Negligence and Incompetence
Once again the completely unacceptable electric power grid has failed to survive typical normal winter weather. In Oklahoma more than 90,000 homes and businesses remained without power more than a week after a winter storm. Many people have died either from hypothermia or carbon monoxide while trying to use temporary heaters to keep warm without electricity.
It's not like the electric company doesn't know that they have winter storms in Oklahoma. Every winter, we find storms where hundreds of thousands of people face weeks without electricity. Our homes have become dependent on electricity. In the 19th century they built “Victorian” style homes with small rooms, each with a wood or coal stove or fireplace. But with the coming of electrification in the 20th century all our homes now freeze without electricity. We have become dependent. We count on the engineers and management of the electric company for our very survival, and when it fails many people die. Even if we can abandon our homes and move to some other place temporarily for weeks until the electricity is restored all our plumbing is likely to freeze.
When pipes freeze, they split open. Two weeks later when heat is finally restored many of us will have thousands of dollars worth of repairs to make just for the pipes. As pipes thaw out they often cause flooding and other damage. Some years ago some friends of Bob had frozen/split pipes over the New Year holiday and ended up with 4 feet of solid ice in their basement. Frozen pipes are in your walls, under your floor, everywhere that has to be taken down to fix the pipes. A week of freezing winter weather without electricity is now a disaster, and our electricity hangs on a thread. In the 19th century few people had indoor plumbing so our great grandfather didn't have to worry about frozen pipes, but today we rely on having heat 7 days a week and we are vulnerable when it goes away.
It's not like the electric company doesn't know that we have winter storms. Even those of us who have gas or oil heat, or even wood heat, rely on electricity to operate our gas, oil, or wood furnaces. We have forced air fans, water circulation pumps, combustion blowers, and electronic controls. When the electricity is out the heat stops. We have become almost totally dependent. Even if you have a fireplace, it doesn't help much. A few years ago some friends of Bob were without electricity for 2 weeks. Their family huddled in the living room in front of their nice large fireplace. The rest of the house got really cold, frozen, but they survived in the one room burning wood in a fireplace. That wasn't enough to save their pipes. When the normal heat came back on after 2 weeks the pipes thawed out and sprayed water all over their kitchen, bathrooms, inside walls, under floors. It was a mess that took months and thousands of dollars to repair.
It's not like the electric company doesn't know that they have winter storms. There is no excuse for an electric grid that falls apart when the expected winter storm comes. If we don't have one this winter, we may have two next winter. We know its coming. They know its coming.
Would we live in a house that fell down the first time it snowed? Of course not. We know its going to snow so we build our houses strong enough to hold up with 3 feet of snow on the roof and a wind blowing. But does the electric company build a power grid that holds up? Apparently not. Hundreds of thousands of people end up being without electricity every time we have normal winter weather.
Bob previously wrote an article called Failure after Failure. A half assed electric system that fails on the first normal winter storm is completely unacceptable! The engineers and managers of the power company are guilty of malfeasance of their duties. Our bills for burst pipes, temporarily shelter, temporary generators, and other repairs should be billed right back to the negligent, and deliberately negligent managers and engineers at the power company. There is absolutely no excuse for a system constructed so shoddily that it falls down every time the snow flies. We wouldn't live in a house built that poorly, and we shouldn't accept a power grid that is designed to fail, and built to fail.
If you live in an area where the power has been out, sue the bastards for their negligence. File a class action suit for all 90,000 people who are still without electricity more than a week later. If you are in an area which still has electricity, send them a written notice that you require reliable electricity and will sue them for negligence if they fail to provide it. There is no excuse for failure after failure.
It's not like the electric company doesn't know that they have winter storms in Oklahoma. Every winter, we find storms where hundreds of thousands of people face weeks without electricity. Our homes have become dependent on electricity. In the 19th century they built “Victorian” style homes with small rooms, each with a wood or coal stove or fireplace. But with the coming of electrification in the 20th century all our homes now freeze without electricity. We have become dependent. We count on the engineers and management of the electric company for our very survival, and when it fails many people die. Even if we can abandon our homes and move to some other place temporarily for weeks until the electricity is restored all our plumbing is likely to freeze.
When pipes freeze, they split open. Two weeks later when heat is finally restored many of us will have thousands of dollars worth of repairs to make just for the pipes. As pipes thaw out they often cause flooding and other damage. Some years ago some friends of Bob had frozen/split pipes over the New Year holiday and ended up with 4 feet of solid ice in their basement. Frozen pipes are in your walls, under your floor, everywhere that has to be taken down to fix the pipes. A week of freezing winter weather without electricity is now a disaster, and our electricity hangs on a thread. In the 19th century few people had indoor plumbing so our great grandfather didn't have to worry about frozen pipes, but today we rely on having heat 7 days a week and we are vulnerable when it goes away.
It's not like the electric company doesn't know that we have winter storms. Even those of us who have gas or oil heat, or even wood heat, rely on electricity to operate our gas, oil, or wood furnaces. We have forced air fans, water circulation pumps, combustion blowers, and electronic controls. When the electricity is out the heat stops. We have become almost totally dependent. Even if you have a fireplace, it doesn't help much. A few years ago some friends of Bob were without electricity for 2 weeks. Their family huddled in the living room in front of their nice large fireplace. The rest of the house got really cold, frozen, but they survived in the one room burning wood in a fireplace. That wasn't enough to save their pipes. When the normal heat came back on after 2 weeks the pipes thawed out and sprayed water all over their kitchen, bathrooms, inside walls, under floors. It was a mess that took months and thousands of dollars to repair.
