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Post by papaof2 on Apr 16, 2021 21:47:45 GMT -6
Do you believe the ERT (Estimated Restoration Time) provided by your electric company?
Today's bad example is from Georgia Power (not our local co-op for a change ;-)
A vehicle accident around 6PM took out power for 670 customers. The then-posted ERT was 8:30PM. 8:30PM came and went and the new ERT was 11:45PM. It's now 11:30PM and the new ERT is 12:45AM. Not sure if I'll still be awake to see if they make the 12:45AM ERT.
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Can't you hear one side of the conversation from a couple of years ago? Maybe a he said - she said?
"$600 for a generator? Are you crazy? We don't need backup power or lighting! We live in one of the newer and more expensive suburbs. Our power will be fine."
Except that after almost six hours without power, the cell phone battery is dead from using it for internet access and they can no longer check when the power might be restored and the batteries in the only flashlight they could find are dead and corroded and the rechargeable lighter died when they tried to keep it on long enough to light a candle and...
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Post by papaof2 on Apr 16, 2021 23:23:29 GMT -6
They cleared the outages at 12:55AM.
Makes me wonder what that vehicle hit...
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Post by eyeseetwo on May 30, 2021 17:40:43 GMT -6
It depends on the severity of the damage causing the outage. Usually they are spot on or earlier in restoring power in our area.
Our place is off grid and I would gauge if I had to drive the hour to work by which homes and businesses had lights before making the commute. Over the last decade the school district I worked for began installing propane fueled generators.
When I started there in 2002 we had no air conditioning or generators and it was always a drag to drive an hour or more to get to school to find out school was closed due to no power, excessive heat and or wildfire smoke. By the time I retired we finally had gotten a satellite VOIP system, air cleaners for wild fire smoke in our classrooms and the number of lost school days drastically reduced.
Icy mountain roads, wild fire road closures, localized flooding became the main reason schools closed.
Then with C19 last school year had lots of chaos and closure of the campus to students.
Finally official retired after last school year. Now I love being a hermit and not driving daily to work is awesome.
2020 was the first year I did not have to have an oil change every other month due to the mileage for commuting.
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Post by papaof2 on Jun 3, 2021 21:07:11 GMT -6
The other power co-op in the county has a single outage: Reported: 6/3 18:16 ERT: 6/4 14:30
What happened to cause a single meter outage that would take 20 hours for repair?
Tree falls on line and pulls the overhead entry (weatherhead) completely off the house?
Vehicle hits transformer in yard and the underground wiring must also be replaced?
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Post by 9idrr on Jun 4, 2021 19:49:00 GMT -6
Somebody ignored the alarm light on the computer tellin' 'em there's a problem?
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Post by papaof2 on Aug 6, 2021 3:09:16 GMT -6
Our power co-op has two outages: 1011 meters at 23:32 on 5 Aug, 822 meters at 04:34 on 6 Aug. However, one outage page has "1011 Current Outages" as the header and one visible map marker - you guessed it, the 822 outages. The page with "1011 Current Outages" ('current' outages seems appropriate ;-) can't differentiate the two outages because they are so close. If you zoom in multiple steps, you can see that there are two outage markers, but the default view gives a totally incorrect picture with the page header - which should show "Total Outages" - having the number for the oldest outage and the only visible marker being the newest outage.
As I've mentioned before, their outage page needs work:
A) The total number should be correct.
B) When the outages are that close, the map should auto-zoom so the markers can be seen.
15 minutes later, the newest outage (822 @ 04:34 today is cleared but the 1011 from 23:32 yesterday is still there (5 1/2 hours and counting). On the brighter side, we have light ;-)
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Post by papaof2 on Aug 9, 2021 0:34:57 GMT -6
Browsing the power company outages, Georgia Power has 891 meters out across the state.
Two vehicle accidents: 110 meters and 411 meters
Plus one outage of 305 meteers identified in a manner I've not seen before: "An incident caused an outage in your area."
Exactly what is an "incident"?
Shooting?
Hostage situation?
Bank robbery?
Somebody pulled the wrong switch?
Inquiring minds want to know ;-)
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Post by eyeseetwo on Aug 9, 2021 0:42:48 GMT -6
Most likely you will never know what the incident was unless it makes it into your local news’s stream.
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Post by papaof2 on Aug 9, 2021 1:52:07 GMT -6
Most likely you will never know what the incident was unless it makes it into your local news’s stream. Very true. I could find nothing in local media about anything happening in that area (near a city park and probably some apartment buildings and maybe a half mile from a local hospital). While I have a scanner, it's not the latest trunking version and I'd need that for everything other than County Fire Dispatch and the local ambulance service so that scanner has been relegated to the basement :-( The "incident" has been cleared and the ERT on the 411 meter vehicle accident has been pushed out to 6AM.
