Thursday afternoon I was blithely sitting behind my computer preparing for an important phone call. Suddenly the electricity did something rude: it went out. The call would have to wait. We quickly realized that the entire campus was affected. Patrons came in for a time, hoping the lights they saw meant computers were working too. Sadly our backup generator does not power the public machines. The Library ended up closing early because, by sun down, power had not been restored (and wasn’t till an hour later).
Since starting at DSU blackouts have happened from time to time including once at my house. Colleagues have reported that it is an all too common occurrence. My next door neighbor has said the same thing. And the cause of these difficulties is apparently squirrels. Yes you read that right. They often climb up on the lines and chew away until fried.
Back in New York outages were rare. In Albany the only one I experienced was in the middle of the night. National Grid shut the lights off on me at around 2 in the morning just as I was going to bed. Apparently they were doing line work. Thankfully it didn’t last long. And when blackouts happened they tended to be dramatic. At home the power once went out when I was in the shower and stayed out all night. In college, the University at Buffalo lost power for three days after an early season snow storm with some folks in the city were out for nearly ten days. And who can forget the Great Northeast Blackout of 2003? At the time I was with my mom returning from a campus visit to SUNY Binghamton when we noticed the street lights were out. Service was not restored for more than a day.
Of course many things can cause power outages. Orange and Rockland, the electricity provider back home, lists ten separate reasons from lightening to metal foil balloons. But my current power company Entergy, does admit that their “reliability is adversely affected by vegetation, lightning and animal
contacts. But, Entergy’s percentage of outages from these causes is
significantly more than for other utilities. This is due in part to
Entergy’s service territory being located in the South and Southeast”. They then go on to note that they serve mostly rural areas with lots of vegetation and severe weather. Entergy doesn’t mention squirrels. however.
So apparently an unreliable power grid is a fact of life down here, albeit for different reasons than elsewhere. According to an article from Mother Jones, incidences of power failures have been going up in the last decade. But for most people the main factors are an aging grid and weather. Squirrels, therefore, are more of a problem down here than elsewhere. Perhaps they have sharper teeth in the South.
Either way, its irritating. Nothing drives home our dependence on electricity more than its absence. For me, the only thing worse is having to throw out food when the refrigerator gets too warm. But I’ll have to get used to it. Everything in the Delta feels old from the cracked pavement and broken sidewalks to abandoned farm houses along Highway 61. So having to deal with the occasional black out is just part of life.
Works Cited
- Entergy Mississippi. “Reliability.” http://www.entergy-mississippi.com/about_entergy/reliability.aspx . Accessed on 11/23/13.
- Grabar, Henry. “Why Blackouts Are More Common Than Ever, in 2 Charts.” Mother Jones: 8/14/13. http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/08/blackouts-common-charts .
- Orange and Rockland. “Outages.” http://www.oru.com/energyandsafety/electricdelivery/powerdisturbances/outages.html .
