Any guesses as to brown outs this week? I can't believe the grid is going to hold.
Brown Outs
Comments ... #
Brown outs sound like a personal problem.
posted by hunkytownsausage on Jul 20, 2011 at 09:24:39 am # 1 person liked this
I spoke to a technician yesterday who recommended lightly spraying your air conditioner unit with water to cool it down. He says it will not have to work as hard to cool your house and save on electricity. Thoughts?
Hmmn...interesting idea Annie.
I can check with my cousins. (They have a plumbing and heating business - have done all the AC work for several carriers' cell towers for years. If that suggestion works, they'd probably know.)
I'm not saying one article found on the internet is what you should listen to, but all this makes sense to me:
http://www.gwac.com/spray-water-aircondition-efficient
posted by idinspired on Jul 20, 2011 at 10:29:42 am # 1 person liked this
This time several years ago the grid went out on the east coast. My oldest son and I were at The Jamie Farr when it happened. We watched on the TV in the clubhouse. If i remember - it started in Canada. Just saw a temp map for the day. This will be a real test.
posted by Molsonator on Jul 20, 2011 at 10:31:39 am #
That was 2003 - I was 8 months pregnant when it happened.
I remember being very concerned about the possibility of going too long without AC and running water, given my condition at the time.
I thought it was knocked out by a tree falling on a First Energy line in Cleveland...
Molsonator posted at 10:31:39 AM on Jul 20, 2011:
This time several years ago the grid went out on the east coast. My oldest son and I were at The Jamie Farr when it happened. We watched on the TV in the clubhouse. If i remember - it started in Canada. Just saw a temp map for the day. This will be a real test.
That blackout occurred on Aug 14, 2003. Apparently, high demand led to strain on power lines, which caused the lines to sag and contact trees that should have been trimmed or removed.
Aug 14, 2003 Toledo Talk post titled Eastern U.S. power outage :
Here in west Toledo, we had a strange power drain and outage at about 4:15 pm. The local AM radio stations, 1230, 1370, 1470, went off the air, and at 4:50 they are still off. Some of the local TV stations had blackout messages on their screens. Power came back up here in West Toledo right away. I changed to K100 and they were giving the news about the incident. It's not a terrorist act. It seems it's a natural power outage due to load. There is still power out in places in Toledo. Traffic in Toledo is, of course, slow. There are power outages throughout the northeast U.S.
Aug 17, 2003 comment that excerpted from a Toledo Blade story:
[FirstEnergy] admitted that an alarm system that would have alerted the utility to greater problems was not working. The alarm system could have helped identify voltage irregularities and other problems on its transmission system. FirstEnergy officials said the company was in no way admitting responsibility for the outage.
The Trees retaliated against humans.
Nov 19, 2003 - CNN - Trees root cause in U.S., Canadian blackout :
The blackout was initiated when three high-voltage transmission lines operated by FirstEnergy short-circuited and went out of service when they came in contact with trees that were too close to the lines," U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said.
FirstEnergy failed to conduct "vegetation management," a euphemism for chopping away overgrown limbs and brush around its high-voltage transmission wires.
FirstEnergy was aware of the problem, the report said. Aerial inspections it conducted on its lines in 2001 and 2002 showed "significant numbers of trees and brush that needed clearing or trimming" along many transmission lines, it said.
Wikipedia: Northeast Blackout of 2003 :
At the time, it was the second most widespread blackout in history, after the 1999 Southern Brazil blackout. The blackout affected an estimated 10 million people in Ontario and 45 million people in eight U.S. states.
In addition to determining the initial cause of the cascading failure, the investigation of the incident also included an examination of the failure of safeguards designed to prevent a repetition of the Northeast Blackout of 1965.
The [Feb 2004] report states that a generating plant in Eastlake, Ohio (a suburb of Cleveland) went offline amid high electrical demand, putting a strain on high-voltage power lines (located in a distant rural setting) which later went out of service when they came in contact with "overgrown trees". The cascading effect that resulted ultimately forced the shutdown of more than 100 power plants.
