Story Notes: Power Outage · 1:16pm Sep 17th, 2023
Power lines, how do they work?
pre-read by AlwaysDressesInStyle
Before we begin, I need to say that for your safety stay at least 35 feet from a downed power line. Don't attempt to fix it yourself; call the authorities and the utility company. Anything which is touching a power line (like a tree which has fallen across one) could potentially be dangerous and should also be avoided. Also don't fly kites into power lines and don't climb power poles.
While birds can land on a power line and be safe, if they touch something grounded (like the pole) or another wire, they will have a bad time. You're not a bird.
Also before we begin, a few weeks ago I had a several day long power outage. I also lost cell phone service for over a day, which is unusual.
Of course, work still had power so I didn't get a bonus day off. There were power outages throughout Michigan, along the path of the storm, and there was at least one tornado. To give an idea how bad things were right after the storm, a state highway near where I work was closed down for about eight hours due to a line across the road . . . when it takes eight hours to clear a highly-trafficked state highway, you know they've got big problems elsewhere.
This is gonna take a while to fix.
While the lack of power is annoying and inconvenient, I didn't have any significant damage to my property, which is something to be thankful for. Maybe I couldn't make a smoothie, but I still had a roof on my house.
Moonlight Zephyr is a pegasus who's appeared in a couple of episodes of the show (Best Gift Ever and Stranger than Fan Fiction).
My headcanon (and some show evidence) indicates that peagsi have at least some immunity to electricity.
Her desire for a smoothie is a nod to GaPJaxie's Will it Blend from The Spy Who Hugged Me
I do know some things about power distribution, but not a lot. Certainly not enough to consider myself an expert—there might well be someone among my readers who does. What I do know is that the lowest, fat line on most power poles is internet/cable, and then the higher you go on the pole, the more voltage the wire(s) have. Transformers on poles are used to step down the voltage to something the customer can use.
The grid is complex and needs to be balanced, but in its most basic form, electricity leaves the plant on high tension, high voltage power lines on tall towers.
From there, it goes to a substation, where the voltage is stepped down for local transmission.
There are various circuit breakers along the way that can cut the power if something goes wrong (like a short circuit). For lower-voltage lines, they can be pushed shut again to restore power; some higher-voltage systems use explosives to make sure that the circuit breaks. Obviously, see above warning; if you see an open circuit breaker on a pole, don't push it shut yourself, not even with a long, non-conductive stick.
When the power has been stepped down enough, it typically goes to a house via a weatherhead on a pole which leads to the meter. Sometimes the lines are buried, in which case there'd be a riser to the meter instead. Sometimes that metal pole is the responsibility of the homeowner, other times it belongs to the utility company—if you're not sure, check your local utility company's website. After the meter, you own everything and it's your responsibility if it goes bad.
I've mentioned Pixiis in a previous story as the pony way of describing alternating current--most of the current they'd use would be direct current (this can be debated in the comments, lol).
AvE on YouTube—and possibly others—refer to electrons as 'pixies,' which is what I was going to use . . . but then I went down a research rabbit hole and discovered that a man named Hippolyte Pixii was one of the earliest inventors of an alternating current generators (1832) . . . first, you can't make this stuff up; second, 'Hippolyte Pixii' is an amazing name.
Trees down over the road is not uncommon after a significant storm. It's something to watch out for if you're driving. Obviously, if the storm is bad enough, there's also a chance there'll be other debris (pieces of houses, rolled-over semi trucks, etc.). Drive with caution after storms: you don't want to crash into a tree as you round a corner.
I came closer than I should have a couple of times on my morning commute.
While Luke doesn't literally need 40 acres to turn his truck around, there's an old trucker's song with that title:
Would a pegasus sit on a power pole (or a power line)?
Of course they would.
Bonus!
Additional note: Everfree Northwest has what they call ORCs, 'open reads and critiques.' I read some of this story for a group, and Aquaman commented that he thought that all the pegasi shared one brain cell. That may be true . . . but sometimes rushing in without thinking is the right answer.
They might not share the same braincell, but they might share the same electron.
