I know there are some other Dopers living here (one I found out lives 10 miles away IIRC-I myself live near the airport), so a bit surprised there isn’t a thread…
Anyway, had hurricane-force winds on Tuesday afternoon, power out since 4:30 pm, trees down everywhere, at least 2 tornadoes confirmed to have touched down, one apparently not far from here. The initial response seemed very tepid, and the nearest downed line 400 yards away hasn’t been repaired yet, just some warning tape to keep the foolish from electrocuting themselves.
Criticism includes TPTB not springing for underground lines as well, tho seeing an increasing number of bucket trucks now.
The weird thing is how whether a given building is still out or not seems pretty random, a patchwork pattern all over the area, judging by which businesses have lights on or not.
The official word is power is “guaranteed” for pretty much everyone by 8-14, 6 bloody days from now. Good news is a cool but much more benign front is moving thru tonight, bringing highs in the mid 70’s and much lower dew points, so no more hot fitful nights in bed. Bad news is I am in between the airport and the river valley, meaning there may be a limited number of power lines leading in here, requiring a long chain of downed poles to repair/replace.
I live in Lake county and was shocked that our power in our building stayed on.
The Mentor library has been out since, Aldis, a few stop lights.
The bus’s are delayed.
One weather forecaster, her power has been out.
Do you live in West Park, or thereabouts? I used to live there years ago and was under the impression that surrounding suburbs tended to get better services and more prompt attention than anyone living within the Cleveland city limits. But that was a long time ago.
I’m in North Olmsted and power stayed on south of I-480. North of that is hit and miss. Much of Lorain Rd was out. Giant Eagle has their own generator. I drove down Pearl Rd in Parma yesterday and everything was completely out. Much of Westlake is out. This is the most widespread outage I have seen in decades.
Repairs will never move lines. It’s the work of years to bury power lines. If you want your power back before 2028, you’ll want it rebuilt exactly as-was. So just as likely to be damaged in the next weather event, be that an ice storm or a tornado or a …
IIRC the cost to bury power lines in existing urban / suburban areas can be ballparked at $1million per mile of buried line. And the only people who can “spring for” that are the rate payers = customers. That is, after all, where 100% of the money for anything in any industry comes from.
Of course once the power lines are buried, the unsightly poles can’t be removed until the telephone and cable TV wires hanging from the same poles are also newly buried then the old overhead ones removed. So now you have three independent utilities who ought to be coordinating their renovations so one isn’t digging up roads just after the other company got finished burying their stuff and repairing the same stretch of the same road. After all, you’re the one who’d be paying for two repaving jobs when only one is necessary.
Big job when you consider there are wires running along every block of every street and alley in a metro area.