texas and not having power go together like a horse and carriage
Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
231–240 of 462 posts
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think part of the argument is that it’s like that the number of these events will double or trouble, or even become yearly with climate change.
Yes, that's the argument. Of course, some of it remains to be seen, because as of now we're not actually seeing more or more intense storms compared to historical averages (at least that we know about). Houston has, on average, one large storm event every decade or so, and that hasn't really changed much over the last 100 years. https://www.weather.gov/hgx/major_events
We’re probably about to see more and more intense storms over the Atlantic. Hurricane Beryl is the earliest category five Atlantic hurricane in records going back around 100 years ([source](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9r3g572lrno)).
So it’s just a matter of time.
Also, looking at your source, I see 2 tropical cyclones between 1900-1950, 3 between 1950-2000, and then 8 in the 24 years since. To me that looks like an increase in tropical cyclones over time.
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you suggesting that the vast ghettoes and low-income areas in Houston all install solar panels and Tesla Powerwalls? Many people in hardest-hit areas struggle paycheck to paycheck- if they're working at all.
No I do not. I was not aware of the vast ghettoes. But some kind of middle class has to exist as the article headline talks about air conditioning - in Germany air conditioning is not common even in the upper middle class - this may be different in the US - idk.
“Vast ghetto” is a bit extreme but a lot of the gulf coast is very poor indeed. Texas has plenty of very poor neighborhoods as does Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida right in prime hurricane paths.
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you suggesting that the vast ghettoes and low-income areas in Houston all install solar panels and Tesla Powerwalls? Many people in hardest-hit areas struggle paycheck to paycheck- if they're working at all.
No I do not. I was not aware of the vast ghettoes. But some kind of middle class has to exist as the article headline talks about air conditioning - in Germany air conditioning is not common even in the upper middle class - this may be different in the US - idk.
It turns out the climate of Houston and Germany are pretty different. Who knew.
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#235[flagged]
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
As European I find it strange how few power and telecom wires seem to be buried in the US. What's up with that? I get that in rural regions digging a ditch isn't worth it, but the Houston area has pretty high population density and still has wires on poles.
A lot of the infrastructure was established when density was much lower, so it was built out in the cheaper way, and now changing it is more expensive than just keeping on keeping on. That and a lot of Europe got to do some involuntary infrastructure rebuilding in the 1940s that the US didn't.
To be fair to the comparison and Houston, the vast majority of Houston didn't exist in the 1940s either.
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see people talking about deficiencies in the Texas grid, and that may be true but hardly seems relevant to Houston; it's the Houston grid that seems to be acutely problematic. In fact, it occurred to me that with much of Houston still offline, the TX grid is probably less stressed than usual and a look at the dashboards on ercot.com would seem to confirm this - capacity is well over demand.
The state grid is problematic at other times, but in the case of storms, it's irrelevant when a fallen tree takes out a physical power line. It's more of a "last mile" issue.
The solution to last-mile problems is fewer miles. Fact is metro Houston takes up 15x more land than is really called for. A factor of 15 makes a significant difference in the cost of wires, pipes, and roads.
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's free if you spend it on a durable asset that is as or more valuable than the cash was, which can often be true of infrastructure. Your balance sheet goes up not down after the spend then.
There are vanishingly few examples of infrastructure spending that don't turn into massive, wasteful boondoggles; perhaps the Interstate Highway system. The national railroad system a century prior and even the Internet were nearly entirely built with private funds.
The interstate highway system is arguably a massively wasteful boondoggle - it subsidises trucks at the cost of the far more efficient and less-polluting rail.
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, building the infrastructure in the cheapest way possible has consequences. Underground lines would not be vulnerable to falling trees. But they are a lot more expensive to install, and when they require maintenence for any other reasons.
As European I find it strange how few power and telecom wires seem to be buried in the US. What's up with that? I get that in rural regions digging a ditch isn't worth it, but the Houston area has pretty high population density and still has wires on poles.
If this happened every year they’d be underground. Situations like this aren’t common enough to create the need for a real fix. They’ll just patch it up and move on.
Re: Houston-area residents enter sixth day without power, air conditioning
#240I was there last weekend & for the day of the hurricane. This was just a cat 1 hurricane at the time it passed through Houston, and there was SO much damage. I can't imagine the city is remotely prepared for (god forbid, and idk how likely it is that far inland anyway) a cat 4 or 5. We were staying in a hotel that had a backup generator, but every single other building that was visible from our hotel had lost power d…
This wasn't a "grid issue." It is a last-mile issue. It's specifically an issue with the sheer amount of above ground power lines and population density. There is no easy fix, preparation, or practically anything else that can be done to prevent something like this. Plus, what causes the same amount of power outages (wind damage) isn't going to be different between 90mph winds and 150 mph winds. The effects are going…
I think there is also a tree maintenance issue, the same problem that lead to fires in California. I'm 2 blocks from where one of the tornados touched down during the derecho and close the transmission lines that were heavily damaged. We were without power for 5 days after the derecho and only 1 day this time. If you look at where power was least impacted and restored the soonest for Beryl it is the same area that was most impacted by the derecho.
I think the derecho took out a lot of the problematic trees and branches.