As power lines carry more current, they get hotter. This causes them to lengthen and sag between towers. They may safely reach a specified minimum clearance height above the ground. If the lines sag further, a flashover to nearby objects (such as trees) can occur, causing a transient increase in current.
A software bug known as a race condition existed in General Electric Energy's Unix-based XA/21 energy management system. Once triggered, the bug stalled FirstEnergy's control room alarm system for over an hour. System operators were unaware of the malfunction. The lack of alarms led operators to dismiss a call from American Electric Power about the tripping and reclosure of a 345 kV shared line in northeast Ohio. Technical support informed control room personnel of the alarm system failure at 15:42.
Eventually, I think FirstEnergy made wide, clear-cut paths by removing a lot of trees that grew near power lines.
Here's hoping they fixed the software problem, too. It's never a good idea when workers are told to disregard alarms. Especially not the power company.
The transformer in our neighborhood grid caught on fire about an hour ago. We're in the midst of a brownout right now. My basement light is the only thing that will come on.
I had a feeling we'd be dealing with this at some point. I'm just glad the sun has already set, so I can keep it a little cooler in here for longer.
Friend posted on Facebook about hour ago they've been without power five hours. Sylvania Twp., Pacesetter Park area. Couple more days of heat misery, not sure this grid's gonna hold...
As of 8:45 a.m. today, the First Energy System Outage Map shows no power outages reported in Lucas County.
As of 9:01 a.m., some power outages have been reported in Toledo and Holland.
Toledo's official record high temp for July 21 is 99 °F set in 1930.
Weather forecast issued this morning:
Excessive heat warning remains in effect from 10 am this morning to 9 PM EDT this evening...
Oppressive heat and humidity will remain across the region on Thursday with temperatures approaching 100 degrees. These hot temperatures combined with high humidity levels will produce heat index values of 105 to 115 degrees from late morning into Thursday evening.
Today... Sunny. Isolated showers and thunderstorms this afternoon. Hot with highs around 100. West winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent. Heat index values up to 108
Tonight... Partly cloudy. Muggy. Lows in the mid 70s. Northwest winds 10 to 15 mph. Heat index values up to 106 early in the evening.
Friday... Mostly sunny. A chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the lower 90s. East winds around 5 mph... Becoming south in the afternoon. Chance of rain 30 percent.
Saturday... Partly sunny. A chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Humid with highs in the lower 90s. Southwest winds around 5 mph...becoming southeast around 5 mph in the afternoon. Chance of rain 30 percent. Heat index values up to 102.
Sunday... Partly sunny with a chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the lower 90s. Chance of rain 30 percent.
Monday... Mostly sunny. A chance of showers and thunderstorms in the morning. Highs in the upper 80s. Chance of rain 30 percent.
Tuesday... Sunny. Highs in the mid 80s.
Recent high temps at Toledo Express Airport:
- July 16: 90
- July 17: 93
- July 18: 96
- July 19: 94
- July 20: 96
Our power was back to full strength at about 1:30 a.m. Hoping the repaired transformer holds through today--and that our wall unit AC keeps plugging along.
Friend posted on Facebook about hour ago they've been without power five hours. Sylvania Twp., Pacesetter Park area. Couple more days of heat misery, not sure this grid's gonna hold...
Weird - Pacesetter Park is basically in my backyard, and we never lost power.
valbee posted at 09:43:20 AM on Jul 21, 2011:
Our power was back to full strength at about 1:30 a.m. Hoping the repaired transformer holds through today--and that our wall unit AC keeps plugging along.
A quick aside, I have a older window unit A/C that someone can have if they are in need. I was just gonna scrap it for a couple of bucks.
I'm on a jobsite right now but I could be available Monday or so.
mom2, the post said 'my house' without power, not 'neighborhood' so maybe it was specific to their house somehow. I assumed it'd be an 'area' thing grid-related, maybe not. He's just north of Pacesetter.
As of 11:21 a.m. today, the First Energy System Outage Map shows more areas in the Toledo area are without power, including the communities of Holland, Oregon, Swanton, and Toledo. Each with 500 or fewer customers without power.
