If things don't go "Infomagic" but we are severely crippled, can the power and water companies ration electricity and water to various parts of a city or district on scheduled hours? If they can, which I suspect is so, Wouldn't living near a hospital be a good idea? I can't imagine they would ration utilities to hospitals, and the distribution couldn't be that "fine tuned" that only the hospital buildings would be supplied.

The reason I ask is that there are two wonderful old ladies of my aquaintance, right out of "Arsenic and Old Lace" (I never drink their elderberry wine) for whom I am very concerned. They live a stone's throw from a huge hospital. They assured me that post hurricane Hugo, when most of the city was without water and power, they were not because of the proximity of the hospital.

If this is the case, I just might be convinced to undertake their safety and move in with them. I solicite your opinions.

Bill in South Carolina

-- Bill Solorzano (notaclue@webtv.net), July 01, 1999

Answers

The subject of electricity rationing has been discussed quite a bit at Rick Cowles' EUY2K web site. It's called rolling blackouts over there, and one post made in Feb. 1999 illustrates it as well as any other, I suppose. It's at:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000UqO

entitled, "Just a bit of a taste of rolling blackouts."

I don't know about water, but I imagine it would be a lot harder. Water mains and pipes are mostly underground, which means that valves are, too. Are the valves now remotely controlled from a central control point? I don't know. My best guess would be yes, in some areas, no in others.

Electric priority assignments have also been discussed at Rick's forum. I recall that he mentioned in one thread that emergency services, such as fire, law enforcement, hospitals (and I assume clinics, too) will have first priority on electricity. If homes have to go dark to keep the emergency services on line, then that's what will happen. I don't have the thread URL handy, sorry, but the search engine over there works quite well.

Just in case it's not handy, Rick's forum is at:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a.tcl?topic=Electric%20Utilities %20and%20Y2K

-- LP (soldog@nohotmail.com), July 01, 1999.

Ride by a really large hospital and see the transformers there for its power. this is where the majority of the switching should take place. The two ladies are extremely fortunate if they are on the same side as the hospital.

CHuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), July 01, 1999.