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Post by papaof2 on Aug 10, 2021 19:19:10 GMT -6
I complain about our power co-op's outage server not being able to do basic arithmetic. Apparently, the other power co-op in the county hired the same programmer ;-) Earlier today, their county summary had 7 outages. The dots on the map were a green dot for 4 meters out and 2 purple dots for 1 meter each. I see 4 + 1 + 1 = 6 but their server got 7.
Some hours later, the map has 4 purple dots: 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4 but their server got 3.
Being low by 1 now makes up for being high by 1 earlier?
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Post by 9idrr on Aug 10, 2021 20:09:25 GMT -6
Somehow, somewhere, a village must be missin' its idiot. Or, those purple dots are somethin' left over from the Sixties...
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Post by papaof2 on Aug 11, 2021 3:51:18 GMT -6
The other power co-op in the County has ONE outage. They haven't done well with this one.
reported: 10 Aug @ 18:59 ERT: 10 Aug @ 23:15
It's now 11 Aug @ 05:50 and this meter is still out. They haven't done well with this one.
=========
Georgia Power has another "An incident caused an outage in your area" event.
I'm still curious what comprises an "incident"...
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Post by papaof2 on Sept 25, 2021 20:40:16 GMT -6
We did get one definition of "incident" in the news this month - a natural gas explosion at an apartment complex in Atlanta resulted in power being shut off to multiple buildings and Georgia Power listed as "an incident".
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Closer to home, our power co-op had two odd outages tonight.
The better half and I were reading (her Kindle, my laptop) when the house went dark and silent - not the off, on, off, on, off to stay of the typical circuit breaker responding to a short circuit or overload - just instant dark (and almost silent - the UPS units did start to beep ;-) I got out two rechargeable lights - one for the family room and one for the kitchen and then checked the power co-op's online outage page.
Their outage page showed 1811 meters out on our feed - that's the entire Feed 4 complement from the substation that supplies power to us - plus another 991 meters out which are fed by another substation about 3 miles the other direction from us. The failure point for our feed was the substation itself (helps to have that mental map of where things are located).
The outages happened at the same time so I'm wondering what the power co-op did that took out feeds on two different substations at the same time. Switching error somewhere up the line? Maybe connected the wrong wires along the border between the two feeds? (Not probable at 9:30PM but that would have been an interesting spark.)
Had the power been off another five minutes, I'd have reported it using their app. With all the smart meters either reporting problems - or failing to report at all - I usually don't report outages until commercial power's been off at least ten minutes.
Their outage page is still showing all those meters out, even though we've had power back for more than five minutes. Another five minutes and I'll go make the rounds to reset clocks and turn UPS units back on.
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Power's been back almost 30 minutes and no further glitches, so I'll say they resolved the problem.
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Post by papaof2 on Oct 3, 2021 1:57:13 GMT -6
Nothing like a metro area to have interesting power outages. Georgia Power has one that started around 2AM. At 3:50AM, it affects 2005 meters and has an ERT of 5AM. Outage Details A vehicle accident has caused an outage in your area. Most customers will be restored by the ERT shown.
You have to wonder what vehicle and what did they hit to take out that many meters...
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Post by papaof2 on Nov 10, 2021 22:28:16 GMT -6
Our power co-op has dropped the not-always-accurate third-party outage page provider and is using their corporate server to display outages. The page is a bit cluttered with the top 15-20% being their "corporate identity" but they should be able to get correct info quickly.
We'll see how well it works when the first ice or snow gets here. That was early in December in 2017 - forecast of "1/2 to 1 inch of snow on grassy areas" and one TV weather-guesser laughed at the model which predicted 8 inches - but our county got 7 to 12 inches everywhere out of that "1/2 to 1 inch" and some folks were in the dark and cold for longer than our 12 hour outage (one report of 57F inside the house and people sitting in their car to get warm and charge phones) but we had heat, light and phones without the local grid or being in a car. Unfortunately, I can see the exact same situation if we had enough ice or snow to again cause similar outages. I could offer them a can of Sterno, a wire coat hanger and a can of soup, ravioli or beef stew so they could make a warm meal - but I'm not sure they'd be able to make a stove out of the parts - or have a way to light it...
When temperatures are below freezing and you're effectively snowed in, the cost of preps is easily justified ;-)
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Post by papaof2 on Nov 15, 2021 6:02:47 GMT -6
Our co-op has 176 meters out since 10:10PM last night - their outage page had 8 hours, 42 minutes when I checked it a few minutes ago. It's several miles from us so we saw no glitches. The overnight low was to be around 38F, so cold houses for any that don't have backup heat sources - and no Keurig for coffee/hot chocolate and, most likely, no cooking without power.
