Saturday, November 2, 2024

The infrastructure? FirstEnergy? Or just bad weather to blame for the power outages? Readers respond

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CLEVELAND, Ohio – Tens of thousands of Northeast Ohioans might have to wait until next week before they get their power back, triggering emotions and a lot of theories about what went wrong and what could take so long to get service back.

We asked our readers what they thought. Do these outages speak to bad maintenance of infrastructure? Has FirstEnergy saved money by not sending crews out to inspect its many connections to keep them tight? Do we blame the wind? Or is the system in disrepair?

We received many, and wide variety, of responses. Here’s a sampling.

  • I have CPP and have for the 30yrs I’ve been in this house. This last year or so has difficult as the power went out at least 8X with all but 1X I think was in the winter. Because of my disability my pain increases significantly. My brother 1/2 mile away also w/CPP never loses power. He’s on a different transformer. I read online some time ago that TX and OH are the 2 worst states for power outages. My sister in North Olmsted lives in a development where regularly the outside of the outer streets never lose power but my sister is on the inside of the outer st & she very frequently loses it. I can’t afford a generator, been disabled since age 39. I don’t know what to do anymore.
  • CEI repair has been a pet peeve of mine for years. They have reduced repair crews over the years to the bare minimum. There is, or was, a repair depot in Concord that uses to house a bunch of bucket trucks. Not no more. Likely poor maintenance and inadequate staffing are at fault for both the extent of the damage and the slow repair. TV news shills how hard the repair crews are working while ignoring the obvious question of how many crews are working? Compared to 10 years ago? 15 years? Dig into it!
  • It really shows the need for underground installation, maybe not in all areas but especially where major connections are. This could avoid major blackouts. They have done zero modernization. … lines should be buried. … instead we continue to restring the lines onto poles. Geauga County is a disaster zone … on our street alone (12 houses), trees are either resting on or have taken down power lines.
  • 90% of the area outside of the main city is backroads that are covered by trees, wires, and posts. my coworkers have had to add an HOUR onto their 15 minute drive to work because EVERY SINGLE ROAD near them is closed. please send someone out in the field to actually SEE and EXPERIENCE how horrible this damage is.
  • They’ve started in some places, like Chardon and Willoughby, but Chesterland (one of the towns, if not THE town, that got hit) will not receive power until next WEDNESDAY. THAT needs to be covered. it is insane and ridiculous.
  • Thinking climate change is also a factor. We didn’t have tornadoes til recently. Not just tornadoes, but the high winds to me seem like a recent phenomenon. Are these kind of storms reducing tree cover & opening up previously forested areas to invasives? A friend who lives in a forested area above the chagrin river lost more than 2 dozen trees on his property alone and there are a couple dozen other houses on the street.
  • Perhaps if they spent less on bribery, stadium naming, and public relations and more on infrastructure maintenance and improvements and serving the public…
  • Address and fix the problems would be what should happen. Unfortunately, our politicians are so beholden to FirstEnergy that any issues will quickly be swept under the rug and nothing will change. How about making PUCO a private regulatory body, so government officials are not appointing the chairman? Or maybe have the board elected, rather than appointed? As it stands today, the fox is in charge of the henhouse. Until that is rectified, we will have no solutions.
  • We live in Avon in an area of newer homes. Individually our lines coming into our homes are through underground lines. However these lines receive their source from poles. While much of the community is and has been without power our lights never as much blinked. Underground lines maybe the answer. I feel for those who don’t have electricity. In 1969 we were 2days without power. Not fun!
  • Maybe First Energy or our government should consider running unground the electrical wiring. Especially for those areas with historic crisis status. The “Forest City” causes lots of problems when those 150 yr old trees come down.
  • My mantra for the last 60 years is that “Greed Rules The World”. And it does. Large corporations, as a whole, feel loyalty to stockholders’ dividends, not their customers. Not their safety, not their pocket books, not their inconveniences. That’s because they are paid so much they join the world of corporate whores. Greed. I sound like a left-over Hippy.
  • I walk my dog an average of five miles daily here in Avon Lake. Last summer I saw crews all along Walker Road digging down three feet or so around each wooden utility pole. I asked a crew about it, they said they were checking for rotten areas on the poles. A few were replaced in late summer, some had a thin layer of rotten wood removed followed by some sort of protective coating. I don’t think they were crews from FirstEnergy, rather from an outside contractor. Now there’s a big mess on Walker just west of Jaycox. The problem there is that there’s a stand of large, tall old trees maybe 20 to 30 feet away from the wires, some of which fell on the lines and ripped them down. I recall a few months back watching tree trimming crews working the length of Walker Road, cutting away branches that were too close to the wires. Probably to really protect the system the trees need to be completely removed but being on private property would make that complicated or maybe impossible. I wonder if it’s time to replace wooden poles with sturdier metal ones, and try to minimize their exposure to big old trees. Of course when the power lines were originally built the trees were probably small or nonexistent. Certainly as the frequency of severe weather events continues to increase, some big, costly solutions are needed. I’d rather pay for that than subsidize out of state coal plants.
  • Explain how one does maintenance when trees in a storm fall down. I know people who paid professionals to do maintenance on their trees in the last 2 years and have major repairs needed from falling limbs. In fact neighbor had that just done last month. I understand you only see issues as bad businesses taking advantage of poor people.
  • We all have dependencies … but, fool me once, shame on you. Disappoint me twice, shame on me… Each of us that depends on centralized utilities need to take matters into our own hands. Buy a $50 inverter for your car battery and an extension cord. Buy a $300 battery backup system and plug-in. Buy a $1,000 dual fuel inverter generator Buy a $3,000 whole house natural gas generator with auto transfer switch We each have options. We can no longer depend on a utility infrastructure that is so fragile to mother nature (wires in the wind). BTW, migrating to underground electric utilities is only feasible for new developments.
  • I think blaming FE for the situation just isn’t fair. I doubt the best maintained systems could withstand tornadoes and 100 mph winds. Yes, give it to them when a rainfall causes power outages, but how about showing some grace under the circumstances? And let’s give some credit to the crews who are toiling under no sleep and other rough conditions to get things right for customers!
  • I lived in the Chicago suburb of Naperville for over 23 years. Naperville is one of the largest suburbs in the Chicagoland area and their own power system. Our power was out once or maybe twice very briefly (less than an hour) during all those 23 years. Since we moved back to Ohio about three years ago, the power has gone out multiple times for long periods of time. Is that what we get for living in a red state with the politicians in the back pockets of the utilities??
  • Not sure I have ever seen so many trees and power lines /and roads closed while biking around Geauga County yesterday. This was just a bad storm with a lot of damage- might be more of a climate change causing worsening weather extremes. I saw tons of utilities workers out going after problems- but also saw many many lines down
  • Considering the frequency of outages, wouldn’t it be a wonderful investment for them to bury the lines. A savings of manpower and money for them down the road and savings for the customers in lost product, loss of life, and general agony for us.
  • The evidence supports FirstEnergy being lax on the job. I have a son who’s lived in Corpus Christi for the last 7 years. Through the many tropical storms, etc. He’s never lost power.
  • You were reading my mind. The legislature’s hostility toward solar and wind plus FirstEnergy’s instance on propping up obsolete coal plants has not helped. Remember the overgrown trees branches in Walton Hills that knocked out power in eastern half of US?

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