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
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power poles. They were skinny, bending, bowing. The power went out all the time.”
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This was a “preventable tragedy of epic proportions
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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.
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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 ...
To the demented liberal mind: bare power wires + leaning poles = global warming.
All power lines are uninsulated. I have never seen insulated high voltage power lines.
Democrat mass murder.
Another self inflicted mass murder.
On the upside a lot of real estate has come on the market…
/s
They wasted 200 million on green crap. The only consolation is that population there is hard left and fully supported that. They authored that fate.
It spread to the poor areas and left the millionaire mansions alone. All coincidental.
Boy Howdy! Reading this article, I had to look back twice to see where they were talking about. The electrical grid on Maui sounds like something out of some third world country. You know, countries where aid money from the UN, EU & US is first filtered through the ruling class. Oh wait, that sounds like the Rich Men North of Richmond.
My apologies for insulting third world countries
Spindly wooden posts from the 1960s or earlier?
Bare high tension wires?
Absolutly Amazing.
Why are there still so many freaking telephone poles??? Can’t we shove that crap into the ground already?
“It’s “very unlikely” a fully-insulated cable would have sparked and caused a fire in dry vegetation... “
I have never seen a main Power Line with insulated wire. They do use Triplex (insullated Aluminum line) from the meter pole to the home.
Yes storms can cause power lines to arc by whipping together, BUT they have breakers that eliminate the power when the load is high. Yes, I have seen TriPlex short to ground from rubbing a tree, and I saw the line repaired in the middle of the night. They disconnected the power with hotstick and used bucket truck to replace the TriPlex.
I am skeptical about anything the HI officials say about this incident. They give away the game by gloating on where “they” go from here.
Each day that passes, from the police, emergency services, water folks, fire departments....I get the impression that no one much is really qualified for the work they were hired for. In some rural areas of the south...you see some issues like this...but never to the complete landscape of Maui.
The amount of control since the fire by the local police...still necessary?
Clearing brush is not destroying the environment. Not clearing brush is destroying people and property
Marxist butt wipes….
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?
This isn’t a time for factual observation…
“telephone poles” are not power poles.
Rather than keeping the fast-growing Guinea grass in check by regular mowing, or removing and replacing with fire-resistant native grasses and plants, the Hawaiian government has allowed Guinea grass to take over ..
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4177404/posts
Total BS propaganda. This is how all power distribution systems are built. The elites do not want people questioning how the fire was so selective that the mansions of the elites did not burn while everything around them did burn. The elites do not want people to question how land purchases were in the works and they planned this fire to burn out the peasants.
The power lines might have caused the fire. I don’t think the power lines caused the “disaster.”. That was caused by mismanagement.
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