Grayson Emergency Management co-director Joanne Dunfee is asking folks to start preparing early for possible winter storms like those that struck the area last winter.
Dunfee said that another severe winter storm season is predicted for this year. That includes heavy snows and ice storms of the sort that took out electricity and shut down roadways for extended periods.
Dunfee recommends having first aid kits prepared, stockpiling drinking water and canned goods, filling tubs and sinks for flushing toilets at the first signs of a power outage (power outages can impact water pumping stations), purchasing solar chargers, hand crank chargers, or other battery banks for charging cell phones and other electrical devices, and making arrangements for heating and cooking. This can include propane heaters and cooking stoves, kerosene heaters and kerosene lamps for lighting. You should also check the charge on your batteries, and purchased extra batteries, for flashlights and radios.
If you plan to use propane to heat or cook, make sure your tanks are full.
Remember you may need a way to light those candles, kerosene lamps, or gas stoves as well. If they don’t have electrical starters, or the batteries have died, having long matches or lighters with an extended reach can be helpful as well.
If you have a generator you can use to run electrical appliances in your home, be sure you have plenty of fuel for those generators in advance as well. Also make sure they are located a safe distance from the home or any air intakes, to protect yourself from any gasoline fumes.
While these are all things that you can do in your own home to be prepared for extended power outages – and you can follow Dunfee on Facebook for more tips and information – individual preparation alone isn’t going to be enough to keep us all safe, warm, and fed during a weather emergency.
For that, we need infrastructure improvements.
Grayson RECC has reportedly hired contractors to begin cutting back tree branches around their power lines in anticipation of more winter storms and the broken trees and branches that took out so many power lines last winter. But not all of those lines were taken out by falling trees and limbs. Some of those lines collapsed under the weight of ice accumulation. Ice was so heavy that not only did it coat and bring down lines, in some cases it snapped the poles supporting them. Grayson RECC replaced one pole on Route 7 near Grayson Lake only to have further ice snap the replacement pole.
What this points to is a need for a fundamental shift in the way electricity is delivered to our homes. For homeowners who can afford it, this might mean installing solar panels.
For power companies, it might mean a shift from the existing poles to an underground conduit to supply power.
Moving power lines underground comes with its own set off problems. Heat dissipation is the biggest technical issue to overcome, but the cost for burying lines isn’t insignificant. The cheapest option is digging an open trench that is backfilled once the project is complete. A more expensive, but less disruptive, method is horizontal drilling. The cost for either option is going to be significant – running into the billions of dollars to complete the upgrades nationwide.
But the costs for repairs and lost service every year from hurricanes, tornadoes, and ice storms are also significant, amounting to millions, if not billions, of dollars each year according to figures reported in magazines like Popular Science.
“One hour (of) power outage can cost commercial and industrial facilities tens of thousands of dollars,” Popular Science noted in a 2018 article. Most outages last much longer than an hour, though, and those costs continue to build the longer an outage lasts.
While the costs for moving to an underground power grid might be significant, the advantages are undeniable. Greater stability in severe weather events and money saved on repairs could easily pay for the improvements over time.
Along with improvements to drainage and flood control that are being funded by FEMA programs at the local government level, a switch to underground power lines could make a huge difference in our power security.
And, as a bonus, it would be really nice to look at our gorgeous landscapes without having the view disrupted by power lines and electric poles. At the very least the idea deserves serious consideration.
