Recent power outages

[Tony]

For years I've been telling people on this grid not to bother with generators as we rarely have outages. But in the last month or so we've had what - maybe 3-4 extended events. I wonder if this is just a fluke or is it actually possible all that new wiring we saw a while back has rewired us all for failure?

Before this month, the last time I can remember an extended outage was during a hurricane several years ago (I've forgotten the name). I can sort of understand a 12 hour outage from a hurricane, but those storms last night - as impressive as they looked on the radar - hardly qualified as a 12 hour event!

[cindylu]

This last outage was due to two fallen poles. Irene was the hurricane. According to the news this evening there are still quite a few people in the area (Jefferson County was one). This was also a holiday weekend so I'm sure although there was a crew standing by most of those folks were on vacation.

Just googled --- Isabel was the hurricane that shut down the power for about 5 days.

[Patrick]

It is quite alot for the area. Amazingly, though, I still can't believe that we had power through the 4 foot snow storms several years ago. Now that's impressive!

[shadowplay]

From what was able to be determined from a call we are now serviced by First Energy, out of Akron, ouch.

[Willis]

It does strain ones credulity about the quality of service recently. We do live in a wooded environment and I certainly can understand disasters such as Hurricane Irene-AND Isabel in 2003-straining power companies' resources, but why, oh why, didn't we experience similar outages in the past several years when weather conditions were either fine and dandy OR much worse than we experienced this past Sunday evening
Does anyone have a BS Meter handy?

[LFE]

When you consider the fact that outside the fire station no other emergency service, school (many used for shelters in bad events), or hospital type businesses exist around our area, in the event of a major problem to the larger area as a whole, we will most likely be last on the list to get fixed....

[campbell]

The power outages we have recently had up here have everything to do with who is our power company. When we had Alleghany, we had no problem at all, three feet of snow, major ice storms, major wind and rain, and the power stayed on. And if by chance it did go off, Alleghany would have it fixed promptly. We get one drop of rain when Potomac Edison is our power company and we lose power for hours. To go from the best power company to the worst is very concerning. I for one am going to do everything I can to try to get Allegheny back because I am real pi$$ed off about losing power for basically no reason whatsoever. And I really don't want to hear the lame excuse "well, there are storms coming through and that is why you've lost power". What total BS! Twice in one week we lost power when there was no rain, wind or any storm whatsoever. The power went off way before any storm even hit.

[Black Dog]

I've been wondering if the power outages have anything to do with the new towers that are going up. I haven't seen any of them replaced yet but I've been watching the work of the footers going in. Quite possible that there have been some replaced further down the line and maybe some of the problems are coming from that.

[Kensey]

Two points:

1) Potomac Edison is Allegheny, or what's left of it after the merger with FirstEnergy. It's just a rebranding of this service area.

2) The first power outage was, if I remember correctly, due to a tree falling over for some reason -- high winds, somebody hit it, I dunno, but I saw what looked like sawdust from where they cut it up afterward. The one today was very limited -- I believe only those near the top of the mountain were/are affected, because we never lost power down here on Stone Ridge -- so I suspect that was another line-down issue as well, and in the middle of a storm to boot.

[cindylu]

Two points:

1) Potomac Edison is Allegheny, or what's left of it after the merger with FirstEnergy. It's just a rebranding of this service area.

2) The first power outage was, if I remember correctly, due to a tree falling over for some reason -- high winds, somebody hit it, I dunno, but I saw what looked like sawdust from where they cut it up afterward. The one today was very limited -- I believe only those near the top of the mountain were/are affected, because we never lost power down here on Stone Ridge -- so I suspect that was another line-down issue as well, and in the middle of a storm to boot.

Don't know where Stone Ridge is located but from what I could see the power was out from gate 4 to Mission/rt 9. You are correct though, it was isolated in that the trees/poles that did fall were located across the road from Zola Maguire (I love that name!!).

[Davdu]

Yesterday I drove by the area where the accident happened and dang if I didn't see a dead tree still standing, waiting, to fall, at some later date.

[charliepff]

I think there has definately been some policy changes when the companies switched. I noticed during bad weather that Alleghany would stage crews in the area. I have yet to see that with the new merger. Two things they can not control are, old equipment, and tress on other properties. I know a few of my neighbors trees could wipe out the power lines in a heart beat. The power company will not cut them do them being on private property. I also think our storms are getting worse to some degree. I would also like to see how the budget cuts in the power company has affected their proactive services. I did some line work before I moved down here. It is not fun to say the least. I have learned that everytime we went out that is was surprising just to see a pole down or something simple. Most of the time you pulled up to an explosion of poles, wires, and trees globbed into a bad dream. Anyhting falling into a substation is very bad too. Like the tree that fell into the one on bloomery road station.

Also, my wife and I lived in Lovettsville for 4 years before we moved out here. While we were definately outside of town, we lost power at least twice a month there. I know that the power company there had a hard time keeping the lines cleared. We only rented a house there but I still ended up buying a generator after two months of living there.

[Tony]

I called them to report a tree a year or so ago. Their forester came out but told me that they won't preemptively take down a tree unless it threatens the topmost line on the poles - which none of the ones I was reporting did. And they won't help with any feeder lines such as the one from the pole to your house. But they will repair all of these after something happens. I suppose it's a question of money. If they had tons to spend, I'm sure they would take down every tree - living or dead - in the country to protect their lines.

As to the merger with FirstEnergy: We really have no idea yet how this may be affecting us in the long run. Usually when companies merge up to 1/2 the existing jobs are left redundant. We know they built a new dispatch center in Williamsburg, but not how or if that substantially changes the way we're serviced.

Potomac Edison's regional headquarters recharged - Herald-Mail

Allegheny Power now called Potomac Edison | The Morgan ...

[grafxgirl]

We've lost power twice since the hurricane. We lost it a few months back in one of the heavy rains for about an hour, and the other night for 12 hours. I have been noticing our clocks blinking quite a bit the last few weeks when I get home in the evenings, so maybe we are having blips during the day that I am unaware of.

[itsapyr]

I work from home and there have been several short blips on and off during the day the past couple of weeks. My computer is on a battery back up so I don't lost my connections but the lights blink and its enough to have to keep setting the darned microwave time.