Mom2, in our neighborhood, our grid was the inner square of a larger square of streets. All of the houses in the inner square were out; all those on the opposite side of the streets were fine.
McCaskey - its possible that there was a nearby subdivision without power.
I think I remember from past power outtages that there might be a dividing line near my home where some neighborhoods are on one transformer, and others are on a different transformer. (Not sure if that's the technically correct terminology, but I do recall there being an odd stagger of homes with and without power before.)
(ah...valbee beat me to the possible explanation, but I hadn't refreshed the page to see the response)
power went out in the warehouse district today at around 12:30
i had a restaurant full of people waiting for their food when the lights and AC shut down. needless to say, we turned everyone else away at the door, but we did manage to feed those that had already been seated!
posted by upso on Jul 21, 2011 at 03:23:18 pm # 1 person liked this
upso posted at 03:23:18 PM on Jul 21, 2011:
power went out in the warehouse district today at around 12:30
i had a restaurant full of people waiting for their food when the lights and AC shut down. needless to say, we turned everyone else away at the door, but we did manage to feed those that had already been seated!
Blade story posted earlier today Power outage reported downtown, South Toledo
About 6,000 homes and businesses in downtown and South Toledo have lost power in a noontime outage Thursday, but a Toledo Edison spokesman said the problem is not believed to be weather-related.
A circuit breaker tripped at a substation on Hawley Street, spokesman Debbie Paul said. Because the substation otherwise checks out normal, she said, it is suspected that an animal may have caused a short-circuit, but that won’t be known for sure until repair crews dispatched to the substation arrive.
The 3:51 p.m. FirstEnergy System Outage Map still shows:
Estimated Customers Out For LUCAS County
- Toledo: 5,001 - 10,000
- Maumee: 500 or less
- Oregon: 500 or less
(Shouldn't that read "500 or fewer?")
4:00 p.m. airport temps:
- Toledo Express: 101 - heat index 109
- Toledo Metcalf: 105 - heat index 117
Not heat related? BWAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAA!
posted by Molsonator on Jul 21, 2011 at 04:41:04 pm #
saw you on the news just now upso, you sure seem unphased. good for you, you came across extremely well.
Looks like you guys get to cool down pretty quick. Well considering we've been 100+ for almost 30 days here now, 90s would be a welcome cool down.
We've had a few power outages here and there, but nothing like what you all are having there. They tend to keep the power grid updated down here and I doubt First Energy has really done much up there.
However, do yourselves a favor. Keep the A/C around 78 between 2 and 7 when it is hottest to save yourself some money. Once the temp gets over 30 degrees higher than your thermostat, it is going to run into issues keeping up.
posted by JustaSooner on Jul 21, 2011 at 06:35:42 pm #
How many trees do you have out there in Oklahoma, only time I went through there I only saw scrub bushes.
posted by Linecrosser on Jul 21, 2011 at 09:07:25 pm #
LC - Depends what part of the state you are in.
From: http://www.travelok.com/article_page/oklahomasdiverseecoregions
It’s one of only four states with more than 10 ecoregions, and has by far, the most per mile in America according to the EPA.
Panhandle you have some of the Rocky foothills and the mesas from from lava flows.
Northwest is classic prairie with the rolling hills, shrubs, and a few sparse trees.
Southwest you have some of the same, but mostly flat except around the Wichita Mountains.
Central part you start getting into more trees with some decent height, especially around the main populated areas. It is almost night and day from the east side of I-35 to the west.
Northeast is pretty comparable to Ohio, but more hills as you are moving into the Ozarks.
Southeast gets into very dense forest as you enter the Ouachita Mountains and eventually the swamps.
posted by JustaSooner on Jul 21, 2011 at 09:58:58 pm #
jr said: (Shouldn't that read "500 or fewer?")
omg, YES, thank you! I can put up with a lot of misuse and abuse of words and spelling but that one stabs me every time.
hope everyone is back to normal!
Snapshot of the FirstEnergy outage map. Heat plus storms and animals.
Snapshot of the FirstEnergy outage map after storms rolled through.
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