Whee, power's out (again)

[altivo]

Well, that was a surprise. The electricity at the library went off about 2:15 this afternoon. After several fitful restarts, each lasting about five seconds, it stayed down, leaving UPS alarms beeping, the burglar alarm apparently triggered at the police station, and the fire alarm started a mournful bleat every ten seconds or so. Several phone calls made while the UPS on the digital phone system was still live revealed that either a transformer was burning or there was a line down in the high school parking lot several blocks away. No idea when power would return. We went around switching stuff off, and when it still wasn't back by 3:00 we locked the doors and put up the closed sign. So much of our usage is computers, and they were out. There was enough daylight to see, but checking books out would have to be by writing things down by hand for later entry into the computer system. At 3:30 the boss decided to just close early for the day and we all went home. Hopefully I got enough things shut down so that they won't restart in the middle of the night or whenever power is restored.

It's rather amazing, really. Here we are in a supposed first world, highly developed country. Yet in this area, power outages ranging from a few seconds to several hours are commonplace. Phone service is shaky at best. High speed internet is unavailable unless you live in one of the wealthy yuppie suburbs on the east end of the county. At home we don't operate computers without battery backup that at least lets you do a safe shutdown rather than two or three crashes and restarts as the power has fits over a one or two minute period.

The nearest city of significant size has no hospital. Two smaller ones at about the same range do have medical facilities, but the big one does not. Every town has a video store, of course, but the nearest bookstore is over 20 miles away.

Nope, I'm not describing central Wyoming or Montana or something like that. This is Northern Illinois, an area that has been settled since the 1820s, nearly 200 years. The population density is probably ten or twenty times that of rural Nevada or even Colorado, yet the infrastructure of utilities and services is almost as bad as what you'd find on an Indian reservation out West. This appears to be a combination of unwillingness to spend tax money on infrastructure (not glamorous enough I think) and resistance by corporate utilities to making improvements that will take years rather than months to pay for themselves.

Comments

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's pretty bad. I don't think of Northern Illinois as being that bad off. Even though I live out on a dirt road surrounded by trees, it's rare to have the power go out unless there's some really severe weather and there are trees coming down (due to ice or wind).

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It doesn't look that bad. I'd call it overdeveloped, myself. In the seven years I've been here, the density, noise, traffic, and pollution have at least doubled. But the infrastructure was weak when we came and has seen no improvements at all. Worse, the influx of ex-city-dwellers have no understanding of that, and insist on driving at 70 mph on narrow roads with no shoulders and unbanked curves, impatiently and recklessly passing anyone who drives sensibly and within the speed limits. They move here because it's rural and pretty and then set about pouring concrete over everything and lobbying for shopping malls and big box stores. I'm almost ready to move again, and this time I will pick Montana or something.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Ouch.

I used to live in rural Wisconsin, and much of that time was fairly rural: at least five miles out of town. I recall that the power would glitch or fail two or three times a year and figured that, well, it wasn't in town or all that near any power plant and the grid isn't perfect and spark arresters and such protect from worse things. But then I moved into a town in Minnesota and power outages were more frequent. Sometimes these would be in periods of high winds, and I understand reliability then isn't perfect. But what got me was there were many times when the power glitched or failed during calm times - and seldom was there ever any explanation of what happened. That was the annoying part.

There was another annoyance. I was only a few blocks from the local power plant. That really had me wondering why things were so unstable. It wasn't until I was able to take a tour that that was explained. The local power station was a peaking plant now and did not normally run. In fact, it couldn't supply the town in the summer due to the combination of air conditioning load and higher lake water temperatures which affect the efficiency of the steam condensing.

I am surprised, though, at the situation you describe. It's not what I'd expect from northern Illinois. It's hard for me to imagine a place where the larger town has no hospital but two smaller towns do have hospitals. Unfortunately, I don't have to imagine a town with nothing resembling a book store anymore.

[doco.livejournal.com]

It reminds me of a famous quote about the state of things in the GDR.

You're running on the substance in America.
The only difference to socialism is that nobidy invests because it hurts shareholder value, contrary to nothing being available to invest in. =)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's full of paradoxes. This is one of the wealthiest counties in the state, but that is because of excessive wealth concentrated in one or two townships. The rest is either concrete suburbia or farmland probably doomed to become more suburbia.

