Who Needs Electricity On Such a Lovely Day?

By Robert Wilonsky Thu., Jul. 28 2011 at 9:39 AM

I don't trust that Oncor power-outage map -- mostly because it doesn't show operating-on-emergency-back-ups Unfair Park HQ on the in-the-dark list, or maybe we're just the unlucky 26 sans juice in Dallas. (Says 1,088 are sweating it out in Fort Worth.) Course, it could be worse: We could be living in Bluffview, which went with but mostly without all week. Then again, I've always wanted to live in Bluffview, which would mean not being able to afford the electricity bill anyway.

Catherine Cuellar, spokesperson for Oncor, says the Bluffview outage was due to an "unlucky trifecta -- a car hitting a utility poll, a tree hitting a line and a transformer being replaced." That, and one angry resident, add up to news stories galore. But, yes, power outages are likely -- not rolling blackouts, just simple outages. Because, as Cuellar says, "When everybody's demand for ice-cold air conditioning is high day, night and weekends, that, combined with the very high ambient temperature, makes it hard for our equipment to cool, and the more it's working the harder it is to maintain at times."

At which point we had long talk about the state of the infrastructure (till Smart Meters, virtually "unchanged since the days of Thomas Edison"), how much fun it can be to compare and contrast electricity rates, how much a single thermostat degree's worth on your electrical bill ("Every degree you drop increases your bill by 7 percent"), the ERCOT warning two weeks ago ("due to a loss of generation ... reserves are good") and how Oncor is "grateful that, thanks to the successful conservation efforts in the area, there hasn't been the need for rolling outages." At which point she said Oncor recommends you set the thermostat to warm and head to the mall. Excellent.

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Steve

Notice the brand spanking new trucks ONCOR drives slowly to your outage. I actually have to call their hot line during an outage, and have gotten the same recording for years:

"Crews are in your area. Your power will be restored shortly!"

I have cruised the area looking for ONCOR trucks while my generators are running, nope, no crews in the area.

Rick

Oncor's outage reporting and map are a joke. In June parts of Lakewood were out of power on a Saturday and a week later on a Sunday, both lasting well over 3 hours.The automated line knows of no issues; the map shows dallas at a level that isn't useful, and to top it off there is no explanation given of why what area is out of power, what is being done to restore and when power can be expected to be back on.It's also ironic that you can 'see' the power outage map online, but without power most of us don't have internet access; the outage number doens't provide status updates (it only lets one report an outage).

james

oncor is too busy counting record profits to answer to their customers.

Montemalone

EFH couldn't tote the $20B note from the buyout.

james

when a truck hit a pole near my home on july 15...near 635/175...the fire truck blocked the street for over an hour, waiting for oncor employees to show. when the crew was finally there, the chief said he came from midlothian. now that is some heckuva 'infrastructure' ain't it? we get poles knocked down in a major city like dallas...and wait for a crew to arrive from the small town of midlothian. ain't oncor great!

Mark Carlton Gibbs

Robert, go fill in with Norm!

Robert Wilonsky

I think Norm hates me. Now at the house anyway. Phones are dead, no AC, repairs not expected to be done for several hours. Closer to my Old Fitz too. Of course, perhaps I should go to the mall.

LaceyB

I've been in Brooklyn for the past week waiting for the S and Q in various bourbon-cocktail and sun-drunken states. Ever since, I've been back in my icy cold hole-in-the-wall. But, why stanky Northpark? Why not the Grapevine or another bloggable bar??