It's not like the electric company doesn't know that they have winter storms. There is no excuse for an electric grid that falls apart when the expected winter storm comes. If we don't have one this winter, we may have two next winter. We know its coming. They know its coming.
Would we live in a house that fell down the first time it snowed? Of course not. We know its going to snow so we build our houses strong enough to hold up with 3 feet of snow on the roof and a wind blowing. But does the electric company build a power grid that holds up? Apparently not. Hundreds of thousands of people end up being without electricity every time we have normal winter weather.
Bob previously wrote an article called Failure after Failure. A half assed electric system that fails on the first normal winter storm is completely unacceptable! The engineers and managers of the power company are guilty of malfeasance of their duties. Our bills for burst pipes, temporarily shelter, temporary generators, and other repairs should be billed right back to the negligent, and deliberately negligent managers and engineers at the power company. There is absolutely no excuse for a system constructed so shoddily that it falls down every time the snow flies. We wouldn't live in a house built that poorly, and we shouldn't accept a power grid that is designed to fail, and built to fail.
If you live in an area where the power has been out, sue the bastards for their negligence. File a class action suit for all 90,000 people who are still without electricity more than a week later. If you are in an area which still has electricity, send them a written notice that you require reliable electricity and will sue them for negligence if they fail to provide it. There is no excuse for failure after failure.
posted by Bob | Monday, December 17, 2007
3 Comments:
We have aging infrastructure. While we piss money away on nonsense. Our Electrical Grid is antiquated and aging. Our water Pipes in our Cities are ancient and need replaced. Our bridges many are in danger of collapse and need retrofitted. We refuse to spend money where it is desperately needed. Our priorities are misplaced.
So a few thousand people are inconvenienced? A few dozens freeze to death. That is where we are at in America today. When Men are disposable so are Women. And children are now definitely disposable thanks to Feminism.
If you are not a celebrity or part of the Elite Class you matter for nothing. Thats how Gynocracys work. It is all about your feelings at the moment. Forget about planning for future problems or challenges. Its only the here and now that matters.
"And, so what?
America is tough.
American women are tough.
American military women are the toughest of the tough.
None of us want to wear burkas (etc.) and as we give our sons so shall we give our daughters.
Most support fighting A.Q. w/ our all.
And, for the record, I support our troops and am a "liberal" who hates Bush but who wants to see Iraq free and democratic and who wants to see the US military succeed in the Middle East."
I hope alqueda gets it's captive:
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:2s_0UORWzO8J:www.blackfive.net/main/2004/07/al_qaeda_want_t.html+male+soldiers+hate+female&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=15&gl=us
Al Qaeda Want To Capture A Female Soldier
I wish the muslims would kill all of our feminist women.
Of course Bob, there is something to be said for INDIVIDUAL responsibility. In our era, many people have become utterly dependent upon the PTB for their energy, food, water, security and shelter requirements.
As the situation in the US begins to make a sharp turn for the worse beginning January 2008 - likely heading to a 'Greater Depression' in the years ahead - you can look forward to a quickly deteriorating situation.
The grid system, is no different. It's JIT like the energy, food, water and finished goods system in the US. Likewise, it's very complex and thus has very many failure points. And like the other systems, it depends allot on foreign nations many of which are not sympathetic to the US.
In 2002 when a X class flare estimated by some to be over x-65 in terms of magnitude erupted off the sun, it would have taken out everything electrical and electronic on the planet. Fortunately, it occurred 3 days later (the sunspot had rotated away from the Earth) and thus the brunt forces were not felt - just the indirect forces. In much of Canada and northern US, the indigenous rock is particular poor to such solar events..
Likewise, the grid is not well suited to the era of PC'ness we live in. The grid highly complex and sophisticated and requires a great deal of technical competence...the type of thing the US education system is not training for and in a similar fashion, driving men away from. A skills shortage and a ethical/moral shortage lead down the same path as can be seen in places such as Zimbabwe and South Africa (forced quotas, exodus of the skilled workforce). The financial shenanigans of Enron and now of the great credit unwinding only further to exacerbate the situation.
Then factor in down-sizing, right-sizing, quotas, anemic (lean) manufacturing standards (as in no backups, insufficient resources and skills...), computerization (reusable to virus and hacker infiltration), the war on boys and men (whom often dominated the engineering professions) and so forth and you get a further weakening of the grid system. A death by a thousand cuts, as it were. What if vital components could not be imported from the foreign nations which manufacture them, for example. What if China invaded Taiwan? What if the US dollar collapses? Most manufacturing in the US and the manufacturing expertise and infrastructure went off shore a long time ago.
Lastly, it is highly susceptible to terrorist events. Face it, the southern borders are wide open and it is estimated 40 million illegal are in the US. How many of these, have anything but the best interests of the US in mind?
The bottom line is, *INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY* and *INDIVIDUAL PREPARATIONS*. Perhaps those in such states will learn and have a power outage plan (and draining your pipes of water is pretty basic), backup heat, power, water and food. New Orleans should have been a wake-up call to many men not to rely on Big-Sista. When the SHTF you have only yourself, your immediate family and your preparations to depend upon.
*INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY* and *INDIVIDUAL PREPARATIONS* should not be limited to this alone, but to everything you depend upon in daily life such as food, energy, water and so forth. It's only going to get a whole lot worse from this point, onwards.
MGHOW
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