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31. January 2009 by admin.
CARROLL COUNTY — An emergency disaster declaration was issued Thursday by President Barack Obama naming Carroll County and 47 other Arkansas counties federal disaster areas.The announcement came after an ice storm devastated most of northwest Arkansas leaving more than 200,000 homes and businesses without power.
The power outage is expected to continue into the weekend for many customers, electric officials say.
A Southwestern Electric Power Company spokesperson said its northwest Arkansas service area experienced significant outages as a result of winter weather that hit Monday — leaving an accumulation of up to one inch of ice over much of the area.
Company officials said the peak number of outages occurred Tuesday night, with nearly 59,000 customers without power. About a third of those were restored by Thursday.
“Additional resources in northwest Arkansas will reach 1,100 line and tree crew personnel,” the spokesperson said. “The current estimated time for 95 percent restoration is midnight Saturday. Falling trees are still a hazard to utility crews.”
Carroll Electric Cooperative crews and 91 contractor crews have been working hard to restore power to 56,000 of its customers who lost electrical service, including 47,000 customers who were still in the dark on Thursday.
According to James Sanders, vice president of executive services, the number of broken power poles is expected to exceed 1,000.
Although faced with a tremendous work load, he said 99 percent of the cooperative’s 160,000 poles did withstand “the worst ice storm this company has seen.”
He said restoration of three-phase feeders, the main arteries of the cooperative’s distribution system, was continuing.
“Presently, 49 feeders coming from 21 substations are still out of service, not including feeders partially out,” he reported Thursday, saying 14 of those were in the Carroll County communities of Grassy Knob, Holiday Island, Eureka Springs, Rudd, Green Forest and Cisco.
“The phones have been lit up non-stop and Carroll Electric consumers have been very understanding,” he added. “The goal is the same for consumers and the Cooperative — to get everyone’s power back on. This goal will be met, but it’s going to take time.”
Entergy Arkansas, which provides power in the cities of Berryville and Green Forest, said that as of noon Wednesday, crews were responding to 111,000 outages due to the ice storm.
Of those outages, more than 19,000 were in the Harrison area. Berryville had almost 3,000 customers without power. Separate figures were not released for Green Forest.
There were 2,415 linemen, field support personnel and tree trimmers responding to the outages, company officials said, including employees from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, as well as numerous contractors.
They say damage is extensive, every bit as devastating in some areas as the twin ice storms of December 2000 when its transmission network in north Arkansas suffered severe damage.
Restoration work is underway, they say, including scouting the damage so that work can be planned in an efficient manner — and so the company can develop estimates as to when power will be restored to all customers. However, preliminary estimates are that it will be as long as Tuesday, Feb. 3 before all customers are restored.
Entergy Arkansas customers are reminded to stay away from downed power lines. Outages should be reported by calling 1-800-9OUTAGE.
A relatively new- and recently upgraded — online service is “View Outages.” Anyone with Internet access can go to Entergy.com, click on “View Outages” and see where outages are occurring down to the street level.
Relief efforts
Relief came in many forms for people suddenly without heat and electricity.
County Judge Sam Barr said he opened the Berryville courthouse as a shelter Tuesday night. At least 25 people stayed there, with few luxuries, but at least they had access to restrooms and they could sleep in the chairs in the courtroom.
By Wednesday night, Barr was able to locate some cots, which improved the sleeping conditions considerably. Barr credited State Sen. Randy Laverty with locating the cots, and Justice of the Peace Tom Riddle for providing a truck to go pick up the cots in eastern Arkansas.
By Thursday morning, those still remaining at the courthouse were sent to other shelters.
Several churches in the area opened their doors as emergency shelters. Some refugees stayed at the Fire Department in Berryville, and even the hospital got involved.
St. John’s Hospital
When the electricity went off at the Berryville courthouse Tuesday night, Office of Emergency Management Coordinator Candy Bawcom tried to relocate the people who had been staying there. She called the hospital and asked if they could take some of the very elderly or infirm patients.
Kristy Noble, President of St. John’s Hospital–Berryville, said when the call came from Bawcom, the hospital was ready to help, even though the hospital was operating on generators.
