Major Storm Outages with DTE

[Gistok]

Power at my house [SCS] went out yesterday [but 3 hours after the wind storm rolled thru], but not before I had a chance to look at the DTE outage map... YIKES... lit up like a Christmas tree!!!

https://outage.dteenergy.com/map

Lots of areas in central Detroit especially went down. The strange thing is that all areas around Hamtramck went down, but Hamtramck seems generally unscathed.

It affected Detroit, the suburbs and outer reaches all with a vengeance. Supposedly one in every 8 DTE customers is/was without power.

Supposedly some areas go dark at random. A neighbor went to the Original Pancake House in GPW, and the power went out today midday. Very strange.

DTE is having work crews from around the country come in to help with the downed lines and assorted cleanup. They said that 80% of the outages should be fixed by Thursday. Sounds like a lot of spoiled refrigerants...

Reporting to you from my local library...

[Meddle]

Caught a news blip on it out here in podunkville.

[Richard]

Winter is coming …..

Mutual assistance crews provided by the power companies have their hands full this year across the country,16 hour days playing with electricity getting screamed at because somebody lost power,people yelling at them when they finally take a break and try and get a bite to eat at a restaurant.

When our power went out long term,I could not go anywhere because my EV battery was dead and I never kept emergency cash because when the power goes out nobody excepts plastic, so I went hungry.

It’s funny how you never think about those little things,until something happens and it is to late.

I have some vintage oil lamps that work pretty good,if you need them.

Most of the time they just sit on the shelf next to their little bottles of oil,when the power goes out it becomes their turn to shine.

With us ,critical need businesses are required to have a stand by generator,so supermarkets,gas stations etc still have power when the grid goes down,it was not always like that but lessons learned.

I have a whole house back up generator,that burns $800 per week in fuel,but a little 5000 watt Honda generator is enough to run a refrigerator,lights and heater blower fan so one does not freeze to death,for little investment and sips gas,probably cheaper to operate then being on the grid per day.

With something like that long term power outages just become minor inconveniences.

Save your receipt for the generator,if your governor declares an emergency,FEMA will reimburse you for it,along with the cost of replacement for spoiled food.

[Danny]

Storms happen, trim your trees, keep it away from powerlines.

[Rocket]

My business has been out for 30 hours now.

We hear it may be back on Thursday? But no one knows for sure, and the website still says there's no estimate available.

[K-slice]

Too many lines running though unmaintained alleys in the city.

DTE will undoubtedly use this to push their absurd rate increase this year.

[Scottathew]

We lost power for about 30 hours in my Rochester Hills neighborhood. There are still large portions of Rochester Hills without power. My neighborhood has mostly underground infrastructure.

[1953]

I find the local power reliability unsatisfactory and would support measures to harden it, especially in light of the stronger weather patterns that my news paper keeps saying will come in time. Stringing thin wires above ground and through trees seems a poor resiliency strategy for a system we've all come to rely on so significantly.

[Honky Tonk]

Too many lines running though unmaintained alleys in the city. DTE will undoubtedly use this to push their absurd rate increase this year.

This ABSURD rate increase? Wait until it's all electric vehicles.

[Trumpeteer]

Storms happen, trim your trees, keep it away from powerlines.

Do NOT trim any limbs near power lines on your own!!! Call your utility or hire a tree service.

[Richard]

I have lost power for over 30 days in a subdivision that had underground utilities,because the above ground sub stations are subject to storms.

It is hard and very expensive to run underground utilities,you cannot run them long distance because of heat build up in the wires has no where to dissipate to.

We have a line on our bill for Utility Hardening- It’s about $8 per month on top of the $9 per month extra fuel cost that was added years ago but never went away when the fuel prices came down.

That is on top of the millions they got from the feds.

The hardening aspect is just tree trimming/butchering and replacement of sketchy poles,it has never really slowed the power outages down,it just helps them get back on line faster.

Unfortunately stringing wires is still the cheapest and fastest way to deal with it.

On the average we have seen a $65 per month increase in electricity costs that started a few months back,are you guys seeing the same thing?

It was a flat out increase and not by increments.

I agree,once they have a captive audience with the elimination of coal,nat gas and propane,the demand and price increases will out of our control,we will have no choice.

[Jimaz]

A lot of tree damage in my neighborhood but I only lost a cosmetic window shutter. I had about a dozen really brief power outages which is unusual because of underground power lines.

