Power out

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210813-1445 EDT

drcampbell:

My neighborhood is sort of unique. It is close to campus, and most of the new residents are medical or dental doctors, In some cases both the husband and wife are doctors.

My next-door neighbors are a cardiologist, a dentist, and a pediatric cardiologist. Probably upwards of 50% of my nearby neighbors are now medical doctors.

This is a big change from 50 years ago when it was a more diverse area. There are 5 dental school people on my block including the dean of the dental school.

Before I was here Robert Mcnamra, early in his days at Ford, lived about 4 blocks from where I presently live. The president of Jeep in the 1950s lived about 1000 ft from me until his death several years ago. A former vice-president of the U of M lived about the same distance from me. A former president of the U of M lives about 3 blocks from me. Paul McCracken lived about 2 blocks from me. Most neighbors don't fall in this high level category, but most are generally well paid.

There is no way I could move into my area today.

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gar said:
210813-1445 EDT

drcampbell:

My neighborhood is sort of unique. It is close to campus, and most of the new residents are medical or dental doctors, In some cases both the husband and wife are doctors.

My next-door neighbors are a cardiologist, a dentist, and a pediatric cardiologist. Probably upwards of 50% of my nearby neighbors are now medical doctors.

This is a big change from 50 years ago when it was a more diverse area. There are 5 dental school people on my block including the dean of the dental school.

Before I was here Robert Mcnamra, early in his days at Ford, lived about 4 blocks from where I presently live. The president of Jeep in the 1950s lived about 1000 ft from me until his death several years ago. A former vice-president of the U of M lived about the same distance from me. A former president of the U of M lives about 3 blocks from me. Paul McCracken lived about 2 blocks from me. Most neighbors don't fall in this high level category, but most are generally well paid.

There is no way I could move into my area today.

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For a laugh, I looked up my grandparents house on Zillow, built in 1942 (galvanized water pipes). Cost them $5,700. They paid twice that for their final car. Now priced at $1,200,000.
 
oldsparky52 said:
Nope, I disconnected the hots of the circuits I wanted to power and connected them to the generator hot while taking the generator neutral to the neutral bar (outside panel next to the meterbase), generator has a floating neutral and it gets grounded just like the PoCo service neutral.
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Yikes, there are relatively cheap ($300-$500) transfer switches that you can permanently wire in to your main panel. Typically 8 or 10 circuits and they give you the ability to disconnect (via a switch) any circuit from the generator. For example you can turn off your AC to turn on your water heater or vice-versa. If you've done any work in your main panel, then this type of transfer switch should be easy for you.
 
K8MHZ said:
I just looked up my own house on Zillow and the amount given was very high. I sure am glad I'm not paying taxes on the Zillow value of my house. :)
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Home prices are insane right now. Around here, they’re selling above Zillow estimates. Usually under contract within 24 hours of listing.
 
My niece and her husband listed their house I think three days ago and they are already under contract. Her husband's father passed away and left them a house down in the Virgin Islands and so they are moving down there.
 
210813-2032 EDT

mbrooke:

I believe we had winds up to 90 MPH.

DTE is now down to about 300,000 customers without power. I don't believe the latest outage map is close to showing present outages. There are still locations that are showing outage, but they have power.

I have seen some Internet comments where the writer thinks it is terrible that there are ever any outages. That is a completely unreasonable view and illustrates the total ignorance of the writer.

In my lifetime. which is moderately long, I have not encountered enough power outages that I would prefer underground distribution. I am satisfied with overhead, you can see the wires, and when a repair crew arrives the repairs are quick and easy. I have always lived in a heavily treed area. But I am of the opinion that everyone should have a limited amount of backup power generation capability. My great-great-grandfather in the early 1800s got along without any electricity. Even up to my grandfather's early years, or my dad's they had no electricity in the home. Even the street lights were gas. I also expect the mine shaft elevators were steam powered. My dad was born and grew up in iron mine country.

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gar said:
210813-2032 EDT

mbrooke:

I believe we had winds up to 90 MPH.

DTE is now down to about 300,000 customers without power. I don't believe the latest outage map is close to showing present outages. There are still locations that are showing outage, but they have power.

I have seen some Internet comments where the writer thinks it is terrible that there are ever any outages. That is a completely unreasonable view and illustrates the total ignorance of the writer.

