The D stands for Darkness.
Actually, this is a pretty serious problem right now. People are furious with Centerpoint, and they are taking it out on completely the wrong people. I’ve never lost power, where I live, so I only throw a pebble or two, but some folks throw bigger things.
what's sad/funny is when/if there's a cold snap and the power goes the governor will be asking the same questions again.
I’ll try to explain… again… maybe this time it will click.
The cold snap thing is a non-issue. That was truly a 100 year event. We build power systems that last for 25-50 years (mostly 25 years). You would not want to pay for them to be working perfectly in sustained cold, because that would be a waste of money -> all of the equipment you build now will be defunct before it’s likely to be needed.
The storms, however, are much more frequent. The thing is, Houston is in a forest, on top of a swamp or lowlands. Our water table is inches below the surface. So 1) burying our power lines (the best solution to avoid wind damage) would be very expensive (and might run headfirst into the other big issue - flooding), and 2) if we don’t bury them they are going to be damaged by falling trees and branches.
We aren’t stupid, DP, the problem is just more difficult/expensive than outsiders think it is. And people looooooove to throw jabs at Texas, for political reasons, so they don’t bother to explain the whole problem. They throw those jabs here too, btw, hence the angry locals.
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Oh… and btw, they clear trees back from the power lines every year, before hurricane season, and that greatly reduces the likelihood of damage. That had not happened yet, because Beryl came very early in the season (I’d argue before the season). And it’s worth noting, Beryl was a weak storm (we were very lucky) that happened to hit Houston at the worst possible trajectory.
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At Cucho… the D stands for Dumspter?
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