phunky_1 t1_j9tupiw wrote on February 24, 2023 at 2:58 PM

The only way to address this is to bury all the power lines, but which would be incredibly expensive and not even be completed in our grandchildrens lifetimes.

Hopefully by then buildings are more self sufficient for power with solar and battery storage systems.

Grouchy_Occasion2292 t1_j9tw60j wrote on February 24, 2023 at 3:08 PM

I live in Colorado and we have winter storms without the power going out. There are many ways to do this even without burying the lines.

[deleted] t1_j9vwpgh wrote on February 24, 2023 at 10:58 PM

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phunky_1 t1_j9u09ut wrote on February 24, 2023 at 3:36 PM

A lot of Colorado is a desert.

In northern states, all the lines are covered by trees. Many of them damaged from non-native invasive bugs that made their way over from Asia in shipping.

It doesn't take much high winds or ice coating for tree limbs to come down on power lines.

The power companies do try to trim trees constantly but it is inevitable that there will be outages whenever there are high winds or icy conditions.

I live in southern new England and any time we get sustained winds over 45-50mph with higher gusts it can lead to power outages that last several days to a week due to tree damage to the electrical grid.

I believe we have had 4 or 5 multi day outages in the past 7 years. It is not uncommon for us to get strong storms that are the equivalent of a tropical storm or a hurricane in the winter.

Grouchy_Occasion2292 t1_j9u73fb wrote on February 24, 2023 at 4:20 PM

Where I live we have trees everywhere lol. We have trees that come down every winter storm too. So we have the same issues. I have not had a single outrage here and I have lived here for 2 years even when one of our trees did fall down. I lived in WA before that where we also had trees that came down and still didn't have an outage there for decades. Both of these places have windstorms and we still don't deal with power outages frequently. There is something else wrong with their power grid or staffing, it's not just trees and lines.

[deleted] t1_j9u84qx wrote on February 24, 2023 at 4:27 PM

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RestaurantLatter2354 t1_j9vjfy1 wrote on February 24, 2023 at 9:29 PM

Like, damn people, is it okay to say that even in unprecedented times, we shouldn’t have nearly a million homes without power in a single state?

It’s clearly a lack of preparation and lack of execution by DTE, even if you do acknowledge, that yes, it is an unprecedented storm.

I’m not going to hand wave away being without power in freezing temperatures for fucking four days presumably…I wouldn’t know, because DTE ha yet to offer a more specific timetable nearly 48 hours after power loss…It’s not acceptable, and it shouldn’t be excused.

Hot_Garlic_9930 t1_j9yb2q1 wrote on February 25, 2023 at 1:29 PM

I live in Edmonton AB. I believe we began burying our lines in the 90s. As long as all new developments get buried, you can catch up on primary runs in city cores by directional drilling fairly quickly. The only time I've personally seen outages in the winter would be from vehicles crashing into transformers. Power back on in an hour. -40⁰c is pretty common for us, I couldn't imagine loosing power for any longer than that without a wood burning stove or a gas fireplace.