Posted on 08/28/2011 1:29:17 AM PDT by 11th_VA
It's pretty dark between Germantown and Gaithersburg.
Anyone got the PEPCO phone number? (Typing from my BB)
They don’t seem to be maintaining those maps very well.
How do I call without power? I’m using a cell phone, which I may need to shutdown to save power.
Who's without power in DC Area?Uh .. the US Congress?
oops, prolly not what you meant. Never mind. ;-)
I just cannot believe it took 23 posts before someone said this.... You could say republican senators as well...
I just cannot believe it took 23 posts before someone said this.... You could say republican senators as well...
The power company already knows who is without power. You don’t need to call them. Look outside. Do you see that it’s not just you in the dark? That’s because power doesn’t generally go out to individual houses. It goes down on sections of line. It does nobody any good — including you — for them to come reconnect a line to your house if the rest of the line is not energized. Believe it or not, they know what they’re doing and they’ll get you back on as soon as they can. They work out from the substations, getting the most people reconnected as possible at each stage. Again, they know what they’re doing.
My neighbors 500 ft away have power, I just want to make sure they know we are without power. Its been 5 hrs and we,re breaking out the Y2K oven - may be cooking out for awhile-will keep you posted ...
I do know that PECO here in SE PA has an automated system that uses your home phone number as the reporting link to your address, as well as their 16 digit account number. Pepco should have something similar, I’d think.
What you said is true for cities and suburbia, but not if you live in the country, and are the only house or two on the end of a long line serving only you.
Our feed has cut-outs (fused switches) a mile away serving 4 houses, toward us another serving 3, then one serving us and our son next door.
If we don’t call, they never know.....
And, as they always restore circuits feeding the largest number of people, we are always one of the last to be restored.
BTW, I’m an electrical engineer......
Obviously, if all your neighbors have power and you don’t then it’s time to call. My comment had more to do with people who call when it’s clear the whole neighborhood is out.
Arlis, you always will be the last one restored. That’s the order. You get the most people possible back on first and pick up the individuals last.
If you’re an electrical engineer, then nobody needs to explain to you that the line must be energized before you can get the last house on the line up. You’d be surprised how many people don’t understand that. I worked for rural electric cooperatives for 20 years. Part of my job was reporting on the power restoration efforts. I’d hear people bitch because they saw service trucks drive by when they didn’t have power. They couldn’t grasp the concept that the power had to flow down the line for them to have lights. I know you get that. I’m just saying . . .
One of the benefits of the newer automatic meter reading systems is that there will never be a need to notify the utility that your power is off.
yes, I’m not only aware of all you point out, but when the crew comes here to restore, most of the time I have to show them where the cutouts are and which ones are blown/open! Go figure! Our area is heavily forested w/hardwoods, and while the last 1/2 mile to our house is underground, all preceeding that is overhead and we have at least 6 outages a year avg, and I’ve lived here for 30 years.....
Last crew was from out of state, but you’d think they’d at least have a diagram of the circuits in the area. No, they have to trace the circuits on foot through heavy forest to find out where lines are down, circuits open. But even the local crews who’ve never been to our area are lost. By my helping them, I usually get our power on one to 2 hours quicker than without my guidance. They always are very appreciative of my help.
If DomVAPwr were state of the art, the field crews would have notebooks or iPads with all the circuits and cutouts GPS located!!!!
“If DomVAPwr were state of the art, the field crews would have notebooks or iPads with all the circuits and cutouts GPS located!!!!”
When I left the electric co-ops, we still had a few systems where the members had to read their own meters. Ironically, one up side to the rural co-ops being so far behind the technology curve is that when they finally do modernize, they tend to leapfrog past urban/suburban systems that have sort-of kept up. A few of our co-ops were the first utilities in the state to have GPS system maps, AMR technology, etc. because when they did decide to spend money on upgrades, they went all in . . .
>>>If DomVAPwr were state of the art, the field crews would have notebooks or iPads with all the circuits and cutouts GPS located!!!!
That makes way too much sense - thus it can not be done.
Yeah, according to the map, most of MISSOURI is without power.
I also notice most of continental Australia seems to be without power.
I went and looked, and sure enough, there was the breaker wide open.
The lineman came back around 2:00pm and sat in his truck for about 15 minutes, then left. At 4:00pm the LIMB REMOVAL CREW showed up.
They waited, at first, for the LINEMAN who had told them he would BE RIGHT THERE. He never showed up. They needed him to assure them the PRIMARY line power was off. After a while, they decided to go ahead. They cleared the limb off the line.
I went to the bottom of the street to see if the LINEMAN was down there, but all I found was the local TELCO guy standing beside a GENERATOR which was providing power for the PHONES so at least people could make calls. He said he was ALSO waiting for the LINEMAN to show up and turn on the power so he could remove the generator.
Well, I started making phone calls to the Local Electric company. They did nothing but LIE and MAKE UP EXCUSES. I got through to the Main office and talked to the secretary there, who told me I wasn't supposed to call that number. (Even though in the PHONE BOOK it said call this number if your power is out).
I kept telling them everything had been cleared, and that all we needed was one truck to STOP BY at the bottom of the street for 5 minutes and flip the breaker back into place. They kept telling me there MUST be something else wrong, or our power would already be back on. They ASSURED me that they had LOGGED my CALL, and even BUMPED IT UP in PRIORITY. I call about a dozen times, between Saturday afternoon and Sunday Afternoon (a 24 hour perioed). I asked them if their LINEMAN was therefore LYING or UNQUALIFIED, as he stated that removing that ONE LIMB was all that was needed, before he disappeared. They asked me did I know where the lineman was. I told them probably sitting in some bar, drawing FULL PAY.
END RESULT: Sunday EVENING, a LINEMAN (not the original one) showed up, and flipped the Breaker back on.
So... one should be on top of things , as not all 'employees' of the Electric companies are the FINE UPSTANDING CITIZENS' you make them out to be.
However, I found that complaining to the Electric company gets you put on the BOTTOM of the PRIORITY list.
First off, some people have cell phones.
Second, we were without power for two days, earlier this summer, and the landline phones were working because the local TELCO was prepared and had a set of trailers FULL of GENERATORS, which they hooked up to the TELCO BOXES where power was out.
We had one at the bottom of our street, you could hear it running all WEEKEND.
I was down there when the truck came by (full of generators and cans of diesel fuel) to refuel it.
Allow me to personally apologize for your inconvenience. Mind you, I have no association with your electric company, or any other one for that matter, but if it will make you feel better, I’m terribly sorry that you were treated so shamefully.
Say, you wouldn’t happen to be black, would you? Because, if you are, we could just chalk it up to racism.
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