We had two outages this summer. First one was about 12 hours. Second was only about 1 hour.
Toss a coin to your line man. Or woman. Or mare.
The only annoyance was not being able to make anything for dinner, and realizing the batteries in the lantern were almost worn out. I suppose I could have lit the gas stove with a match or the old static trick, but I didn't want to open the fridge and let what little cold was left out, so I went out for drive through.
High Tension lines run behind my home, and a substation is about a quarter mile away. However, my street isn't connected to that part of the grid. Instead, we are connected to the substation that is a mile away.
5746842
As long as the power line doesn't steal it from them, they'll be all right.
5746855
I don't remember how many we had this year. It was more than one, but most of them were short enough that they weren't particularly memorable (and, living in a rural place with lots of mature trees and old infrastructure, it's kind of to be expected).
The linepeople do a lot of work after storms, and we had crews from all over working to fix things.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. It wouldn't be a bad idea to get some camping supplies for longer power outages (Coleman stove, etc.). I do have some lights and more importantly, backup heat options.
5746860
Yeah, it's weird how it works sometimes. There's a lot of stuff where it makes sense if you knew how parts of it were constructed, but from what you see now it's hard to piece together why it was done the way it was.
I think my lines run in from the substation at the next town north of me, but I don't know that for sure. The last time our power was out (few weeks ago), the town did have power, so the substation was working, and I didn't see anything obvious between my house and there. Of course, depending on what went wrong, I might not see it, and there was all sorts of storm damage, as would be expected.
What was really amusing some years ago was explaining to customers at our shop that while it appeared the power was on, since the lights were, our other power--which ran the air compressor and some of the hoists--was not, and as a result we couldn't work on anything.
Whats most anoying round here, is the replacement of the cables from poles to ducts, only applies to the heavy three phase and not the local single phase. I lost power a couple weeks ago because the Lets DIY cos we smart and can save money crew next door, claimed to have the paperwork to do exploratory work and trench excavation accross a old folks residential site to access the main power feed. Well, they found it. unlike the centuary old cable that was dug up along the main road, which was capped with inch thick stop digging you idiot ceramic shield bricks, this was about 18 inch down and had a bit of plastic tape.
My systems still not working correctly as the sudden loss caused config corruption and loss of data in software that wasnt even running at the time. Im trying to get down to the nearest shop to buy replacement and upgrade bits, but the trains are out due to maintenance.
Now I just need an adapter to plug the old drive in so I can still take data off at ease, than rushing and forgeting what I havent got till I cant remember the passwords again.
5746829
I ended up telling someone last week to rub their 2 braincells together and see if they could start a fire.
The last BIG power outage I immediately remember was in October or November a year or two ago (...I think...) The only reason I even remember that much is because I remember it was after an evening shift and our entire neighborhood was pitch dark, you could see a lot more stars than usual. I went outside and made a fire in our little metal fire pit (looks like a metal dish on 3-4 legs) heated up a kettle of water directly over the fire and read a bit of Bram Stoker by firelight. We later found out through the grapevine that a squirrel or something got too close to a transformer/power box.
I'm honestly surprised I remember all that
5746829 I have a phrase I've been looking to us for Rainbow Dash: "Fast as Lightning... and about as smart."
from Etymonline:
I got lucky in that storm. No problems at all, no power outage at home or on the farm.
Zephyr turning the breakers on horrified me. What if those were protecting linemen?
I've been zapped by 220... then very sweetly asked the guy outside the silo I was in if he'd turned off the breaker.
I also remember back in the late 80's when a windstorm took down high tensile power lines. We were running generators on the farm and trucking water around for the cattle.
5746855
Could get one that just uses standing pilots like the oven/stove in my kitchen. (Or I guess use one of those piezoelectric grill sparkers on the stove you already have...)
Also works for the water heater, and in theory my ancient furnace (if I open the zone valves manually, switch the aquastat from Auto to Manual, and let it use gravity feed instead of the pump... Apaprently it actually powers the gas valve inside from a thermopile that's sitting in the standing pilot's flame?)
edit. Ignore that. I'm getting names mixed up.
