Posted on 08/28/2023 4:12:03 AM PDT by george76
In the first moments of the Maui fires, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electrified wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames erupted all at once in long, neat rows — those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact...
those wires were among miles of line that Hawaiian Electric Co. left naked to the weather and often-thick foliage, despite a recent push by utilities in other wildfire- and hurricane-prone areas to cover up their lines or bury them.
Compounding the problem is that many of the utility’s 60,000, mostly wooden power poles, which its own documents described as built to “an obsolete 1960s standard,” were leaning and near the end of their projected lifespan.
...
It’s “very unlikely” a fully-insulated cable would have sparked and caused a fire in dry vegetation...
wire that was insulated would not have arced and sparked, igniting a line of flame.
....
a former member of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission confirmed many of Maui’s wooden power poles were in poor condition. Jennifer Potter lives in Lahaina
...
power poles. They were skinny, bending, bowing. The power went out all the time.”
...
This was a “preventable tragedy of epic proportions
...
Hawaiian Electric also faces criticism for not shutting off the power amid high wind warnings and keeping it on even as dozens of poles began to topple. Maui County sued Hawaiian Electric on Thursday over this issue.
...
Other utilities have been addressing the issue of bare wire. Pacific Gas & Electric was found responsible for the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California that killed 85 people.
The disaster was caused by downed power lines.
program to eliminate uninsulated wire in fire zones has covered more than 1,200 miles of line .
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Yup. Most of the money that was supposed to go to fixing the power polls instead went to “green” garbage. Gee, how “green” is burning a city to the ground?
Also power should have been shut off, not water.
Blackrock is heavily involved (ownership) in an electric company over there. I thought it was Maui Electric, but maybe Hawaii Electric. (Both?)
Parent Company is HECO. Under HECO is MECO and HELCO.
My estimation based on what I saw in images the temp was at least 2,500 degrees F. (I have an engineering background.) I will buy 3,000 degrees F.
For those who don’t know this stuff, that’s hotter than molten lava straight out of a volcano.
undergrounding power is probably best performed during suburbanization (or re-suburbanization as the case may be). underground power can run shallow just underneath sidewalks in the center. customers foot the entire bill of tapping in. the biggest maintenance cost to the power company is possibly the replacement of (undergrounded) transformers.
the police... could be explained by having been given the command to keep the public away from [potential downed power line electrocution] danger. if all the rank and file police did this blindly, then it might explain why the traffic was tied up in knots since there was apparently no concerted effort to direct traffic out of town away from fire danger. There might be a written directive and if so it would be a bombshell.
Cordoning off the area seems to accomplish the slow down of the process of insurance claims. Slowing down insurance claims increases original homeowner and small business owner economic vulnerability to real estate offers (or to eminent domain purchases once they are forced to relocate to a different area by cashflow considerations).
i got a general impression that many power line poles were dual/triple duty, shared with telephone (and maybe coax internet?) (Hawaiian Telecom?). In the current situation, this might exacerbate liability for pole breakage liability assessment (specifically, adding delays).
with a new bug variant coming up soon, the county bureaucracy has a ready excuse to slow walk permits and insurance related verifications of deeds and so on.
tying disaster relief to an unrelated war in europe is immoral. hopefully everyone takes notice and does not forget at election time (but...).
“They” are lying. But Freepers know this.
Great summary and analysis.
You make a great observation. In the private sector it is pretty bad. I work in IT and on my team there are about 20% that excel, 25% that are competent, and the rest could be replaced by a paper bag and we would not notice any difference.
With government services being used for reparations, I suspect the paper bag ratio is closer to 90%.
Hawaiian Electric . — BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street .. ValueAct Capital doubles down on its stake in Hawaiian Electric..
“How much do you think that costs?
How many trenches have you dug in lava rock?
How much longer does it take to find and fix a faulted underground cable?
Are you willing to pay 10-20 times your current bill?”
Hold on there, big fella. Reality, perspective, and common sense have no place in this discussion. Just read the article and make knee jerk comments like everybody else.
A government run by the wrong side of the Bell Curve gets predictable disastrous results. There is no hope for these people.
The incoming transmission lines leading up to the entrance of the development, were/are still on wooden power poles and when I've seen rolls of cable they appear to be insulated.
We rarely lose power and when we do it is because of very severe wind and/or cold icy conditions.
One thing I know is that 'climate change' has never caused a power outage where I live, but the climate does change every minute of every day since the beginning of time and puny humans have very little impact of it {with the one exception of pollution caused by private jets}. S/OFF!
Yep. The wires are 20-30 feet in the air and a minimum of 3 feet apart. There is no need to insulate them.
My bad.
F’ing ha’ole engineers did this on purpose!
I think if you can name most of the foods you would eat at a luau and can paddle board for 5 minutes you are qualified to be a civil servant in Hawaii.
“Hawaiian Electric also faces criticism for not shutting off the power amid high wind warnings and keeping it on even as dozens of poles began to topple.”
So when the first line goes down they are supposed to cut off power to the entire island?
It's a Democrat disaster. So begins the coverup.
At a cost of $2,000,000 a mile or $400 a FOOT.
Buried power lines - inside conduit - are good in the snow, ice of the Colorado and other high mountains..
Ice storms ( like Buffalo, NY ) often cause longterm outages that could be avoided by not having exposed power lines.. plus they are hidden out of sight.
Even though the cause of the fires have been deemed to be downed transformers due to high winds... and even though DEWs have been ruled out and labeled as mere conspiracy theory stuff...this video raises more questions....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg2WV-B26pA
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.