Power went off Monday night at the hospital, and came back on Wednesday night. A truck from Kevin Barrows Excavation delivered extra diesel fuel to keep the generators running.
Despite the circumstances, the hospital performed its mission. “I’m so proud of our staff,” Noble said. “Many of them never left.”
Even though staff members worried about their own families, homes, and pets, they put the hospital’s needs first. “They all knew we had to be there to take care of the patients,” Noble said. “There were a lot of sacrifices.”
The hospital has a disaster plan in place. “We put that plan to the test twice a year, so we knew what we had to do,” Noble said. That disaster plan even prepared the kitchen for the task of preparing meals without full power.
The Emergency Room was very busy Wednesday, because the clinic did not have power, but by Thursday, the clinic was once again seeing patients.
Noble said while the hospital was on generator power, a baby was delivered by C-section, and mother and child were both doing well. “It’s part of our disaster plan to have a functional operating room,” Noble said.
Churches as shelters
Across the county, churches welcomed people in need, whether or not they were part of that congregation.
At Freeman Heights Baptist Church in Berryville, Deacon Vern Richardson said, “It just seemed like the thing to do.” The church fed 32 people Wednesday evening, and found places for them to sleep. About half of those people were members of the congregation.
Government response
Governor Mike Beebe on Wednesday implemented a Winter Weather State of Emergency to allow state agencies to “more easily” coordinate with the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management.
President Obama’s federal declaration makes available federal aid to help supplement state and local recovery efforts.
Eureka Springs
Because of the steep hills, ice and snow hit this city even harder than the rest of the county. Mayor Dani Joy said city workers were performing well under the trying circumstances, and residents of the city were displaying patience.
“This is the worst storm I’ve seen in the 21 years I’ve been here,” Joy said. The Eureka Springs courthouse was closed because there was no electricity. The police, Public Works, and Transit were on generators, and Transit was serving as a shelter.
“The transit building doesn’t hold very many people, so they’re mostly focusing on the elderly or people with very small children,” Joy said.
City workers have been on 12-hour shifts, and Joy said, “They’re doing everything they possibly can.” Further help may come from state and federal agencies.
The city council meeting scheduled for Monday, Jan. 26 was cancelled because of the incoming weather, and Joy said she may have to call a special meeting Friday to have a budget in place by the end of this month.
Joy urged the residents of the city to keep up their spirits. “Check your neighbors, and the elderly. Bundle up and take care of each other. And please be patient with the guys on the street–they’re doing everything they can.”
Green Forest
Mayor Richard Deweese said the city will have an area where residents can take debris from the storm, and he expects to have a curbside pickup of tree limbs set up quickly.
He also cautioned residents to watch for downed power lines as Entergy is energizing those lines again. “Everyone needs to be aware,” he said.
Deweese said most property damage in Green Forest is minimal, but the power lines took a serious hit. He said he drove around the city on Wednesday, stopping to visit with some residents.
Berryville
“We are making headway,” reported Mayor Tim McKinney on the city’s efforts to keep ahead of storm damage and ice packed roads.
“We are having trouble getting streets cleared because trees keep coming down,” he explained.
Those downed trees have created a huge mess, which McKinney has already addressed.
He said the city will schedule a limb and brush pickup program that will begin sometime next week utilizing chippers and other equipment.
He said they will be using three rented chippers, a purchased chipper, and a logging truck with a claw for pickup of big tree trunks — if they can be reached.
McKinney suggested residents begin dragging their limbs to the curb for the planned pickup. “Likely it will be next week before we get started,” he said.
City crews working the roadways were hampered by the solid sheet of ice that resisted efforts to break it up, he said. Spreading a mix of salt and crushed limestone helped some the first day, but continued ice accumulations were tough to keep up with.
He said city crews worked overtime, but not through the overnight hours because of the danger. “There were so many lines down, it was not safe to be out at night,” he explained.
Besides a loss of power citywide, McKinney said they also lost power at the wastewater treatment plant where a generator, which he described as “a $100,000 piece of equipment,” failed to operate.
“It was Murphy’s Law,” he quipped. “With Tyson (Foods) shut down, we called ADEQ, put chlorine in our effluent, and held all we could. Carroll Electric did a great job restoring power. They made it a priority and had three or four crews working on it.”
