OT - Still without power?
That...plus there's a few more people in Metro Detroit.
March 12th, 2017 at 11:40 AM ^
are you talking about more than 3.5k plus installation for a whole house generator, or something nasty?
or mine is too small?
not expensive, very versatile, especially important if you have anyone in your house with medical issues, and it will add to the resale value of your house.
take you less than an hour to pour the concrete pad. call your plumber and an electrician that you trust. not a big deal. do it before tornado season starts down in SE michigan.
is what I'm talking about,
He probably paid for that with his haircut savings.
help me pour the concrete. double the savings, double the fun.
March 12th, 2017 at 11:07 AM ^
But what if a tornado blows the generator away too? Then you'll wish you waited until *after* the season
that will mean there isn't a house there either, so power will be the least of the worries at that point.
insurance is for...
Legitimate claims. Not suggesting impropriety in any form... at all.
Back in 2005 or 06 there was a huge power outage that effected much of the midwest for several weeks. My company at the time ran an outbound call center in Twinsburg, Ohio and we were literally two blocks on the right side of the outage so we maintained power as much of the midwest was out. Meaning we stayed in business but if not for those two blocks we would've have been in real financial trouble as I dont think we could've susained two weeks down very well.
So the next year we moved to a brand new building in Solon and one of the things we decided to invest in was back up power. We spent over $50,000 getting a state of the art generator installed and had it such that your computer wouldnt even go down if power went out - less than a one second delay was set up. Tested it several times and it worked fantastic.
So we're in our new facility for about 2 weeks when the first big electric storm of the summer rolled in and shortly after it started we heard this loud BANG and then power goes completely dead. We're scrambling trying to figure out what the hell happened and why the generator didnt kick in as planned when one of my partners starts yelling "look at this...you gotta see this" so we go to his window and look at the smoldering remains of our $50,000 generator.
Lightning had struck the generator. I mean you cant make this stuff up - lightning struck our new generator and cooked it. Moral of the story is akk the back-up plans in the world cant overcome God/fate/karma - they remain undefeated.
We do try to do as much of what we call "restore before repair" as possible, which is why there are jumpering schemes and sectionalizing built into most circuits, so we can at least attempt partial restorations and minimize outages. However, we have a storm here that left a lot of operating equipment damaged too, so in some areas, even that was not an option. That, and the tree damage in a lot of locations was so prolific that it has been more sound to tackle that first.
Most of the time - do not quote me because it isn't 100% always - if you are part of a larger outage, your chances of that outage being shorter are probably greater, but then it also depends on the manner of the damage. For example, we lost a lot subtransmission in this one, which is the voltage between substations, so substations went flat and we lost thousands at a clip. Fix those, throw them in and we can get thousands back (unless there is damage on the distribution too, which....yeah, that is happening a lot this time), but all this gets triaged and assigned and ....TL;DR....we are out there.
Without knowing were you are, I honestly have no clue - in my world, we think in terms of which circuit and from there I could tell you what the dispatching situation is right down to the names of people (which I'll never actually reveal, of course). If you street is mostly restored, then my guess is that the trouble is down to either one transformer or one section of wire (can't see it, can't tell you), which means we've likely had crews on it and hopefully will get some more out there, but like I said, without a location, I can't tell you anything.
March 12th, 2017 at 11:03 AM ^
March 12th, 2017 at 11:09 AM ^
March 12th, 2017 at 12:28 PM ^
1) Apologize for your situation, but remember this is the worst power outage in the history of the company. More than a third of our customers were out.
2) As someone else in the thread mentioned, we use the standard industry approach of getting the most people back online the fastest. For example, if you have a 6 block radius and can get 90% of the area back on in an hour, but the remaining 10% would take another 5 hours (say due to a downed pole), then in a large outage you move the crew on to another location and come back for the 10% later. Hospitals, police stations, and critical infrastructure take priority.
3) Outage communication is a very inexact science. We hesitate to give specific times unless we are very certain because if you give someone a time slot, and then miss that time slot, then become even more frustrated. Also, there is no telling job to job exactly how long a it will take a crew to restore power, every situation is different.
4) Not sure if you do, but if you live in a rural/remote area, you should have a generator. During large outages these areas that are tough to get to, and deal with a small amount of customers, will always take longer to get back on.
Stay warm, stay safe, trust me when I say we are doing everything we can.
As LSA mentioned, due to the unexpected vast size of the outage, we really did not have a good handle on estimates until Friday.
I know John mentioned he wants to speak with a person/customer service rep, but if we don't have an estimate for you, outside of the standard "stay warm, stay away from lines, we are working hard", as frustrating as it is there isn't much else we can communicate.
Our technology (smart meters) has allowed us to identify outages much faster and more efficiently, however restoring power (fixing downed lines, breakers, poles) is still pretty old school, it takes time and is extremely dangerous.
March 12th, 2017 at 11:31 AM ^
Unfortunately, I don't work on the communications end (system design and engineering), but I've heard that a lot from people and the only thing I can really say is that nobody thought it would get as bad as it did, so they spent a lot of time tackling it from behind. I know the estimate system was off until late Friday because we quite frankly had no clue and hadn't even gotten a feel for how bad it was in some spots until then.
If you've got a safety concern about that wire - if it hasn't been taped or whatnot - you can hit me up on Twitter or e-mail lsaclassof2000(at)gmail(dot)com and I can pass it along if you've got a location.
Restoring service to the maiximum number of customers in the shortest amount of time doesn't make sense to you?
I'm a consultant in the utilities sector. I can assure you that this approach is NOT unique to DTE. But maybe someone from DTE will read your post and use that insight to revolutionize the industry!?
Grow up. Not everything is about you.
There are crews from multiple states working day and night to safely restore service. In addition to that, hundreds of employees stand guard over downed power lines.
This outage is the equivalent of a hurricane in terms of power lost. It was an act of nature. There is nobody to blame here. But I guess in this day/age we have to point a finger at someone for any inconvenience!
March 12th, 2017 at 10:42 AM ^
Ouch. That really hurt.
Stay safe and take care of your baby. That's the only important thing.
BTW - I wasn't offering an opinion. I was stating a fact. DTE is doing a GREAT job dealing with a catastophic event.
March 12th, 2017 at 11:17 AM ^
March 12th, 2017 at 11:06 AM ^
um... maybe take your own advice?
March 12th, 2017 at 11:11 AM ^
True, nothing in your OP called for telling you to "grow up". But that wasn't what I was responding to. It was the complaining about the restoration approach which in most cases favors a larger group over a small pocket of customers.
Most people would acknowledge that as a sensible approach. You disagree - probably because of your current situation.
Complaints posted here about communication are (somewhat) warranted. But even then, you don't always build/design/staff for a once in a lifetime event.(I offer MGoBlog as an example!)
Glad to know you are still safe. Let's hope100% of the crews working night and day get through this the same way.
I have to go finish making dinner for my in-laws. They still don't have power. So we all have our crosses to bear!
I finally got power back yesterday at about noon.
Just in time to watch the game .
Then with less than 10 minutes to go. The cable and internet went out .
It took me until almost 4 to find the final score .
March 12th, 2017 at 11:07 AM ^
Don't you have a phone?
March 12th, 2017 at 11:26 AM ^
Yes, it makes phone calls . Ya know the things a phone is supposed to be for .