In my lifetime. which is moderately long, I have not encountered enough power outages that I would prefer underground distribution. I am satisfied with overhead, you can see the wires, and when a repair crew arrives the repairs are quick and easy. I have always lived in a heavily treed area. But I am of the opinion that everyone should have a limited amount of backup power generation capability. My great-great-grandfather in the early 1800s got along without any electricity. Even up to my grandfather's early years, or my dad's they had no electricity in the home. Even the street lights were gas. I also expect the mine shaft elevators were steam powered. My dad was born and grew up in iron mine country.

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Being glued to an outage map while also going around servaying damage for the curiosity of it I can indeed confirm that outage maps do not reflect reality. Yesterday for example I saw areas that said there was no power but had power, areas that say power was lost yet had it back early on, and my own home said I was part of a 3000 customer outage when in fact the just switched out an upstream section of my feeder because of a twig on covered wire but I never lost power at any point in time.

Anyone have any idea how these outage maps work? Do they rely on a device opening/closing or is someone actually telling the map what to do?
 
210815-1321 EDT

I was out picking some of my blackberries. A gentleman was walking by so I stopped him and we talked for quite some time on various subjects. He lives about 3 house from me, never talked him before. He has probably lived there for 30 years.

I asked him if he had a generator? Answer was no, his wife wants solar. To put him in perspective, he is 68 years old, is a Phd, and has the position of Chief Psychologist, Department of Psychiatry. He does not have a generator because his wife is opposed to having one. His wife represents the thinking of many that I have asked the question of.

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210815-1341 EDT

mbrooke:

I believe virtually all meters in DTE territory are digital. That means that outage maps should be based on actual meter data. Clearly that automatic software does not feed into the software for the outage maps.

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gar said:
210815-1341 EDT

mbrooke:

I believe virtually all meters in DTE territory are digital. That means that outage maps should be based on actual meter data. Clearly that automatic software does not feed into the software for the outage maps.

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Or the node that serves the digital meters for the area is out, but maybe not all the meters are, so the system thinks there are more down than there really are.
 
mbrooke said:
Being glued to an outage map while also going around servaying damage for the curiosity of it I can indeed confirm that outage maps do not reflect reality. Yesterday for example I saw areas that said there was no power but had power, areas that say power was lost yet had it back early on, and my own home said I was part of a 3000 customer outage when in fact the just switched out an upstream section of my feeder because of a twig on covered wire but I never lost power at any point in time.

Anyone have any idea how these outage maps work? Do they rely on a device opening/closing or is someone actually telling the map what to do?
Click to expand...
Depends on the OMS.
Some use direct meter communication, either PLC or radio with “last gasp”.
Still others use predictive analysis based on calls

Most of the time you can’t go by the outage maps completely because of polygon errors. There’s a lot of layers overlayed on a base map. Errors Telegraph and skew over layers.
 
gar said:
210815-1321 EDT

I was out picking some of my blackberries. A gentleman was walking by so I stopped him and we talked for quite some time on various subjects. He lives about 3 house from me, never talked him before. He has probably lived there for 30 years.

I asked him if he had a generator? Answer was no, his wife wants solar. To put him in perspective, he is 68 years old, is a Phd, and has the position of Chief Psychologist, Department of Psychiatry. He does not have a generator because his wife is opposed to having one. His wife represents the thinking of many that I have asked the question of.

.
Click to expand...
They might be well served by some type of battery backup, Tesla or one of those, to keep the refrigerator operating, and possibly communication and some LED light fixtures.
 
mbrooke said:
... Anyone have any idea how these outage maps work? Do they rely on a device opening/closing or is someone actually telling the map what to do?
Click to expand...
Hv&Lv said:
Depends on the OMS.
Some use direct meter communication, either PLC or radio with “last gasp”.
Still others use predictive analysis based on calls
Click to expand...
ComEd has smart meters that communicate on the 900 MHz ISM band. Their outage map has a granularity down to less than 5 customers after you zoom into a particular icon on the map. Also, customers can sign up to get status and alerts for their individual service.

If you click on an icon you get info about the number of customers affected, status, probable cause, estimated time for restoration and the time the outage was earliest reported. During a few power outages over the past several years it has appeared to be quite accurate.

https://www.comed.com/Outages/CheckOutageStatus/Pages/OutageMap.aspx
 
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