He said the plant was without power for 12 hours, described as a “critical time,” but because of cooperation from Tyson, which held back what it could, and Carroll Electric’s prompt response, they were able to stay in compliance.
McKinney said city police depended on a generator to keep them operating. With traffic accidents and crime at a minimum, he said police turned their attention to a “serve and protect mode,” checking on the elderly, and giving people rides to shelters.
“There is not so much criminal activity to work in weather like this,” he said. “That frees them up to help.”
He said city crews will continue their effort to clear the streets as more trees fall, “but we have to wait on the power company to move their lines in some situations,” he added.
County roads
Barr said workers from the Roads Department were putting in long hours, but they face some daunting challenges. He said in some cases, they saw limbs falling onto roads they had just cleared.
Barr said he is looking to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for additional crews to help clear fallen trees and limbs.
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31. January 2009 by admin.
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Approximately 1.3 million people have been left without power following major ice storms that struck a large section of the midwestern United States this week. The storms have caused at least 27 deaths across 9 states: Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio.
Kentucky was the hardest hit as more than 607,000 residents were without power at the peak of the outages Thursday, making this the worst power outage in the state’s history. President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in Kentucky, as well as Arkansas, where over 350,000 are without power. Between one and two inches of ice collected on power lines and tree branches in these states causing them to snap, spreading debris across roads and cutting off power to homes and businesses.
In a letter sent by Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear, a Democrat, to Obama requesting federal assistance, the governor estimated that there would be more than $5 million in damages caused by the storm in his state. Adding to Kentucky’s difficulties in coping with the storm–and to popular suffering–is the fact the state currently faces a $456 million shortfall in its budget. Kentucky’s unemployment rate as of December has also risen to 7.8 percent, the highest in two decades.
Getting help to those in need has proven difficult under the harsh circumstances. Many charitable organizations such as God’s Pantry, which has already seen a 40 percent increase in food requests this year, and Moveable Feast in Lexington, have reported difficulty in delivering meals to clients this week because of road conditions and power outages.
Ninety-one emergency shelters have been established throughout the state, though some of these have also been forced to close due to a lack of electricity. Many small towns like Danville and Berea are suffering from severe water shortages or have run out altogether.
Destroyed utility lines have also led to interruptions in phone and Internet services, adding to difficulties in communication among citizens, rescuers and utility companies. In several cases, authorities have been forced to go door-to-door informing people where to go should they require food and shelter.
Reports in the Associated Press paint a picture of the situation facing some of those affected in Kentucky and Arkansas. The AP quotes a storm victim in Kentucky: “‘I’ve been sitting ‘round for two days, eating cold hot dogs and bologna,’ said 70-year-old John Grimes, describing what he ate at home before coming to the shelter. He uses a wheelchair, is blind in one eye, and a diabetic.”
In Arkansas: Jimmy Eason “was headed to his Ford F-150 pickup truck, which was warmer than his one-story house. ‘I’m sleeping in a car, which is just fine,’ Eason, 74, said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with a car. Every couple of hours I turn it on, I let it run for 10 minutes and that keeps it pretty warm.’”
In western Kentucky, the AP reports, “In the small town of Marion, hundreds fled to a shelter and others went back to getting water the old fashioned way–hauling it from a creek.”
Estimates regarding the time it will take to restore power to homes and businesses throughout the affected region vary from one utility company to the next, but many residents are expected to remain without power for another week; some estimates suggest power may not be restored in some areas until mid-February.
Once again a substantial layer of the population in the United States faces difficult and, in some cases, life-threatening conditions due to a combination of a natural disaster and the inability of the profit system to meet its elementary social needs.
Decades of deregulation, the short-term pursuit of earnings to satisfy shareholders, and the anarchy and waste of private ownership have left the electrical power system in shambles. A severe storm brings out the real state of affairs, to the general public’s detriment.
The maintenance of power lines and other equipment, as well as investment in new technologies to bring the system into line with increasing energy demands, have consistently been neglected in favor of reaping fast profits.