In a forward-thinking move many years ago, phone lines and many electric service lines were placed underground. Unfortunately, the methods used at the time were inadequate, and deterioration has set in. SBC and Commonwealth Edison balk at the cost of upgrading these, and continue to run on spit and bailing wire as it were. Roads are adequate, in fact quite good for a rural or semi-rural area. We have very few dirt or gravel roads, most are asphalt, and raised above the surrounding fields where necessary to prevent flooding. But most are built and maintained with township level funds or at best county tax dollars. They are designed for 50 mph speeds on average. The applicable state speed limit is 55 at most, but more and more people are behaving as if there were no speed limit at all. These roads are unsafe on a dry and sunny day at 70 mph. In winter or under rainy conditions, they are unsafe at 55. The number of serious wrecks is rising rapidly. There is virtually no enforcement, however, because there is no funding for it and the county sheriff's office is dominated by conservative republicans who believe enforcement (unless taken against hispanics) will damage their success at the polls. What we have is a reincarnation of the deep south of the 1930s, transplanted to different geography and demographics.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's essentially correct. Except that more and more, it isn't even shareholder value that's of concern, it's the stipends and perks of the chief officers. Capitalism has come full circle to its roots, only the appointed officials have replaced the owners as the chief exploiters.

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

I'm sorta getting used to the power outages here myself.

Its like those places in the world where the power is on between
9 and 5. XD

My Paranoia Y2K supplies have come in handy.

Oil lamps?

Check.

Oil?

Check.

Butane stove with butane cans?

Check.

Battery operated radios?

Check.

Polaris Missle?

Polaris Missle?

Oh durn it! I left it around somewhere in 99...

^_^

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Polaris missile?

You be careful where you aim that thing.

We have a gasoline powered generator at the farm because electricity is essential to get water out of our well for the animals. The library, however, has no emergency power other than a big UPS for the network servers and some battery backup lighting.

Hi there.

[tuphonios.livejournal.com]

Just been looking around other peoples journals, trying to figure out how the GFLFGDLFDSLF I can get anyone to read mine. *COUGH COUGH*
Anyway it sounds to me like you've got the advantages of living in the country but the serious disadvantages of countrylife seem to be kicking you in the nuts. It could be worse, you could be Russian.
Or English. Actually that last bit's a joke I think that for the good things you are getting where you live you have to put up with the occasional outage. It's annoying but at least you have peace and quiet? Is the countrysie quiet? Montana sounds really nice at any rate, but is it a case of as Telly Savalas once said 'There's no booze, there's no broads, theres no ACTION!'?

Re: Hi there.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, as I at least implied, this is not as far out into the countryside as Montana. I'm only 30 miles from two major population centers (Rockford, Illinois and DeKalb, Illinois) and 60 miles from a huge one (Chicago). We seem to get the disadvantages of rural life (bad utility service, bad public services, limited source of retail supplies) without some of the advantages (we still have terrible traffic and noise and they're getting worse, taxes are just as high or higher than in the suburps, the sky is obscured by increasing light pollution.)

When I moved here seven years ago, you could see the milky way at night and it was quiet, really quiet except for birds and insects and the occasional passing freight train on some tracks a couple of miles away. Now you cannot see the milky way because of increasing light pollution from Woodstock (9 miles away), Huntley (6 miles), and especially Crystal Lake (18 miles.) Quiet is gone, you can hear screaming kids, motorcycles, truck traffic, and radios or televisions blaring just about any time of the day or night. I do have five acres of land, with two barns. I can keep horses (I have three) and other livestock (6 sheep, 5 ducks, 3 rabbits) without anyone complaining. But privacy is limited (neighbors are really only 500 feet away, in practical terms) and it's going to get worse: 150 acres that was open cornfield adjoining my property to the north is being subdivided into little lots with suburban homes on them. That's all in the control of greedy people making money off it, I have no say. But when the rug rats from all those houses start trespassing on my property and get kicked by my horse or bitten by my dog, their parents will want to sue me or try to force me to get rid of my animals...

Now with respect to getting folks to read your LJ, you are on the right track. Find other journals that interest you, read them, and comment. Add people to your own friends list, and after a while they will start adding you. In 18 months I have grown from zero readers to over 80 regular readers.