Power Problems
When they said weeks, they weren’t kidding.
Market Watch has an article on Entergy power restoration status
Work continues to repair damage from Hurricane Gustav. As of 4 p.m. Monday, crews had restored power to 99 percent of the affected customers in Louisiana. Remaining damage to the transmission system from Gustav includes 15 lines and seven substations out of service.
That’s in addition to everything that happened during Hurricane Ike.
You can track the status of friends and relatives in the service area at the Entergy Storm Center.
The Houston Chronicle reports on the power situation in Texas
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas is reporting 114 high-voltage transmission lines are out of service. These include six massive 345-kilovolt (kV) lines in the Houston-Galveston area.
Another 89 138-kV and 21 69-kV lines are disabled. Preliminary reports from power companies indicate most transmission outages are due to debris on lines rather than significant structural damage, ERCOT spokeswoman Dottie Roark said in a written statement.
Hurricane Ike also knocked about 3,000 megawatts of electricity generation offline, mostly because the transmission system is damaged and cannot handle it. That’s 13 power plants out of 35 plants for Texas.
Some people will get power back almost immediately, but working on the kV lines is slow because you have to climb those towers and the lines are thick and heavy. Replacing one of those towers usually requires a heavy-lift helicopter, but it doesn’t sound like many of the actual towers were damaged.