As the WSWS noted in the aftermath of the massive August 2003 blackout, which affected 50 million people: “The energy industry today consists of a patchwork of companies with different and competing interests. Even though the electrical grid on the North American continent is now split into two large sections plus Texas, the responsibility for producing, distributing and maintaining energy is shared among thousands of power companies and utilities. The New York Times reports, ‘The 6,000 or so power plants, owned by 3,000 utilities, pour power into140 regional ‘control areas,’ which communicate with one another to coordinate moving the electricity as it is bought and sold.’”
“We have fragmented and balkanized our electronic power system,” noted John Casazza, who has written a number of books critical of energy deregulation. “No one is taking a look at what is best for the grid and our nation. Instead, you have 1,000 different entities just looking out for themselves and how to make the best profit.”
The system of oversight, to the extent that it exists, is every bit as fragmented as the electrical system itself with various state, corporate and private interests left in control in different regions of the country. The result of this irrational system, when faced with a challenge such as this week’s ice storm, is a breakdown. As recovery efforts begin, the mobilization of manpower and resources needed to repair damage caused by the storm is also left in the hands of privately-owned utility companies. Progress has been slow and disorganized thus far.
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29. January 2009 by admin.
JUNO BEACH — A power outage that affected more than 2 million Floridians last February could mean big fines for Florida Power & Light Co.
In a filing Tuesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the utility’s parent, Juno Beach-based FPL Group Inc. (NYSE: FPL, $51.48), warned investors that it’s trying to reach a settlement with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. If a settlement is not reached, FPL believes the commission will try to charge the utility with roughly 25 violations of reliability standards. The commission launched a probe into the blackout in March - the first of its kind since federal electric-grid reliability standards took effect in 2007.
The maximum penalty for each violation is $1 million a day, and FPL believes the commission could claim that some of the violations started Jan. 1, 2008. That would mean FPL could be liable for violations on as many as 57 days. If fines for 25 charges were levied for all 57 days, FPL could owe as much as $1.4 billion. The likelihood of such a huge penalty is very small, however.
The utility has attributed the Feb. 26 blackout to a mistake by a field engineer at a Miami-Dade County substation. Against company policy, the engineer disabled two levels of protection, which allowed a fault to roll across the grid, the company has said.
FPL Group spokesman Randy Clerihue declined comment on the investigation.
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29. January 2009 by admin.
COLUMBUS,OHIO (AP) — Ohio utilities beefed up crews and called in reinforcements as a winter storm’s combination of freezing rain and snow cut power to thousands in the state on Wednesday.
The storm spread a glaze of ice and snow from the southern Plains to the East Coast, leaving blackouts, hundreds of school closings and treacherous travel conditions in its wake. At least 19 deaths are blamed on the storm.
The National Weather Service posted storm and ice warnings along a broad swath of states from Texas and Oklahoma through the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, all the way into northern New England.
By 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, American Electric Power reported that outages affected about 53,000 of its Ohio customers, primarily in southern and central Ohio. South Central Power Company had more than 10,000 customers without service in Ohio, and close to 14,000 Duke Energy customers were out in southwest Ohio and northern Kentucky.
Winter storm warnings were in effect Wednesday for all but five of Ohio’s 88 counties. Sheriffs in at least a dozen southern Ohio counties issued some level of snow emergency, strongly urging drivers to stay off the roads.
Authorities across the state reported a variety of slip-and-slide accidents but no major injuries.
Airlines canceled more than a dozen flights each out of Columbus and Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.
Universities including the main campuses of Ohio State University and Ohio University canceled their Wednesday classes, and dozens of school districts across the state also were closed, including the Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton public schools. Honda Motor Corp. canceled the first shift at its assembly plant in Marysville.
Meteorologists from the weather service forecast that Ohio would be under as much as a foot of snow by Wednesday evening with up to two-tenths of an inch of ice added to the mix in central and southern Ohio.
Ohio’s power companies heeded the warning with extra preparations for potential blackouts.
Duke Energy, which serves more than 1.3 million customers in Ohio and northern Kentucky, had more than 440 extra workers en route to the area Tuesday evening from North Carolina and South Carolina, Duke spokeswoman Johnna Reeder said. Another 750 had been requested in mutual assistance from other utilities.
