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I can’t decide if this is what the slow collapse from climate change looks like - more and more extreme events that we can no longer adequately prepare or respond to.

Or if the corruption has gotten so bad, things will only get worse from here on out, as funding for adequate and reliable infrastructure and services goes into the pockets of the corrupt and wealthy instead.

They're not mutually exclusive. Fun stuff.

Meanwhile, in the southeast, my AC has been coming on. In February. Climate change is wild.

Sitting here in the NE wondering when winter will start:(

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It’s been hot 🥵

I can’t decide either. A significant portion of the population thinks climate change either isn’t real or that it will only have a small effect on us.

We’ve come so far as a species because of science and technology. We’re interacting right now because of it. If our lives are on the line, we go to science. Science tells us the climate is changing and some people baselessly deny it or think it’s some conspiracy.

Things of this magnitude should never be politicized. It’s a force of nature. The climate doesn’t care what you believe in. We’re all at its mercy.

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Just wait for this summer. Get ready to burn.

They're the same thing, actually.

As climate change constrains and limits resources ^((uninhbitable land, reduced food production, unpredictable weather harming logistics, etc.)) Coroporations and governments come into more and more competition over them. When you pair a shareholder-capitlaism economic model that demands infinite growth, with a world of shrinking resources, you inevitably create conflict.

In that environment, you cannot afford to invest resources in preparation/prevention, because every $ MUST go to shareholder value. So inevitably, you don't manage your risks and then catastrophe strikes becuase climate change has altered the actual risk scenarios.

US power outage map: https://poweroutage.us/

right haha I'm in NE Ohio and it was 70 yesterday. This is the mildest Feb I can remember (I'm not complaining lol)

This article is about power outages that happened in 2 very specific locations in America.

Heavily wooded areas that were affected by seasonal ice storms. Since our power grid is above ground, falling limbs is always going to be an issue.

I’m in Mo and almost turned my a/c on Wednesday, and then I was in a tornado warning.

I’m in NC and yeah we were burning gas in our furnace last week. Yesterday it hit 80F. I fought the desire to turn on the AC and just used ceiling fans. I’m worried about this summer.

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The only way to address this is to bury all the power lines, but which would be incredibly expensive and not even be completed in our grandchildrens lifetimes.

Hopefully by then buildings are more self sufficient for power with solar and battery storage systems.

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Yeah crazy how different the comments are here…

Texas had power outages localized in a single city because of downed trees and this subreddit acted like the whole state was about to die.

I live in Colorado and we have winter storms without the power going out. There are many ways to do this even without burying the lines.

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A lot of Colorado is a desert.

In northern states, all the lines are covered by trees. Many of them damaged from non-native invasive bugs that made their way over from Asia in shipping.

It doesn't take much high winds or ice coating for tree limbs to come down on power lines.

The power companies do try to trim trees constantly but it is inevitable that there will be outages whenever there are high winds or icy conditions.

I live in southern new England and any time we get sustained winds over 45-50mph with higher gusts it can lead to power outages that last several days to a week due to tree damage to the electrical grid.

I believe we have had 4 or 5 multi day outages in the past 7 years. It is not uncommon for us to get strong storms that are the equivalent of a tropical storm or a hurricane in the winter.

One million power outages, or one million people effected by power outages?

If you don't understand the difference then no one can help you.

Nah bro, your comment is too reasonable. You can't expect people to actually know how the power grid works /sarcasm

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Which of their many, many power outages was that?

Because Texas had plenty and I can't even remember the outage that was limited to just one city.

Feels like cherrypicking one story to make a bad joke.

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Where I live we have trees everywhere lol. We have trees that come down every winter storm too. So we have the same issues. I have not had a single outrage here and I have lived here for 2 years even when one of our trees did fall down. I lived in WA before that where we also had trees that came down and still didn't have an outage there for decades. Both of these places have windstorms and we still don't deal with power outages frequently. There is something else wrong with their power grid or staffing, it's not just trees and lines.

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Do you mean to tell me, that this is a normal result of certain types of weather events, that they have always occurred (more severely in the past, faster restoration now, thanks to technological improvements), and that Reddit is screaming that the sky is falling because they now have access to a website that shows them how many customers are without power at any given time?

Blasphemy! It's because everything is going to hell in a handbasket!!

/s just in case

Don't you get it?

When Republican-leaning states gets hit with a natural disaster it's because they're 3rd world countries full of hicks and rednecks that deserve it.

When Democrat-leaning states get hit with a natural disaster it's because of climate change

The one this year that everyone who didn’t live in the state freaked out about.

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It's almost like every state is diverse with both conservatives and liberals and just because the guy at the top isn't on your team means the whole state deserves to burn

Identity politics are fucking up this country

Are you talking to me or at Reddit in general?

Why not both?

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I live in one of these areas. The power companies do absolutely zero maintenance on the poles and lines. They don’t trim trees and branches at all. There are 800+ lines down in Michigan. They are down because the trees weren’t trimmed and iced up then collapsed on the line. This would have been significantly reduced if appropriate tree maintenance was done.

I’ve not had power for 2.5 days and they haven’t even assigned a crew to my neighborhood. The crews around here have been working on clearing downed lines and trees for the last 60 hours. They haven’t even started restoration processes or even assigned a crew to a restoration or outage area.

This issue was exasperated by the power company not conducting proper preventative maintenance. It is not a freak accident. My power company had record profit last year and a year/year profit increase of 17%. They are not reinvesting anything for proper maintenance.

There are more crews assigned in other counties and their power is being restored faster than mine, even though my county has 2/3x the population and population density. For some reason, we have less crews actively working to restore power than rural counties that have are not being prioritized over rural outages and towns with 2,000-10,000 people. Based off the outage maps, I estimate that rural counties have 4-5x more crews actively working on outages.

Why not both?

Like, damn people, is it okay to say that even in unprecedented times, we shouldn’t have nearly a million homes without power in a single state?

It’s clearly a lack of preparation and lack of execution by DTE, even if you do acknowledge, that yes, it is an unprecedented storm.

I’m not going to hand wave away being without power in freezing temperatures for fucking four days presumably…I wouldn’t know, because DTE ha yet to offer a more specific timetable nearly 48 hours after power loss…It’s not acceptable, and it shouldn’t be excused.

But the Texas power grid…. 🙄 maybe it’s not always the grid? Maybe sometimes it’s the weather.

Remember when there was thousands of homes in a few counties that lost power during the ice storm in Texas a few weeks ago, and so many people were quick to publicly shame and blame the Texas power grid, the Governor, and the power companies, while also saying that wouldn't happen in their state because their power grid is so much better?

To be clear, I was one the Texans without power for 3 days during the record breaking blizzard in 2021 that showed how badly unprepared our power grid was then, and I don't wish that on anyone. I also know the outages from a few weeks ago were all caused by frozen tree limbs or whole trees falling on local power lines, which is probably most of what's happening in the areas affected now.

My only point is that I'm wondering why haven't we heard everyone criticizing their governors and power grids now?

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Damn that sounds nice. Here in Wisconsin I'm just looking forward to being able to open the windows for the first time in six months.

"Hey, North America? Yeah, this is Winter. Gonna be a little late. "

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I live in Edmonton AB. I believe we began burying our lines in the 90s. As long as all new developments get buried, you can catch up on primary runs in city cores by directional drilling fairly quickly. The only time I've personally seen outages in the winter would be from vehicles crashing into transformers. Power back on in an hour. -40⁰c is pretty common for us, I couldn't imagine loosing power for any longer than that without a wood burning stove or a gas fireplace.

In the Philly area, I actually saw a few weak flakes today, which is a rarity this year. Our season snow total stands at a ridiculously low 0.3” and that little dusting melted within a few hours. An average year for us should total 21” of snow. Instead, in February, we’ve had many days in the 60’s and a few in the 70’s. It’s just wrong.

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