Richmond was hit hard. A video was captured there showing debris moving right to left and left to right indicating a vortex but they say it was technically a "gustnado" instead of a tornado because the vortex did not connect to the storm clouds above.

The second video in the following story shows that footage.

• Video shows 'gustnado' in Macomb County

[Ray1936]

Hope I don't sound like I'm threadjacking, but just had to comment.

Since moving to Las Vegas in 1984 after my DPD retirement, I have never, ever had any kind of power failure in my two homes.

Granted, the weather is a helluva lot kinder here, but all the wiring is also underground.

Just sayin'. Take your shots.

[Rocket]

Since moving to Las Vegas in 1984,............ I have never, ever had any kind of power failure..........

.......... all the wiring is also underground.

.Take your shots.

^ Also, it's too hot there for trees to grow, so there wouldn't be anything to fall on the power lines even if they were on poles.

So you're double protected. LOL [Shot fired. Had to ].

[kuuma]

i've said this before but i really believe that the DTE's perpetual outage woes stem from the same issue of MDOT also being perpetually behind on their infrastructure maintenance: metro Detroit has just sprawled too far and there's more infrastructure than they can afford to maintain.

I wonder if there's a study somewhere that determined the amount concrete, the length of power lines, the distance of plumbing per capita. the further we sprawl, the more of all this we have to build, and rebuild, and fix, and it just feels like SE Michigan is caught in a cycle where basically nothing is maintained excellently, and we're just prioritizing what's at risk of straight up collapsing and fixing that first.

Tree trimming is a joke of a solution, it's the equivalent of mdot pouring a hasty patch into a pothole and leaving an equally transient temporary fix. These power lines should have been buried underground in the first place.

[Richard]

Hope I don't sound like I'm threadjacking, but just had to comment.

Since moving to Las Vegas in 1984 after my DPD retirement, I have never, ever had any kind of power failure in my two homes.

Granted, the weather is a helluva lot kinder here, but all the wiring is also underground.

Just sayin'. Take your shots.

Las Vegas is new comparatively,big difference between installing underground in new construction verses in a region that has been there over 100 years.

Subdivisions are a Ponzi scheme,they raise money from new development,when they get built out and no new money is coming in your underground will require maintenance and that is maintenance that will not be required to be installed and paid for by the developer.

There will always be a debate over above ground verses below ground utilities but I think in Detroits case the main points would be

Underground

5x the cost to install
amount of power limited
underground is still fed by above ground so still subjective to storms
higher cost of maintenance and repairs
easily damaged by flooding
you cannot bury it by gas or water mains so you need another separate 5’ of ROW

Above ground

Open to storm damage
Does not look pretty

It’s the argument they used in Texas during the last winter ice storm,factor in how many times in the course of the year that you lose power verses what it would cost to bury the lines.

If the cost to the power company is 5X more to bury and that cost is passed down to the consumer is it really worth paying 5X more of a monthly power bill in order to reduce the possibility of a power outage?

In Michigan the poverty rate is 1 out of every 2.6 ,so it would be on the 1.6 to bear the cost,so even though it cost the power company 5X more to bury the lines the cost handed down to the actual paying consumer is a lot higher then the 5X.

In short,its a non discussion because you cannot afford to do it no matter what the argument is concerning benefits are.

Back to Las Vegas,do you know the one thing that was never factored in when they calculated the demand when they buried those lines?

Adding thousands of EV chargers and the extra draw they will require on the system,so they will all have to be added to at 5x the cost.

opps

[Bong-Man]

Tree trimming is a joke of a solution, it's the equivalent of mdot pouring a hasty patch into a pothole and leaving an equally transient temporary fix. These power lines should have been buried underground in the first place.

Not even close. In fact, most local neighborhood power outages in this area beyond storms are related to tree rats getting zapped. Most outages during storms are related to downed wires from trees. I used to lose power 8-12 times a year in Harrison Twp. After some major trimming in my area, I now experience an outage once or twice a year. Burying wires can certainly cause less outages, but that presents a whole different set of problems as previously discussed.

[Lowell]

Ray, have you considered putting the badge back on and help solve the cases of all those bodies they keep finding in your shrinking Lake Mead drinking water? BTW I heard yesterday that Hoover Dam power generation has dropped to 1/3 capacity due to dropping levels. [Well you did ask for shots. ]

Hope I don't sound like I'm threadjacking, but just had to comment.

