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How does a power company???
decide in what order to return power to a city? My question is based off this Fox News article reporting that residents of a poorer city hurled eggs at electrical workers who showed up to turn their power back on after they went 5 days without it and after their mayor made known his displeasure and accusing the power company of doing the work in the richer parts of the city first.
I guess my perspective is, get power to parts of a city that contain hospitals, schools, government buildings, fire, police and city services and then to main commerical and industrial zones that promote a city's infrastructure and commerce. Then, get to any residential areas. Obviously if there were residential areas tied in to the power grids of the city's commerce and infrastructure, then they would go on too, concurrently.
I know that my area (Minneapolis) just sent 30 electrical workers to help out with this problem of getting power back online. So, clearly they are short-handed on the East Coast with power restoration.
But how do the companies decide what goes on first? Is there a process or protocol? Is it fair to expect them to focus on major civic areas and high density areas first?
I guess I am irritated that people are just trying to do the best they can in a cruddy situation. People are coming in from out of state to help. I feel bad for those line workers who are just out doing their jobs and they get eggs thrown at them. That's just wrong.
Re: How does a power company???
Great question. We live in a small town with not much in the way of businesses so we're last on the priority list. Irene we were out 8 days, today is the first day that a significant portion has started getting power back (our neighborhood is still without). I have no idea what their protocol is. Out of 500 trucks in the state, only 40 were sent to our county, one of the hardest hits. And 2 of the 3 cities in our county have their own utility companies and therefore were up and running in 2 days. I have no idea what their method is.
Sick that people threw eggs at workers...I know people get crazy in situations but taking it out on the people trying to help isn't right. I was going to buy a box of munchkins to give to the first power crew I saw on the road the other day but alas none were anywhere to be seen.
I can only speak for our area (as I used to work for the power company here). Typically they would restore areas in which it would affect the most people at once.
So if by restoring a certain transformer it would get power back to 1500 customers vs. another transformer that would get 300 on, the 1500 came first.
I would guess that in this situation, other factors contribute greatly in the decision. There has been a lot popping up on the news about Staten Island residents feeling forgotten, but there's a major accessibility issue there and I think that the island is still largely flooded. That has to greatly affect what kind of aid and restoration they can expect, unfortunately. I imagine doing work on power grids is not a good idea when there is a substantial amount of standing water in the area.
And some areas probably require more work before the power can kick back on due to damage levels and such.
Each area is different. During the June derecho, the DC area had widespread power outage. This is how they handled restoration. It was a combo of starting at substations and working out plus population of affected area.
This resulted in the urban areas getting power quicker while the Senators in their multimillion dollar estates were last. They were in a less populated area per square mile. So in essence, money didn't buy power.