swaths across the state.

The mismanagement by Connecticut Light & Power, which supplies electricity to most of the state, was disastrous! Guess who got their power back first? The cities and towns served by small private companies. Groton and Norwich, which both have their own municipal utility companies, had their electricity restored in ONE DAY. It makes me think of Ron Paul-- large government bureaucracies are close to useless, while small, private companies get the job done right.

This is why I haven't logged into WP for the last week. (I'm at a friend's hotel room now.)

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Last edited by Daryl_Blonder on 01 Sep 2011, 6:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Patheticut

Generally, during natural disasters where the power is out to a large amount of customers, power will get turned back on in stages usually with areas with Hospitals, Police and Fire Departments first, then to businesses like restaurants, gas stations, supermarkets and then the private homes. So lines to those areas get fixed usually in that order. It sucks but this is what happened when the Tornado stuff occurred. Makes sense, but still sucks. Good luck.

They have said that emergency services are prioritized but NOBODY in town has power including the fire stations.

EVERYBODY in Groton and Norwich does. Except for the small amount of people who are served by CL&P and not the local utility companies.

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Population centers will get the juice first. Areas with less population tend to have more trees resulting in more line repair. With the tornado stuff, I was without power for 6 days living in the city, while friends of mine that lived outside the city in harder hit parts took 2 weeks to get power. Sometimes the utility people have to start from scratch. Incompetence, probably. For communication, all I had was a radio and some batteries that lasted well longer than I would have imagined. Not much to do, but I found, when it was OK to go out and drive, that I was much more calmer, without the traffic lights working. treat everything like a 4 way stop, be courteous. But, just a few days later, its back to the grind and sitting in traffic at long lights. Good luck.

We got ours back in Coventry Tuesday at ~4 a.m. I was surprised we even lost power due to what I perceived here as a non-event until I saw the footage from other parts of the state. You should have power restored in a day or two now. CL&P crews are working 16-hour shifts (maximum allowable for safety reasons) and were getting crews from New Hampshire and maybe Quebec to assist with the restoration effort. Still, it's no fun after the first few hours. I too prefer creature comforts.

Generator! One that is good enough to power a fridge and have enough to power a few other items is a good bet if you can afford one. Possible future purchase. FEMA isn't there to provide immediate assistance to residents, they mostly help at the municipality level (local services, police, fire) with their assistance bulk coming during the recovery, helping businesses, lost wages for workers and all that stuff. So, if the local authorities/rescue efforts can't get to you then you're gonna have to ride it out for a while. Being able to generate some electricity can help out greatly. Just a power converter (wouldn't suggest it for long time use) for your car can let you cool down your fridge, sterilize some water, or charge everyone's devices. Anyway be safe.

A biggest factor is--which areas get whacked by hurricanes!

Guess what--it is the Eastern side of the hurricane. If you are on the Western side you are lucky--unless you can't handle all the flooding--which is a slightly different issue than being hit by high winds that knock over trees and destroy powerlines.

Look at the outage maps--the Western side of Massachusetts is fine--the Eastern side got whacked--just like CT. But, the situation is reversed economically--Western Mass is like Eastern CT--much more rural with the economic power center on the other side of the state. But they got much less damage because the are on the Western side of the hurricane.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resourc ... askhur.htm

Q: Are the winds on one side of a hurricane faster than on the other side?
A: If a hurricane or other tropical cyclone is moving the winds on one side will be faster than on the opposite side in relation to the ocean or ground the storm is moving over. In the Northern Hemisphere the fastest winds will be on the right side, if you are looking in the direction of the storm's movement. That is, if the hurricane is moving toward the west, the strongest winds will be on the north side; if it's moving north, the strongest winds will be on the east side.

http://www1.nationalgridus.com/nantucket/stormcenter/

This shows the outages in MA/RI. CT outages are handled by CL&P and United Illuminating and are not shown on this map.

Eastern side usually spins up more tornadoes and has more severe rain bands.

The storm was so big that 1/4 million in Canada were without power as well. I'd expect those Linemen from Quebec to fix their power issues before heading south to help out folks in CT.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundl ... irene.html
Post-tropical Irene soaks Quebec, Maritimes
Cyclone bringing high winds as it heads north

Last edited by BTDT on 02 Sep 2011, 12:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Vital services will be restored first. It is like triage.

ruveyn

This storm was/is a pretty big deal. Thankfully, fatalities and injuries were fairly low. I think it's around 44 dead. But the damage was quite significant. Some locations are still underwater. Some towns in Vermont are now isolated as roads and a bridge washed away. We had several tornado warnings during the storm in the NW quadrant (1 confirmed touchdown in Delaware).

Power outages suck, but it could be a lot worse. I remember Gloria back in '85. The eye went over my house. We lost power for about a week. It was kind of like a forced, extended camping trip. A lot of people were pissed off at the local electric company then too, but really, what's the point? It's a natural disaster. If you and your family are ok, then I say count your blessings.

I think he's saying these small power companies that are privately owned managed to rebuild their networks and essentially get power back to their customers (not just the emergency services), while the idiots at the Government run Power Company can't even get power back to the hospitals.

^^Right on.

I'm pretty sure CL&P is private. It's a subsidiary of Northeast Utilities which is definitely private (traded on the NYSE). Were you talking about some other unknown government run power company?