"Pete C." wrote in message
.com...

My mother's place in CT went 7+ days without utility power. I got up
there Tuesday evening, cleared the trees from the driveway and got the
generator going. Spent the next couple days removing more trees /
branches and patching two holes in the roof where big branches hit.
About 10pm Sat evening a crew from MO was by and repaired the damaged
drop (snapped neutral), and a few hours later they had repaired enough
along the street to get power back on. All in all one of the nastier CT
storms in my 41 years of experience, but there have been similar in the
past so it's certainly not unprecedented.

Isn't it time for a rethink of this problem? The 3-wire electric lines to
homes in the U.S. is sometimes called an "Edison Connection" because it
dates from Edison's time. The same for the poles, transformers and other
local distribution equipment. All of it sensitive to wind, snow, ice,
falling trees, etc. I think we can do better.

Also, does it make sense for local utilities, with aid from other utilities
depending upon the size of the disaster, to be expected to handle the
massive repair task. Maybe that should be done with a large regional pool
of equipment and people that's set up to get places fast.

What we know is that these disasters seem to be coming more frequently and
increasing numbers of people are being put at risk and hardship -- and it's
costing a lot of money. That says we should be thinking of better ways to
address the problem.

TKM