Unfortunately the problem isn’t limited to the power grid. Internet service and cell service were also knocked out or inconsistent in many places. Landlines are increasingly rare for anyone to have. We really could be up a creek without a paddle.
I don’t even live in Texas anymore, and this was eye opening:
No storm is the same, no storm hits in the exact same spot.
I think Quail Valley suffers less outage than most areas because it was designed with underground utilities.
Yes, it would seem that one of the biggest improvements possible would be to replace existing overhead electric power lines with underground lines.
But, but heaven forbid we do anything like California.
Use metal poles instead of wooden ones.
Maybe if Centerpoint keeps asking for price increases and gets them, they will finally improve. /s
Centerpoint is failing customers especially when compared to Entergy its peer in east texas.
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If you take the CEO, board and others who focus on delivering “shareholder value” and publicly flog all of them in the streets until they pass out. I bet you’d see some reliability improvements happen at quite a pace. Probably see a bunch of MBA’s out on their backsides as well.
You just proved my point about underground versus above ground power lines.
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I believe that is something they have started doing.
But there is outcry in communities where they are going in, the base is bigger and residents complain it is ugly.
They look about the same to me. Both equally ugly.
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I agree, but I saw a piece where the folks in West U and other communities complained they were eye sores.
I do think burying the lines eliminates a lot of issues, regarding broken poles or tree debris that falls on the lines and results in a blown transformer.
Florida has done a much better job in inversting in their grid and protecting it from storms compared to what texas has done.
Interesting comment from the Chron. You can right click and get the read only page
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Interesting. If Texas has been preparing all along as this editorial details, the leadership has done a poor job of educating the public about it. It mentioned that county and city officials did acknowledge the great efforts coming from the state level. I wonder how much of that sentiment and acknowledgement was felt by individuals in need.
I still feel much of the preparation we are doing is so we can react better rather than investing more in prevention, if I’m making myself clear.
I still think both Abbott and Patrick don’t put these type of issues at a high enough priority over the more political culture war issues.
I’m glad to be wrong in that I did not believe we had done any real preparation over the years. I still think there’s more to be done.