Since moving to Las Vegas in 1984 after my DPD retirement, I have never, ever had any kind of power failure in my two homes.

Granted, the weather is a helluva lot kinder here, but all the wiring is also underground.

Just sayin'. Take your shots.

[Jimaz]

...Tree trimming is a joke of a solution, it's the equivalent of mdot pouring a hasty patch into a pothole and leaving an equally transient temporary fix. These power lines should have been buried underground in the first place.

While hiking some extremely dense woods near some power lines, I encountered an employee of one of the power companies {DTE? This was long ago.}. He was scouting around checking for overgrowth and he explained that they don't just cut trees down in those remote areas. They also plant aggressive short species that crowd out the tall trees and keep them from reencroaching.

Of course they might not be able to do that in dense urban areas but I thought that was a pretty smart approach to the problem.

[Bong-Man]

Power Outages And Squirrels [[datavoiceint.com)

[kuuma]

While hiking some extremely dense woods near some power lines, I encountered an employee of one of the power companies {DTE? This was long ago.}. He was scouting around checking for overgrowth and he explained that they don't just cut trees down in those remote areas. They also plant aggressive short species that crowd out the tall trees and keep them from reencroaching.

Of course they might not be able to do that in dense urban areas but I thought that was a pretty smart approach to the problem.

ok that's much more proactive and sustainable, and less band-aid-y, than I usually give DTE credit for, thanks for this account. i hope this is common.

my personal experiences are from southern OC, where my family sees frequent outages in these storms [[they cite the telephone polls getting more and more lines strung every year – mostly new competing telecom services – that hang lower and lower into peoples yards); myself in Detroit where downed lines incapacitated my entire east side neighborhood for a week last year, and in NYC where all the lines are underground and I never lost power in 10 years except during hurricane sandy. so in my view there's a clear better solution, and it's to build the system more durably underground.

[Richard]

Then came Hurricane Irene in August of 2011, which caused 204,000 outages on ConEd’s system. Then a year later, Hurricane Sandy caused 1.1 million outages. In March 2018, the utility experienced winter storms Riley and Quinn, which caused a combined 210,000 outages. And in August 2020, Tropical Storm Isaias caused 330,000 outages.

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nor...stment/608378/

That is despite ConEd spending 3 billion dollars to harden the infrastructure and moving things underground.

Even they say moving things underground is not the finial solution.

Every region is different,what may work best in one is not suitable in another.

Good examples have been posted here with the squirrels and rats doing damage,the planting of less invasive trees.

California had massive power outages due to power line fires,but yet restrictions on what trees the power companies can actually trim or cut down in order to prevent it in the first place.

I had an acquaintance that was a scientist type and developed an epoxy that power companies use to fill holes in power poles caused by woodpeckers that created rot long term,it saves power companies millions in pole replacement every year.

I just think there are ways to create a more stable grid outside of saying the only solution is to throw billions at it when even if you do that all you are doing is reducing and not actually eliminating.

I am happy enough to not live in a country where they only receive power for 2 hours per day,every day,and kinda enjoy the down time a power outage provides.

[Ray1936]

Back to Las Vegas,do you know the one thing that was never factored in when they calculated the demand when they buried those lines?

Naw, I'm no economist, Richard, so I can't debate that topic with nothing but a layman's interest. But supply is keeping up with demand, so far.

[Ray1936]

"Ray, have you considered putting the badge back on and help solve the cases of all those bodies they keep finding in your shrinking Lake Mead drinking water? BTW I heard yesterday that Hoover Dam power generation has dropped to 1/3 capacity due to dropping levels. [Well you did ask for shots. ]"

Dunno about the power output at Hoover Dam, but there's been absolutely no power outages in this neck of the woods.

Bodies are found when the water level drops forty feet or so. When the Detroit River drops that far, you'll recover more than Revolutionary War cannons. Count on it.

[Jimaz]

... so in my view there's a clear better solution, and it's to build the system more durably underground.

I have to agree with that.

Even with underground moisture, it seems easier to mitigate that than all of the above-ground problems like random winds and foliage.

One interesting development in underground infrastructure is the advent of horizontal directional drilling systems. Instead of digging trenches, they can drill horizontally underneath other infrastructure, kind of like threading a needle.