Rodney

What is laughingly called the power grid in my area is more like a long, raveled, piece of string with a lot of knots in it. Power for 200,000 people comes in on one pair of towers, side by side.

Where I live, Santa Cruz, CA, we probably lose electricity 20 times a year: summer, winter, rainy days, windy days, hot days. It might be for two minutes, two hours, or eight hours. And I live in the center of town, not out in the boonies.

We're in a mixed rural/urban area, and a lot of the lines go through wooded area and our beloved Pig Goat and Elephant utility, since they deregulated, does a crappy job of keeping trees cut back from the lines. And again, our "grid" is so bad that one guy in a car ramming the wrong power pole along a highway can black out 10,000 customers; has happened. Today, problems caused by wind blacked out half of town for three hours.

I used to live in San Francisco, and we _never_ lost power. How reliable is the power in your area? Any horror stories? Any shining examples of reliable utilities?

maleficent

I live in a pretty old apartment unit, so I blow fuses, frequently, especially in the summer. The worst was, when a fuse blew quite early one morning, ad I was on my way out of town for the week. Since I hadn't gone into the kitchen, I didn't notice it. Until I got hom several days later, and my fridge had been off for close to a week. It wasn't a pretty smell at all.

During the summer, the electric company may loser power once a month or so, for a few hours, generally on hot hot days.

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animosity

1-2 times... maybe three, but it isnt often. Good thing too because I get pissed off.

NegativeNine

Not very often, but typically 8 or more hours long. Unless it's in the middle of the night. Then It'll last just long enough to screw up your alarm clock

johnsimon885

at college we have our own power plant and underground wiring, so we're immune to the ice storms that would take out the rest of the city. It's a good deal! At home I'm not as invulnerable, though, so I went with almost never.

f6twister

I live 5 miles from the power plant so the connection is usually intact unless a storm knocks down a power line. It was recently converted from a coal plant to a natural gas plant which, from what I've been told, is supposed to be more reliable. Not that I ever had problems before.

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miyamotomusashi

I spend time in New England and FL (about 2 months a year). I often end up with the worst of both climates. And I say 10+ times a year but that is including minor power losses (less then a minuet some times but I notice the TV, and lights go off and then the clocks all have to be reset). Also some times a fuse blows but that is less common.

Manic_Skafe

Other than that big blackout 2 summers ago I never lose power.

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lpj8

We get some pretty bad storms here being from Tampa, Florida. This year I've lost it more times than usual because of the hurricanes that passed through, but other than that, it almost never goes out. I used to live in Lake Worth, FL and it was awful. The city rather than Florida Power and Light (FPL) supplies the power to the residents, and it went out monthly for extended periods of time.

Squishor

As you may recall, I also live in Santa Cruz and I find this topic hilarious!

You have to admit though, it's gotten a lot better than it was in the 70s and 80s.

joeyaz

I live in southern az and I've only noticed the power go out maybe once or twice a year when I was younger it seemed like it would happen all the time. The times it has gone out it has only been out for a short while, though in other parts of the city I will hear reports on tv about power being out occasionally when mine is still fine.

Destrox

6-10 times is a good estimate.

Mainly only during spring/summer and they usually only last 1-4 seconds.. but enough to screw up all your clocks.

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warrrreagl

Living in Alabama means that our monthly electricity failures aren't due to any sort of power grid; they're due to squirrels playing Don Quixote with transformers.

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Carno

Florida Plunder and Loot does a pretty good job of keeping our power up, minus the hurricanes...

snowy

Where I live (college town of 50,000+ in the PacNW) we lose power maybe twice a year in the city itself. Of course, if the weather is terrible (something that happens with some frequency in the NW) the lines might get blown down or what have you. Last year we had a terrible freeze-up that snapped some lines. But usually that's it. Very rarely will someone hitting a telephone pole put the power out, though that did happen to over half the city this summer.

When I lived on campus in the dorms the power was much less stable and went out at least once a term; it still does sometimes and results in cancelled classes. Why? They do a lot of electrical engineering research on our campus which can sometimes overload the university's grid. The research devices that cause the power to go out the most are now on their own grid, but some are not. Luckily all the heat on campus is steam heat, so it's okay in the winter.

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Paradise Lost

I hardly ever lose power at home, and never up at school. The reason for never losing power at home is that most of the town is powered through underground wires, actually, I think it all is. The only place where you see wooden poles sticking out of the ground are at stop lights. Very convenient. Although it sucks because we never get school cancelled because of power outages. =( Not even the worst blizzard will knock it out. Usually comes from something stupid (can name any of these situations off the top of my head.)

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tropple

Rodney: I used to call the the Paciific Graft and Extortion Utility.

I lost power in the big blackout in 2003 and twice since then, both caused by vehicle accidents knocking over poles.

