I still don't get why most power lines are above ground. I get that installing,
upgrading, and repairing underground lines would be a pain (a co-worker who
used to live in NYC said streets were always being torn up to work on
underground lines). But like anything, once you do it and get used to it, you
make it work. It just seems rather silly to me that every single year we hear
all these news reports about power lines being knocked down by freezing rain,
snow, or high winds. The power to my house is brought in by lines that arc
across the street from a pole near a neighbor's house. They hang low enough for
someone to hit 'em with a rake or something, and in high winds, they move like
pendulums. Or how about the great blackout just a few years ago that started
with a single tree branch in Ohio on a power line, and ended up with NYC being
in a blackout? The billions of dollars it'd cost to change this part of our
infrastructure would be worth it to avoid the inevitable problems w
e have every single year in so many parts of this country.
Not to mention, power lines running overhead is just an ugly sight...
**************************************
Ice storm causes blackouts, 17 deaths
By KEN MILLER, Associated Press Writer 5 minutes ago
A wintry storm caked the center of the nation with a thick layer of ice Monday,
blacking out more than 600,000 homes and businesses, and more icy weather was
on the way. At least 17 deaths in Oklahoma and Missouri were blamed on the
conditions, with 15 of them killed on slick highways.
A state of emergency was declared for all of Oklahoma, where the sound of
branches snapping under the weight of the ice echoed through Oklahoma City.
"You can hear them falling everywhere," Lonnie Compton said Monday as he
shoveled ice off his driveway.
The National Weather Service posted ice and winter storm warnings Tuesday for
parts of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois. Missouri declared an
emergency on Sunday and put the National Guard on alert.
Oklahoma utilities said a half-million customers were blacked out as power
lines snapped under the weight of ice and falling tree branches, the biggest
power outage in state history, and utilities in Missouri said more than 100,000
homes and business had no power there.
"If you do the math, probably one out of three Oklahomans has no electricity at
this point," said Gil Broyles, a spokesman for Oklahoma Gas & Electric, the
state's largest utility.
Roughly 11,000 customers were blacked out in southern Illinois and more than
5,000 had no electric heat or lights in Kansas, where Gov. Kathleen Sebelius
declared a statewide state of emergency.
At O'Hare International Airport, about 100 flights were canceled by Monday
afternoon, with delays of about 45 minutes, said Chicago Department of Aviation
spokeswoman Karen Pride. No flights were canceled at Midway Airport, but a
handful of flights were delayed about an hour, she said.
Ice was as much as an inch thick on tree limbs and power lines in parts of the
region.
Schools across Oklahoma were closed and some hospitals were relying on backup
power generators. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of
Engineers sent 50 generators and three truckloads of bottled water from Texas
to distribute to blacked-out areas of Oklahoma.
Tulsa International Airport had no power for about 10 hours and halted flight
operations for the day, and most morning flights at Will Rogers World Airport
in Oklahoma City were canceled because of icy runways. Greyhound bus passengers
were stranded overnight at a shelter in a church in Tulsa, and were joined by
some local residents who had no heat.
Portions of Interstate 35 and Interstate 44 were shut down early Monday
afternoon in Oklahoma City after ice-laden power lines collapsed and fell into
the roadways.
Oklahoma utility officials said it could be a week or more before power was
fully restored.
"This is a big one. We've got a massive situation here and it's probably going
to be a week to 10 days before we get power on to everybody," said Ed
Bettinger, a spokesman for Public Service Company. "It looks like a war zone."
The Oklahoma City suburb of Jones, a town of 2,500 people, had low water
pressure because there was no electricity to run well pumps, and firefighters
said an early morning fire destroyed most of the community's high school.
Since the storm began, Tulsa firefighters have responded to dozens of
structural fires, most attributable to the storm, said Sheryl Lovelady, a city
spokeswoman. One person was killed by smoke inhalation in a storm-related fire,
she said; she did not provide details.
The icy weather stretched into the Northeast, where many schools across upstate
New York were closed or started late because of icy roads.
On ice-covered Interstate 40 west of Okemah, Okla., four people died in "one
huge cluster of an accident" that involved 11 vehicles, said Highway Patrol
Trooper Betsey Randolph.
Ten other people died on icy Oklahoma roads, and Missouri had two storm-related
deaths one on a slippery highway and another when a tree limb fell on a
92-year-old man's head. In addition, a homeless person died of hypothermia in
Oklahoma City, the state medical examiner's office said.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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