[geeks] Mr Bill?

[Bill Bradford]

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 11:16:56AM -0400, Ido Dubrawsky wrote:
> What is going on down in Houston?  I grew up in Houston (Central,
> SouthEast and NorthWest) and my parents still live in Northwest Houston
> (in the Spring- Cypress area) and I just spoke with them this morning and
> they told me that they are expecting to be without power for another
> week!  They're even post- poning coming up to DC to visit me and the kids
> because they don't want to leave the house without power and with all the
> downed branches around.
> When Isabel hit the DC area in 2003 we were without power for just 3 days
> (and we live further out in the "burbs" than the equivalent place where
> my parents live in Houston).  Hell, I remember when Hurricane Alica hit 
> Houston in 1982 and we were only without power for about 3 days.  And Alicia 
> was a Category 3 hurricane.  Looks like when Houston Lighting & Power became 
> Reliant energy it also no longer was so reliable!

You have no idea of the amount of destruction from wind, poles down, trees
on lines, etc.  There's something like more than 7,000 people out right now
working on lines.

Galveston's electrical infrastructure is *gone*.  A large part of the
infrastructure in southeast Houston is toast.  I'm lucky that my
neighborhood is just waiting for a tree to be removed from a line and a
breaker flipped - but we've been waiting since Friday night/Saturday
morning.  I'm right near Gessner/Westheimer (77063).

The "physical infrastructure" part of what used to be Houston Light & Power
is known as Centerpoint Energy.

http://www.centerpointenergy.com/staticfiles/ike/outages.html

Information as of Sept. 17, 2008, 8:00 a.m. CST
Total number of customers: 2.26 million
Total customers restored: 779,054
Total customers with power: 886,797 (39% of total customers)
Total customers without power: 1.37 million (61% of total customers)

Bill

-- 
Bill Bradford 
Houston, Texas