“To be honest, we’re preparing for worst-case scenario but hoping for the best,” she said.
Reeder said as little as a quarter-inch of ice accumulation could take out a distribution line - the kind that line most residential streets - and a half-inch could disrupt a higher-voltage transmission line.
In western Ohio, Dayton Power & Light boosted its overnight crews by one-third to keep open access to substations and respond to any outages, spokeswoman Kelly Millhouse said.
American Electric Power, which has more than 1.4 million Ohio customers, also had extra help on call, spokeswoman Mary Flint said.
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16. January 2009 by admin.
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TORONTO — About half of the homes and businesses left in the dark and cold by a power blackout in Toronto now have their power back.
About 22,000 Toronto Hydro customers lost electricity when a broken water main flooded a power station at about 10 p.m. Thursday night. The power went off in sub-zero temperatures in a mostly residential area just west and north of the downtown core.
The city has opened seven city-run facilities to help people keep warm until the outage is repaired.
Mayor David Miller could not say when power would be restored, but Toronto Hydro earlier said it would take 18 to 24 hours.
Miller has asked residents in the affected area to check on their neighbours, particularly seniors, and help them get to a warm place.
The outage has forced a closure of some east-west subway stations in the affected area.
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16. January 2009 by admin.
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Toronto Power Outage Shuts Subway, Leaves Homes Cold (Update1)
Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) — A power outage in Toronto’s west end shut part of the subway service in Canada’s largest city and left homes without light and heat during frigid temperatures.
A section of the Bloor-Danforth line, which provides east- west transport in the city of 2.5 million people, isn’t operating and service has been replaced with shuttle buses, the Toronto Transit Commission said today on its Web site.
Power to the city’s western side has been cut since about 10 p.m. yesterday, when a broken water main flooded a power facility, Toronto Hydro Corp. said. Customers will be without power for a minimum 18 to 24 hours from the time of the outage, the power authority said on its Web site.
The outage is affecting about 22,000 customers and forced schools in the blacked-out area to close, the Toronto Star reported. The temperature in downtown Toronto was -18 degrees Celsius (-0.4 degrees Fahrenheit) as of 8 a.m. and a high of -12 degrees Celsius is forecast, according to the Weather Network.
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1. January 2009 by admin.
Thousands of Ontarians still waiting in the dark after Sunday windstorm
Almost 20,000 Ontarians rang in the New Year without power, with many disgruntled over the time it’s taking Hydro One to restore electricity after Sunday’s windstorm.
“The level of frustration is certainly high in areas where power has still not been restored,” said Don Coates, the mayor of Bracebridge. “People are coping as best as they can, but it’s not easy. … It’s definitely not the best way to spend New Year’s Eve.”
Up to 260,000 Ontarians lost power when hydro poles were felled by 100 km/h winds. Those still waiting for electricity to be restored include 2,900 customers in Bracebridge, 4,600 in Huntsville, 5,300 in Parry Sound and 4,200 in Bancroft.
It’s getting increasingly difficult for those who rely on electricity for heat to cope in sub-zero temperatures, said Huntsville Mayor Claude Doughty, whose daughter was without power for two days.
Hydro One says the power grid will likely be fully restored by Saturday.
Dozens of residents have come to the town’s community centre to seek refuge from their frosty homes. Others are using generators, wood stoves or fireplaces to stay warm, Doughty said.
Leaving their homes until power is flowing again isn’t an option. “They have to keep their homes reasonably warm otherwise the pipes (water pipes) will freeze. When the heat comes back, water can pour all over the house,” said Doughty. “It’s quite a challenge.”
Hydro One said there are accessibility issues, especially with buildings reachable only by water, but all customers are likely to get their power back today or tomorrow.
“We’re now in the most difficult stage of our restoration effort, working in densely treed areas, islands and off-road locations where one call restores one property,” said Myles D’Arcey of the power utility.
The company is using everything from snowmobiles to helicopters to reach the hard-to-access areas, and a workforce as large as the one that worked on the aftermath of the 1998 ice storm.
Hydro One spokesperson Nancy Shaddick said, “We’re doing everything we can, but it takes time.”
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