5746976
Also Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine.
I've been through two derechos in my lifetime: one in 2003 and another in 2015. Pretty much everything was smashed up to some degree. The 2003 one was worse as that one had hail to go along with it. It took three days for power to be restored in our neighborhood and my grandparents lost a few windows. We had to check my diabetic grandmother into a hotel as they had backup generators for air conditioning.
At mass on Sunday morning, the priest apologized for having prayed for rain the week before.
Hey, if you need to do any experimentation with power lines, I got an actual groundable line cutter courtesy of Detroit Edison we can play with.
5746909
The ones on poles are easier to maintain (and usually easier to avoid, but people do be dumb); however, they're way more prone to storms and whatnot. I do think that some of the underground cables aren't as well-insulated or protected as they should be, though.
There's a reason you're supposed to contact the utilities before you dig. Here in the US we have a phone number to call; I don't know what other countries do. I think for normal home improvement, they'll mark the lines for free.
That sucks. My computer is swirling the drain, and I really need to replace it. It takes a long time to boot up, way longer than it should.
Yeah, that's always a fun time. I've got to do the same with mine, it's gonna be an all-day project or more.
5746932
Ooh, that's a good one.
5746965
That is the one nice thing about power outages, if they're widespread you get a way better view of the night sky (assuming it isn't cloudy, of course). I've got a bigger firepit but don't have a good way to use it to heat water or whatever. I do have a backup kerosene heater for the house, in case I lose power in the winter. It's got a grille to protect you from touching the really hot stuff, and I have heated water over top of it during a winter power failure.
5746970
That's not wrong . . . she's not the pony you want to call when you need something thought about, but she is the one when you need a pony to rush in without thinking.
5746976
I wonder how many other names are horse-related? I bet a lot.
5746998
Yeah, that's a good point. Probably they wouldn't have been out yet since she responded so quickly, but that is a good reason to not mess with the power company's stuff (one of many good reasons).
At least one of my neighbors doesn't have a proper disconnect for his generator; a few of my LED lights will glow faintly when he's running his genny. I've gotten in the habit of cutting the main breaker on my panel just to make sure that doesn't damage any of my stuff. I'm sure that's a problem that the utility people have to deal with.
I've got hit by 120 a few times, and also spark out of an ignition coil. There's a reason for lockout/tagout procedures, and they're not a bad idea even if you're on private property where they aren't generally required.
We've got a main breaker box at the shop that's got the handle zip-tied down, 'cause the piece of equipment that used to be attached isn't there any more.
Yeah, that's got to be a huge problem for some farming operations. Like the crops don't care if the power's on or not, but they might if they don't get water. For some animals that would be a big problem fast--like, you probably couldn't hand-milk a dairy herd these days, and I have a feeling that whatever processes are used to get the milk from the cow to the milk truck require electricity to work.
5747064
I think those are generally not used any more, because of the potential high gas consumption all the time (like, it's not a huge amount, but it's not none).
Most furnaces the problem isn't that the gas part won't operate, it's that the blower doesn't. I don't know if there are designs of furnace that are meant to operate without some kind of a blower to move the heated air--there might be. Probably newer ones won't work without line voltage anyway.
5747081
Huh.
Reminds me one of my favorite memes:
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/879533986303606834/1158103111030800467/m4l2lcn0uqe61.jpg?ex=651b0712&is=6519b592&hm=99d955d38b4f31e56083286f1778cbdf2c2bc136a6dfa8427f4975eac42343b6&
5747345
I was on the edge of one when I lived in Kalamazoo. It didn't affect me directly, but there was a lot of storm damage that it caused--where I lived, we didn't lose our power, but I'm sure a lot of people did, and it would have taken a while to fix. I just looked it up, and that storm produced seven tornadoes (EF-0 to EF-2) across the state, along with the derecho winds and severe downdrafts.
5748176
That sounds like a very bad idea.
5748727
but think about it. You could have free power for the rest of your life.
5748797
Build a man a fire, keep him warm for a day.
Set a man on fire, keep him warm for the rest of his life.