Power Outages And Downed Lines During Hurricane And Tropical Storms
Does a hurricane or tropical storm typically cause power outages and downed power lines? It’s very common for high winds and falling trees to cause power outages, downed poles, and blown transformers during these types of storms and outages can last for 1-2 weeks depending on how strong the hurricane or tropical storm was.
It’s critical to remember when you discover lines on the ground and have evidence your entire area is without electricity, to treat these lines, poles, and transformers as though they still have an electrical charge running through them even when there is considerable evidence they aren’t carrying an electrical charge.
In the past decade, many cities, counties, and towns, along with homebuilders, are securing lines below ground instead of on poles as this is thought to decrease a neighborhood or subdivision’s chance of losing power during a storm.
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However, it should be noted until all segments along the grid are secured underground, the segments above ground carrying electricity to underground lines can still have outages in many cases.
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Additionally, many companies and electrical cooperatives along the coast are maintaining industrial parks in coastal areas which stores equipment need to reconstruct the power grid instead of staging in areas outside of storm impacted areas and then moving in to impacted areas.
This is thought to decrease the response time after a system impacts a local area.
Discussions On Electricity Outages Related To Hurricanes
If you live in a subdivision or neighborhood where lines are above ground, on average how often do you experience electricity outages when a tropical system impacts your area?
If you live in an area where lines are underground, how often do you experience electricity outages when a system hits your local area?
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While letting us know which city, town, or county you’re in, tell us how often and how long it typically takes to restore power after a hurricane passes your area. Or, what unique ways have your local providers and municipal governments come up with to lessen the time people do not have electricity?
Is there a direct correlation to the category strength of the system and whether an outage happens, or how long it takes for crews to restore your service?
Considering these systems becoming more frequent and getting stronger, is your local municipality working on a plan to put all electrical infrastructure underground?
Or, when considering buying a new home, is this something you consider before buying if the home you’re considering buying is located in a coastal region along the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic coast?
