The fact that the “worst climate event ever” seems to be happening to someone, somewhere, all the time these days is a whole nother topic. But those limbs weren’t brought down by wind, they were brought down - straight down - by the weight of ice.
They could have a program to run a drone directly over the lines with a look-down camera to see which limbs would fall on the lines if they came straight down, and to trim those limbs. Expect more value from your tax dollars.
I promise you, people will bitch about their trees being trimmed.
Looking at the carnage in my yard, I can assure you that there is a lot of tumbling involved, and a significant number are falling far from straight down.
Austin covers something like 487 sq miles, most of it wooded. It’s simply unrealistic to expect that it can be kept fully trimmed cost-effectively, especially when there are other, more pressing budget concerns. Sometimes bad shit just happens.
Now, if you want to bitch about self-inflicted wounds, we can start with why we haven’t heard from the mayor until this morning.
Oh, I’m well aware of that. I’d probably be among them.
If there’s a criticism of Abbott in this, it’s his philosophy that the electricity is not an essential service and it’s not the government’s role to secure it. You’re Texans, dammit…Davey Crockett didn’t have heat at the Alamo. Suck it up. While that sentiment may warm your heart on the inside, it does little to keep the ice off your nose.
I know you and are looking at this from different ends of the pipe, but the fact that Austin is heavily wooded is the reason they should be spending what is required to protect the infrastructure, not an excuse for when those woods come crashing down on the power lines.
Aerial service needs a lot more maintenance, but if it is necessary to access the cable and not just a terminal it is easier to access aerial than buried service. When I was a lineman for AT&T, I much preferred buried cables to work on strictly from a physical exertion point of view. And front yard access was always better than backyard. However, people hated it when we had to dig up their yards to access the cable. No one cared if you had to put a ladder up on a line or hook a pole but start digging in their yard and some would freak out. Guys I know at Austin Energy say the same.
Aerial is unsightly, people plant trees to grow and hide the ugly poles and wires. Well, also because trees provide shade and look cool. Then the energy providers attempt to maintain the trees by contracting it out to professional tree trimming companies like Asplundh. It’s hard to access backyards to get to a lot of the trees that need trimming. People who lock their gates or have aggressive dogs increase that difficulty. Often times the tree trimming crews aren’t even local. Some of these crews are only in town a few weeks, they probably aren’t going the extra mile effort wise.
Occasionally, shit like this happens in Texas. How do they deal with it in Minnesota? Or fucking Manitoba?
I don’t know what they do I Canada, but heavily-wooded Sweden buries its power lines…and then they roll around in the snow naked.
As someone who has priced tree-work recently, “Assplunder” is a very apt company name.
I told my mom, “screw that, me and the boys will do it for you” and 6 months later it, of course, still hasn’t been done.
I spent a day lopping tree limbs on my house ahead of Hurricane Rita. It nearly killed me, and then the storm went to Beaumont instead.
They recognize it’s a possibility, that it would be a major pain in the ass if it does happen, and they have a plan to deal with it. Three strikes, Texas, you’re out!
You’re not getting the same rate but it is an expensive job. To do it properly on big trees involves an element of danger.
So what’s the solution? Cutting back everything within 10-25 feet of a power line would be massively unpopular with the population. Burying all existing aerial lines would be hugely disruptive, not to mention the fact that Austin Energy doesn’t have the funds for that anyway.
Austin Energy spokesperson Matthew Mitchell echoed Lake’s concerns with underground lines. He also notes that Austin was built on top of limestone, which would make burying the lines even more expensive and difficult to maintain.
“Burying power lines – moving overhead distribution systems running alongside roads, homes and businesses underground – is a question utilities often hear after storms,” Mitchell said. “Austin Energy has looked into the issue and determined that at this time, it would be too expensive to begin this process and that’s not a cost we’d want our customers to burden. Burying lines would involve billions of dollars and take decades to complete.”
Remember, Austin may get some ice every year or every other year, and we get some strong/severe thunderstorms every year that may knock out a few neighborhoods here and there for a few hours. But ice or wind/thunderstorms that cause widespread power outages on anywhere near this scale don’t happen nearly as often. (I’m not counting 2021 since that was power generation problem, whereas this is power distribution.)
The solution is you suck it up and deal with the consequences of your poorly thought out plan. This is not unlike bike lanes. We missed the boat on mitigating the problem, now we’re stuck with managing it.
They could start by mandating all new developments bury the power lines - many residential developments already do, and use it as a selling point. Also, whenever they plan to dig up a street to run new sewers (something that Houston has been doing a lot of), they can bury the power lines on that street while they’re at it.
It doesn’t have to be a brand new “Apollo” project. It can be taken on incrementally while also making sure that new developments don’t expand the problem.
Oh no doubt about cost and safety. My ranch-worker cousin was a climber-topper in Oregon years ago, so I’ve heard lots of stories, but also did get taught the proper way to do things.
I’ve been up on her roof with a chainsaw and polesaw and gotten all that cleared out, there’s just one tree in her yard that’s cracked and will eventually fall over. It requires someone to get up in it and take it down in pieces. In the wise words of Sgt Roger Murtaugh, “I’m getting too old for this shit.”
It does seem like the most practical end game is “just deal with it as it is.”
They do that in Austin if feasible and have removed miles of aerial plant
They do that too unless it can be demonstrated why it is better for the environment not to.
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The area where I live now is about 10 years old, and all of our lines are buried, for which I’m very thankful. Without that, I’m sure we’d be cold and dark, too.