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Shirtninja

In my old apartment, I lost power at least once a month. Most of the time it was for under a hour, but some days it was much longer. Since I moved, I can only remember it happening once and that was due to some idiot crashing into a pole and the power company being required to shut off the power to repair it.

MSD

Whenever a drunken idiot takes out a pole or lightning drops a tree on the lines. Maybe once or twice a year.

World's King

It's an old house.

As a matter of fact we have a professional coming tomorrow to fix half he basement that's out.

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KellyC

Almost never here in Western Washington. The rare times that it happened, it was only for a couple seconds. In my 10+ years living here, it happened less than 5 times I think, all are very minor. Damn, I'm lucky.

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Pacifier

I don't remember the last blackout.
Must be some years ago.

My Parents had one last year, but it was a fault in their house
not a "real" blackout.

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Eight

In the UK? About once every 10 years

Blackthorn

About once or twice a year I'll loose power for a few hours. It doesn't happen often. Last time was back in the summer and it happened on a sunday just as I was preparing dinner. That was a bummer. I had to order Pizza

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the_marq

Don't take this the wrong way guys, but it sounds like the US has a crappy power grid. Honestly, your power goes out more than once a year? That's insane, in the five years I have been living in Calgary the power has gone out once for about 20 minutes (at my house), and we have ice on the the power lines, we have drunks smashing into poles.

I'd like to see some serious data on this, I'm curious.

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shalafi

I lose power all the friggin time. It wouldn't suprise me if its out at my apartment right now (althought it has been better since the hurricanes made them fix a bunch of stuff) its not so bad when it goes out during the day but its usually at night which means my alarm gets screwed up and im late for work.

PayUp

I lose power whenever the wife has to stop peddling to use the bathroom, so twice a day.

We only lose power in a severe storm, maybe once a year.

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thinktank

I actually woke up this morning to reset clocks all around the house.

LIMilf

This morning the electricity was out. Great for a Thanksgiving. Was out until about 10AM. Thank god its on for football. First big snow of the season I guess will do that.

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hotzot

A friend of mine loses power so much she got a back-up generator.

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electricman191

About the only time I lose power is during ice storms and it sucks to not have HEAT.

splck

It might go out once or twice a year around here, mainly from falling trees during a storm.

I used to live in a part of the world that had one or two outages a day anywhere from 4-8 hours. I bet we averaged over 400 blackouts a year. We didn't use any type of digital clock in the house and we didn't open the fridge unless absolutely necessary.

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Rodney

Around here it happens often enough that many businesses have backup generators. I know a garage owner that bought one because without power he can't use his pneumatic lifts, power tools, etc., and can't do business. Business grinds to a halt. About a month after he put the generator in there was a three-hour power failure in the middle of a business day, and he said that it paid for itself right there.

On TV, I'm starting to see commercials for back-up electrical generators for the home come into the mainstream. I think it's a sign that power utility reliability is getting worse, at least in some areas. It certainly has in mine.

bookiebye

I live in Eastern Canada. We have a power grid that is designed to operate in typical Eastern Canadian conditions...snow,wind,rain,freezing rain,and more snow. We don't lose our power very often but when we do it's a big one that can last for days. Just recently, a couple of weeks ago, we had our first winter storm that knocked out the powerfor tens of thousands of people for the better part of the week. And of course the season before that we had a major winter blizzard that knocked us out for days, which came only a few months after hurricane Juan that hit us directly and knocked us out for about a week. The lights don't go out often but when it happens we are in the dark for quite a while.

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klo

I live in Toronto, usually the power outages are only for a second but there was that one big black out that affected eastern US and like southern Ontario, that was like a few summers ago, pretty intense.

Zeppelin2Heaven

Once when an idiot shot our circuit breaker with some fireworks on fourth of july :-D

rfra3645

i live in a rural area right in town of (400 pop) lol. and the farmers are bout the worst on our power...... stupid 40 foot tall combines runing into the lines is not good....

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1slOwCD8

It usually depends on the weather, but about 4-5 times a year. Those people that never loose it are very lucky. It sucks the most in the summer with no ac.

Fohur2

Im in Nova scotia...so same thing.Power was off for 4 days last week and went for for 30mins about 3 times this week.

viejo gringo

Only once or twice a year, due to severe wind storms north of us..

The spooky one was on new years eve 2000---everyone was predicting the power would fail due poor programming in the power companys....

well it did not go out at 12 midnight....it went out at 12:05....a whole strip of the valley along the Rio Grande, from Brownsville to 50 miles west......

some ass hat shot his 9mm in the air and cut a high voltage trasmission line....
it was very dark and very quiet for 1 and a half hours....then they started shooting in the air again at 1:30 in the morning....