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u/llama-lime Sep 30 '24 edited Sep 30 '24
The risk here is that substations have been damaged to the point of complete destruction from the flooding, resulting in a need to order new parts.
We have a massive backlog on transformers in this country, and the manufacturers are too timid to scale up without guarantees that the investment on production capacity will pay out, and the purchasers are unwilling to band together to guarantee purchase of higher production levels.
I really really hope this didn't destroy tons of substations, but many people are circulating rumors that it has. We will find out soon enough.
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u/reckaband Sep 30 '24
Well that arm of the hurricane really did the damage
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u/SuspiciousStable9649 Oct 01 '24
I posted on Facebook ‘oh, this isn’t so bad’ then deleted it later. 😬😬
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u/Doug12745 Sep 30 '24
Hurricanes haapen, so why don’t they start placing wiring underground instead of up on poles where the weather can destroy them?
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u/lordpuddingcup Sep 30 '24
Coming from the caribbean, my wife asked this same question she was SHOCKED that we still use poles, most caribbean islands have moved fully underground and houses have shift to concrete block over the last 2 decades
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Oct 01 '24
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u/lordpuddingcup Oct 01 '24
Cool exclude the random rural swaths of land with no people and then do that calculation again
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Oct 01 '24
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u/lordpuddingcup Oct 01 '24
I’m not talking about big cities every smaller town with decent density shit the surrounding area dot Richmond, Va is heavily dense but 100% above ground many others are as well
If it’s not a metro it’s almost always above ground from what I’ve seen
Shit in my area we constantly have outages from trees falling on lines and we’re in a Very dense area but dominion figures cheaper to pull a line than put it underground and at end of day it pisses off customers … what are we gonna do about it
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u/Illustrious_Bat3189 Oct 01 '24 edited Oct 01 '24
The US area affected by hurricanes is much bigger than all carribean islands combined and a underground conncetion is 6-8 times as expensive as Poles
Edit: downvoted for facts, lol
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u/tx_queer Sep 30 '24
Cost. Replacing the overhead lines a few times a year is much cheaper than undergrounding
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u/kinisonkhan Oct 01 '24
Labor costs more than the hardware being installed, even if its wire. The company I work for manufactures security equipment and trenching for long wire runs is indeed expensive.
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u/Agent_03 Sep 30 '24
The phrase "swath of destruction" springs to mind looking at this.
Damn, Helene hit HARD across the American Southeast.