Canada - Land of ice and snow (was RE: California power ... unplugged)

Mon Apr 30 05:05:04 UTC 2001

> Having been caught in an ice storm in Maryland which killed the
> power for several days, I have to say they suck. Besides, you can't
> fault Canada for having worse weather then California.

On the contrary, Quebec has much better weather than California,
although I will agree that California's tends to be hotter.

The 1998 ice storm was a predictable once in a century event, although
of course you can't predict when in the century it'll occur.  The
newer electrical distribution infrastructure wasn't damaged anywhere
near as badly as the older stuff (newer was built stronger), but the
likelihood of such a storm was low enough that it didn't seem worth
hurrying along the upgrades.  I'm sure this is a tradeoff with which
all system managers can sympathize.

-- 
John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869
johnl at iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, 
Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail