Storms: Mid-Atlantic power outages could last days

[dipsydoodle]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It could be several more days before electricity is restored to areas hit by vicious storms that killed at least 13 people and left 3 million power customers to negotiate sweltering temperatures without air conditioning.

Across a swath from Indiana to New Jersey and south to Virginia, officials warned the heat wave could take a toll on the elderly, young or sick. Problems from the storms that began Friday ranged from a damaged prison in Illinois to tree-strewn train tracks that stranded 232 Amtrak passengers for more than 20 hours in West Virginia.

Emergencies have been declared in Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, the District of Columbia and Virginia, where Gov. Bob McDonnell said the state had its largest non-hurricane outage in history, as more storms threatened. "This is a very dangerous situation," the governor said.

Power officials said the outages wouldn't be repaired for several days to a week.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SUMMER_STORMS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-07-01-05-16-13

DC, Virginia declare state of emergency amid deadly storm (PHOTOS) http://rt.com/usa/news/maryland-virginia-storm-power-126/

[Systematic Chaos]

1. We could always spin it as a rehearsal for the further inevitable decay of our infrastructure...

...and/or Peak Oil!

Yay!

[SemperEadem]

2. that was the craziest thing to witness

I actually thought it might be a tornado, the way it was whipping mature trees around. It seemed as if the wind would suck the trees straight up out of the ground.

My power has been out since Friday night. Other areas around me have their power on and it briefly came back up at 1:30a, but went back out and stayed out.

Needless to say, the temperatures are not helping this situation.

[dipsydoodle]

4. The only time I recall that happening in the UK it took down 15 million trees

That was back in 1987 when many trees were sucked out of the ground across London the the south east counties of England. Its the low pressure above them which causes the phenomena.

The storm caused substantial damage over much of England, downing an estimated 15 million trees http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Storm_of_1987

I was ready to play / hack golf with some pals that morning and had stayed overnight in the west of England - which it missed. I picked up early on tv news that something was amiss in London - the news reporters were sitting in a candle lit studio. I 'phoned my wife to ask if we'd had bad weather at home. She said - are you trying to funny : the power has been off since 4.30am and our garden furniture is three doors down. It wasn't until 2 week later I noticed I had a hole in the roof too.

[Autumn Colors]

3. I can sympathize

During that freak late Oct. storm, our power (and heat and water and internet) were out for NINE DAYS!

This following our having been without power (AC and water and internet) for four days during that hurricane only a month or so earlier.

EDIT: Actually, that hurricane happened around Labor Day, so it was two months earlier.