To All Cuffers in the South

[Uncle Ted]

I think you are probably correct that Houston has the most potential to be a disaster waiting to happen. New Orleans would have been first but Katrina already happened and they rebuilt most of the infrastructure to withstand major hurricanes and they are more aware/afraid of hurricanes. New Orleans is also small compared to Houston. There are over 7 million people in the Houston area compared to just over 1 million in New Orleans.

The problem with Houston is it's prone to hurricanes and flooding (like serious flooding that sticks around for a while since it's flat), so you can't just bury all the power lines because floods can wreak havoc on buried lines. You also can't have them all in the air because of the threat of hurricanes. So we go with a hybrid option where some are buried and some are overhead and we just grin and bear it when hurricanes come through. It also costs 4 times as much to bury a power line than to put it overhead and most people would prefer to be without power for 4-7 days a couple times a decade if it means their power bill is a lot less.

If a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane hits Houston, it could get really, really ugly. Ike was a Cat 2/3 when it hit Houston and it took over two weeks for most people to get power and our infrastucture is no better today than it was in 2008. You'd also have a huge humanitarian crisis with a major hurricane given that over 7 million people could be without power and Houston has a lot of lower socio-economic neighborhoods. People in my middle class neighborhood already starting to lose patience with the situation but most of them have the means to leave town and stay in Austin or San Antonio.

The utility has already issued a statement saying that the biggest problem this time around is the extensive tree damage. They are blaming that damage on the three previous years of unusual weather but in reality they were just being cheap and not doing the minimum in pruning and preventive maintenance around the infrastructure. There are streets near me with dozens of branches sitting on power lines, which would not be the case if the trees were adequately maintained....which is the utilities responsibility.

Anyway, we are on day 4 without power but are spending the nights at a friends house that has power. MJ and the kids are headed to Austin this weekend for a pre-planned trip and I think they are really looking forward to getting out of town. The utility is saying that most customers should have power back on by Sunday night. By that time, the money I spent on gas for the generator will be most expensive than the food we are trying to keep cold/frozen...but whatever, MJ would rather spend more money to keep the food than to throw it all out and replace it once power comes back on.

I have been watching the CenterPoint outage map for Houston and north Houston looks like it is a mess... lots of folks without power. There is also a big Lumen/Level 3 data center somewhere in Greenspoint area near the IHC airport that most of the internet for east Texas goes through for some reason that is without power. Apparently their backup generation is way undersized so folks using Spectrum/CenturyLink/BightSpeed/etc (less profitable connections) are without internet (given they shut off a lot of equipment in the data center to reduce the generator load). StarLink has been getting a lot of new customers recently. 1st world problems.

Stay cool, Molie.

[Moliere]

In fairness, I didn't come at it with any assumption of being informed, which is why I asked you specifically. No offense taken. Also, very insightful. What metropolitan area are you aware do they is the biggest energy disaster waiting to happen?

I think you are probably correct that Houston has the most potential to be a disaster waiting to happen. New Orleans would have been first but Katrina already happened and they rebuilt most of the infrastructure to withstand major hurricanes and they are more aware/afraid of hurricanes. New Orleans is also small compared to Houston. There are over 7 million people in the Houston area compared to just over 1 million in New Orleans.

The problem with Houston is it's prone to hurricanes and flooding (like serious flooding that sticks around for a while since it's flat), so you can't just bury all the power lines because floods can wreak havoc on buried lines. You also can't have them all in the air because of the threat of hurricanes. So we go with a hybrid option where some are buried and some are overhead and we just grin and bear it when hurricanes come through. It also costs 4 times as much to bury a power line than to put it overhead and most people would prefer to be without power for 4-7 days a couple times a decade if it means their power bill is a lot less.

If a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane hits Houston, it could get really, really ugly. Ike was a Cat 2/3 when it hit Houston and it took over two weeks for most people to get power and our infrastucture is no better today than it was in 2008. You'd also have a huge humanitarian crisis with a major hurricane given that over 7 million people could be without power and Houston has a lot of lower socio-economic neighborhoods. People in my middle class neighborhood already starting to lose patience with the situation but most of them have the means to leave town and stay in Austin or San Antonio.

The utility has already issued a statement saying that the biggest problem this time around is the extensive tree damage. They are blaming that damage on the three previous years of unusual weather but in reality they were just being cheap and not doing the minimum in pruning and preventive maintenance around the infrastructure. There are streets near me with dozens of branches sitting on power lines, which would not be the case if the trees were adequately maintained....which is the utilities responsibility.

Anyway, we are on day 4 without power but are spending the nights at a friends house that has power. MJ and the kids are headed to Austin this weekend for a pre-planned trip and I think they are really looking forward to getting out of town. The utility is saying that most customers should have power back on by Sunday night. By that time, the money I spent on gas for the generator will be most expensive than the food we are trying to keep cold/frozen...but whatever, MJ would rather spend more money to keep the food than to throw it all out and replace it once power comes back on.

[frank ryan]

Well, this is a pretty ignorant take on the current situation (I don't mean that in a bad way, it's just way off mark). The current issue isn't the same issue we had during Winter Storm Uri back in 2021, which was somewhat caused by Enronesquenss in energy but was mostly caused by a once in a lifetime freak storm throughout the South.

The current issue is the infrastructure, which is regulated just like every power infrastructure in the USA. CenterPoint is the poles and wires company and they go through rate cases and regulation just like everyone else. The nonregulated stuff is the generation and trading, but everyone ultimately receives their power from CenterPoint regardless of who the retailer is. The poles and wires are what is failing right now, but how can it not when you have a hurricane literally run up the west side of the fourth largest city in America? It's impossible to build infrastructure to have minimal power outages when you have 90 MPH gusts, but there are a lot of simple things that can be done to fix minor issues. First off would be regulations around trees near power lines. Trees cause a good bulk of the issues and especially in the older areas of Houston there are very mature trees that have broken branches that fall on lines. THat's an easy fix, either take the trees out or stay up on the tree trimming.

But people don't want to have a rate increase to pay for these services, so instead we wait for the big storms and then complain about the infrastructure before getting mad when CenterPoint wants to do something about it because that costs money. Then CenterPoint gets to roll the costs of the clean up into a special rate case and recover those costs...when just doing prevention and maintenance would likely be cheaper and less frustrating over the long haul.

The easy fix for wealthy people is to just install your own generator at your house, which is what I'm doing. In fact, there are enough whole-house generators now in the area that pretty much everyone is just bunking up in homes with generators until their house power comes back on.

In fairness, I didn't come at it with any assumption of being informed, which is why I asked you specifically. No offense taken. Also, very insightful. What metropolitan area are you aware do they is the biggest energy disaster waiting to happen?

[Moliere]

Moli, probably has the most insight, but is the way Texas power is run more clusterf*cky than average or do I have Enron bias?

Well, this is a pretty ignorant take on the current situation (I don't mean that in a bad way, it's just way off mark). The current issue isn't the same issue we had during Winter Storm Uri back in 2021, which was somewhat caused by Enronesquenss in energy but was mostly caused by a once in a lifetime freak storm throughout the South.

The current issue is the infrastructure, which is regulated just like every power infrastructure in the USA. CenterPoint is the poles and wires company and they go through rate cases and regulation just like everyone else. The nonregulated stuff is the generation and trading, but everyone ultimately receives their power from CenterPoint regardless of who the retailer is. The poles and wires are what is failing right now, but how can it not when you have a hurricane literally run up the west side of the fourth largest city in America? It's impossible to build infrastructure to have minimal power outages when you have 90 MPH gusts, but there are a lot of simple things that can be done to fix minor issues. First off would be regulations around trees near power lines. Trees cause a good bulk of the issues and especially in the older areas of Houston there are very mature trees that have broken branches that fall on lines. THat's an easy fix, either take the trees out or stay up on the tree trimming.

But people don't want to have a rate increase to pay for these services, so instead we wait for the big storms and then complain about the infrastructure before getting mad when CenterPoint wants to do something about it because that costs money. Then CenterPoint gets to roll the costs of the clean up into a special rate case and recover those costs...when just doing prevention and maintenance would likely be cheaper and less frustrating over the long haul.

The easy fix for wealthy people is to just install your own generator at your house, which is what I'm doing. In fact, there are enough whole-house generators now in the area that pretty much everyone is just bunking up in homes with generators until their house power comes back on.

[frank ryan]

Moli, probably has the most insight, but is the way Texas power is run more clusterf*cky than average or do I have Enron bias?

[Moliere]

why doesn't everybody in houston have one of those natural gas whole home generators with an automatic transfer switch

We’d have one if they weren’t booked out for several months. But slowly and surely everyone is getting them. They also cost $15k so not everyone can afford them, plus most people figure they can last 3-5 days without AC…but I definitely can’t.

[old_gregg]

why doesn't everybody in houston have one of those natural gas whole home generators with an automatic transfer switch

[Bo Diddley]

No power yet and no internet at home. I filled up the generator with my last bit of gas. We should be good for today but I need to find a gas station that is open sometime tonight…or if the power comes back on then I’ll be fine. I’m currently at work since we have power and internet there.

if that was only a Cat 1 I think I’ll be leaving town if anything more powerful comes through Houston. That was fairly apocalyptic.

Glad you guys made it through ok. Stay safe!

[Moliere]

No power yet and no internet at home. I filled up the generator with my last bit of gas. We should be good for today but I need to find a gas station that is open sometime tonight…or if the power comes back on then I’ll be fine. I’m currently at work since we have power and internet there.

if that was only a Cat 1 I think I’ll be leaving town if anything more powerful comes through Houston. That was fairly apocalyptic.

[Uncle Ted]

Ha, I should have come stay with you guys. The outside of the eye is passing over me know and it's pretty crazy. I didn't know pine trees could bend so much and my backyard neighbor is lucky they can bend because they look about to snap above his house (thankfully they are his pine trees). We lost power around 5:50am and I got the generator out and running so we can live like semi-normal people. Too bad my line power isn't working or I'd have a pool party later today

Did y’all get your power back? We had a lot of rain which cooled off things and some wind. The forecast for today says we will be back in the 90’s.

[Moliere]

Looks like we are getting some cooler weather… Let me know if you are visiting Dallas, Molie.

Ha, I should have come stay with you guys. The outside of the eye is passing over me know and it's pretty crazy. I didn't know pine trees could bend so much and my backyard neighbor is lucky they can bend because they look about to snap above his house (thankfully they are his pine trees). We lost power around 5:50am and I got the generator out and running so we can live like semi-normal people. Too bad my line power isn't working or I'd have a pool party later today

[Uncle Ted]

Looks like we are getting some cooler weather… Let me know if you are visiting Dallas, Molie.

[Moliere]

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[Uncle Ted]

Odessa isn’t exactly growing a lot.

Yes, Odessa only grows if the oil prices are high.

[Clark Addison]

Please tell your liberal friends to move back from Texas…

the-metroplex-is-killing-it-when-it-comes-to-growth-dallas-v0-jgc18qs0uu0d1.jpg

Fort Mill is where I go to buy my gas!