4 days without electricity

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Four days ago this area was hit by an unseasonable storm. The strongest winds ever recorded for this time of year caused massive damage including taking out many miles of power lines. That night we received the heaviest dump of snow for 25 years, and this made it extremely difficult for the repair crews to get to the trouble spots.

We live only a couple of miles from the power station, so our supply was fairly secure. We did suffer a few minor interruptions of around 20 seconds duration (the engineers in this forum will know about auto-reclose on circuit breakers), but some of the more remote regions have been without power for 4 days. Full supply is expected tomorrow.

So what has all this got to do with Y2K? Actually very little. But there was no way that we could assure anyone that power would not go off last friday. There is no way that we can promise that full supply will be restored tomorrow, and there is no way that anyone can promise that something similar won't happen on the rollover to 2000. All we can say is that to the best of our knowledge we have identified, checked, repaired or replaced, and tested every system in each of our power stations. I can only assume that USA utilities are taking a similar approach.

Malcolm

-- Anonymous, July 06, 1999

Answers

The following article may help describe what conditions may be like for families without power in the middle of winter. But as I have said earlier, power utilities can never guarantee power at any given time, they can only assure the public that they have checked everything, and are ready for any contigency.

Malcolm

Subject: Central homes without power: Southland Times (Invercargill), Page 1, Monday, 5 July 1999 Auto forwarded by a Rule

Central homes without power

BY MEAGHAN MILLER AND RoSEMARIE NORTH

AS many as 750 Central Otago homes were still without power last night after the heaviest snowfall in 25 years.

By last night, supply had Peen restored to most homes in Central Otago towns and TrustPower hope Delta would be able to reconnect residents in parts of Glenorchy, Paradise, Routeburn Valley, Gibbston Valley, Dalefield and the Crown Range in the next few days.

Saturday's snowfall followed gales of up to 150kmh on Friday, which caused widespread damage throughout the area.

Power companies were flat out last night trying to restore electricity after the weekend power cuts but for many homes, it was the third cold night in a row.

However, the snow clouds also had a silver lining for southern skifields, which were knee-deep in fresh snow and customers.

They reopened yesterday to huge crowds, and by midafternoon Coronet Peak closed the access road because the car park was full.

Despite the frosty conditions, most residents in the Wakatipu Basin resorted to heating water and cooking on barbecues and fires.

Glenorchy Hotel bar manager Brian Meikle said people had been in good spirits over the weekend. A generator meant the pub was able to serve hot meals on Saturday.

"The place was rocking," Mr MeikIe said.

The Glenorchy Volunteer Fire Brigade spent more than four hours on Saturday night replenishing the town's water supply, which dwindled without the electric pumps working.

Power lines were brought down by the gales and some were covered in snow again before they could be fixed Others snapped under the weight of the heavy dumping of snow.

Delta Utilities area manager Dave Dolphin said three helicopters and two crews from Southland joined 25 staff who worked more than 48 hours on end to fix the downed power lines.

TrustPower community relations manager Graeme Purches said many of the homes without power for the third night last night should have power today.

"Delta will be there at first light ... if it was three or four groups of houses that made up that number of people it would be comparatively simple. But it's not." he said.

The outages, which most Central residents would have felt, were spread over a wide area and the grounded lines were often hidden under branches and the heaviest of snow in many years, he said.

Delta's repairs were slowed by a shortage of lines, insulators and poles, Mr Purches said. Communication was difficult with phones not working and staff working until their cellphone batteries were flat.

One Central Otago resident drove 10km to a phone to ask when his power would be on again, only to be told TrustPower could not guarantee him a time, Mr Purches said.

Mr Dolphin said the main Transpower line from Cromwell went down early on Sunday morning, putting the whole of Queenstown in the dark for a short time.

Hunter Road was closed for more than 12 hours on Saturday after a power pole came down.

Mr Purches urged people living in isolated areas to cheek on their neighbours. "I sincerely hope nobody's come to grief. Anything is possible," he said.

Telecom spokeswoman Lisa-Marie Richan said the power outages put Telecom remote access sites near Cromwell, Queenstown and the McKenzie Country out of action.

Telecom used helicopters to fly in generators to get phones working again.

Etelligence Ltd email: info@etelligence.co.nz

-- Anonymous, July 06, 1999


I am no expert in this area at all, however, it does seem that while there are probably 10s of thousands of people experienced at repairing utilities damaged by storms, and materials and equipment are stockpiled all over the place for such problems, y2k is a totally different problem.

How many of these personnel can fix y2k problems. How much of the materials and equipment could be used to fix y2k problems.

And by the way, where do they have blizzards in July? I don't recognize any of the towns.

-- Anonymous, July 07, 1999


XBob, Malcolm Taylor's story comes from New Zealand. (See his web address.) Remember, every place south of the equator has the opposite seasons from north of the equator. New Zealand is having winter right now.

-- Anonymous, July 07, 1999

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