Breakfast at Hardee's if their phone had enough charge to serve as an alarm clock. If the water heater is electric, that morning shower was/will be a real eye-opener ;-)
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Post by papaof2 on Nov 17, 2021 16:00:41 GMT -6
It's what they don't tell you that might be interesting.
Georgia Power has an outage of 395 meters near Lakemont, GA. If you don't know where that is, neither do half the residents of Georgia - it's typical of the little out-of-the-way places where I frequently place my stories. Lakemont is in the Northeast corner of the state, not far from the South Carolina state line.
The cause of the outage? "Emergency repairs required an outage. We are working to restore power as quickly as possible."
Expected Restoration Time (ERT) "Re-evaluating Condition"
What "broke" that required "emergency repairs"? Why can't they guess at the repair time? Why are they "Re-evaluating Condition"? Did a truck break dowm or did they splice the wrong wires or did they not have the correct transformer in stock or...
If I were willing to do the detailed research into the life and work of a "lineman in the county" (Potential theme music for the movie?), he/she might be the main character in a story titled "Re-evaluating Condition" that begins with "Emergency repairs required an outage." Many opportunities for fireworks with a big electrical problem ;-)
Lots of inspiration out there, you just have to be able to spot it and make use of it...
Write the book, then get the local electric company/co-op/whatever to buy copies for all their employees. If you use my idea, I expect 10% of the royalties ;-)
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Post by papaof2 on Nov 17, 2021 20:35:07 GMT -6
The other co-op has 22 meters out in an adjacent county. Reason: Fallen Tree or Limb Damage. ERT: 11PM That's interesting with no rain or wind in the past 48 hours. Is it a tree that gave way because of soft soil from previous rain or an old rotten limb that just gasped its last?
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Post by papaof2 on Dec 9, 2021 6:05:07 GMT -6
At 6:30AM, there's this outage in Rome amongst Georgia Power's outages:
Estimated Restoration Time (ERT): Dec 9, 2021, 1:00 PM
Customers Affected 50
Outage Details A vehicle accident has caused an outage in your area. Most customers will be restored by the ERT shown.
How much damage requires more than six hours for repair? What's your guess for the damage?
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Post by papaof2 on Dec 10, 2021 4:17:52 GMT -6
Friday's forecast has 4 hours of "Showers" followed by 4 hours of "Scattered Thunderstorms". Saturday's forecast has "Showers" for 6+ hours, then an hour of "Scattered Thunderstorms", then 5 hours of "Thunderstorms" with winds at 14MPH (and usually gusty) and then 4 hours of "Rain". Care to bet on whether there'll be hits on the power?
Rain and wind taking down limbs/trees, someone running into a pole, lightning striking somewhere in the area or whatever your guess is for the most likely cause of failure...
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Post by 9idrr on Dec 10, 2021 21:51:58 GMT -6
We're lookin' at an "atmospheric river" which was formerly known as the Pineapple Express. This generally means a few slides and poles down. PG&E will probably be showin' some outages for a few days.
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Post by papaof2 on Dec 10, 2021 23:19:53 GMT -6
We have "Dense fog" which will be with us until 6AM Saturday. If you like nights with every light having a huge halo, this is your night. Very glad to not be out in it and be sitting - browsing the internet using the battery of my laptop where the "BatteryMonitor" program I wrote tells me I have at least 2.5 hours left on the battery - near the fireplace with the no-power-needed gas logs warming the space. After a couple hours of using the gas logs, that brick and masonry behemoth will stay warm for a LONG time.
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Post by papaof2 on Dec 20, 2021 22:57:52 GMT -6
At 11:50PM, Georgia power has an outage of 505 meters.
The status is:
Estimated Restoration Time (ERT): Re-evaluating Condition
Customers Affected: 505
Outage Details: A vehicle accident has caused an outage in your area. Most customers will be restored by the ERT shown.
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That outage is 98% of their total outages across the state.
The current temperature is 40F, heading for an overnight low of 36F and your second look (Re-evaluating Condition) still doesn't know when these people will have light and heat back?
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Post by papaof2 on Dec 21, 2021 1:59:58 GMT -6
At 2:57AM, the outage is still there, but with an ERT of 6:45AM. No power all night. No heat. No hot water if electric heater. No way to cook without power. What a great way to wake up late for work ;-)
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Post by papaof2 on Dec 21, 2021 2:47:00 GMT -6
Accident reconstruction without a single picture. The center of the outage is at one end of a curve in the road. If a driver lost control going through that curve (metro Atlana drivers are NOT noted for heeding STOP or speed limit signs), he/she could have taken out a row of poles or a rack of transformers. The outage area is an ovoid, about .2 miles East and West of the center and about .3 miles North and South of the center.
If I can't sleep, I might as well exercise my mind ;-)
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