Derecho - never knew what it was, and now I've lived through it

[4WD]

Just to show you how ridiculous and ignorant some people can be during an emergency, the main street in our town Tuesday night and Wednesday nights saw a steady stream of gawkers burning up fuel that we needed to power our generators. Only one gas station had fuel and on emergency power, but the gas lines were sometimes over two miles long and were taking cash only because the Credit Card com lines were not functioning.

Not surprised … when we were flooded 2” from a new oak floor … the bro-dozers had to go riding and send some wake.
Luckily my friend had a bunch of speedy dry (clay) and we blocked the doors from the wake …

 

[OVERKILL]

Two nuclear power facilities were the only ones operational and providing power. Solar panels had been crushed and damaged and wind turbines had been locked down to prevent further damage. Just something to ponder when considering the design of future power infrastructures.

Nukes are designed to have to survive pretty much anything, so that shouldn't surprise anyone. When we had the huge blackout in 2003 it was Bruce and Darlington that were used to rapidly rebuild the grid here in Ontario, both dumped steam and dropped to idle and were islanded when the blackout hit, once the transmission issues were sorted, they provided the incremental increases in power as well as the inertia to maintain frequency needed to bring everything back up.

I often take shots at wind for being absent when demand is high, as that typically is when there is little to no wind but in disaster and emergency situations where we have storms with high winds, them having to put the brakes on is a frequent occurrence. But there have been other situations like what transpired in SA where not enough inertia on the grid and wind putting on the brakes leads to collapse, hence the installation of the "Tesla big battery" to handle FCAS. In the UK, a lightning strike, affecting a small (300-400MW) quantity of renewables near Cambridge caused a frequency blip, which unexpectedly resulted in an entire wind farm, producing ~800MW at the time, going offline, which, in conjunction with an NG unit going down, led to a massive blackout. The wind farm should have ridden out the frequency blip, but didn't. A lack of inertia and of course lacking dispatch capability means you can't use wind to rebuild a grid either.

Calm after a storm where you need days to fix transmission infrastructure means relying on batteries isn't a viable solution, particularly if those batteries were paired to solar that was damaged. This is why people have gensets.

When it's -30, everything is buried in snow and it's not windy, it's not sunny and your life relies on electricity, it's fossil fuels, hydro or nuclear that will be providing it. The Utopian fantasy of wind and solar doesn't take these extremes into account because in existing scenarios where everything is backed with gas, they don't have to, they play the "green" angle and that's how you end up with California and their rolling blackouts and massive reliance on imports and gas. A situation like that in a northern state but replace the sun with snow and the AC demand with heat and things would get really spicy with solar panels that aren't buried in snow barely producing and the wind turbines at a stand-still. Nobody is going to build the level of storage necessary to make that situation work without fossil fuels or nuclear.

 

[4WD]

☢

 

[MolaKule]

Some pics of our neighborhood:

 

[DriveHard]

@MolaKule - Ive' been living it over a week, and the pictures still blow my mind. It's just insane driving around the area. Yeah, it was just a "category 3" hurricane...but no notice, and in an area that has never experienced that force of nature before.

 

[MolaKule]

Right! The NWS has just adjusted the wind speeds due to the mount of damage and now say the winds were as high as 140 mph.

 

[OilReport99]

You would think those pictures are from a major hurricane hitting the Florida coastline...devastating and sad.

 

[zippster223]

My Experience,

I came out pretty unscathed, but one of my friends had their house literally cut in half. She was not home luckily. My neighbor got an 80ft tall ash in his kitchen and two houses on my block caught fire. People were burning garbage since pickup service was not available and things started to stink up fast.

Chainsaws, chains, generators, batteries, extension cords, propane, gas cans, coolers, cheap grills, ice, 30wt oil, bar oil, GAS, flashlights, not available for 75 miles, and that was if you weren't trapped by tree fall.

When the gas station opened up down the street from me they promptly had to close because of looting. They are now back open. Speaking of looting. Generators, gas and chainsaws were being snatched from people's yards. Someone even stold the generator from the local animal rescue. Someone also took all the solar lights in my neighborhood and I managed to intercept my neighbors from being robbed.

I am sickened by some of the local businesses taking advantage of this situation. The hardware store on the se side was charging $600 for the little Harbor Freight Generators that normally run for 149 and $1600 for The Predator 4000 generator which is normally $350. When the truck pulled up about 50 people were waiting for these but many had to turn away because some could just not afford it. I saw so many people just break down in tears right in the parking lot. I ask why they were charging so much and the answer I got was "Well, you need one right"
Not to mention they were charging $3.50 for a roll of toilet paper during covid. Since I live near the store, I am now going to let my dogs take a dump right on their front door whenever I walk them that way.

One of the Home stores sold my neighbor a generator for $750. I went back the next day and the same one, although available, was marked up to $999.

So I have vented my frustrations, this is an oil forum and I have hung my dirty laundry, but I hope others can learn from these events.

 

[DriveHard]

My Experience,

I came out pretty unscathed, but one of my friends had their house literally cut in half. She was not home luckily. My neighbor got an 80ft tall ash in his kitchen and two houses on my block caught fire. People were burning garbage since pickup service was not available and things started to stink up fast.

Chainsaws, chains, generators, batteries, extension cords, propane, gas cans, coolers, cheap grills, ice, 30wt oil, bar oil, GAS, flashlights, not available for 75 miles, and that was if you weren't trapped by tree fall.

When the gas station opened up down the street from me they promptly had to close because of looting. They are now back open. Speaking of looting. Generators, gas and chainsaws were being snatched from people's yards. Someone even stold the generator from the local animal rescue. Someone also took all the solar lights in my neighborhood and I managed to intercept my neighbors from being robbed.

I am sickened by some of the local businesses taking advantage of this situation. The hardware store on the se side was charging $600 for the little Harbor Freight Generators that normally run for 149 and $1600 for The Predator 4000 generator which is normally $350. When the truck pulled up about 50 people were waiting for these but many had to turn away because some could just not afford it. I saw so many people just break down in tears right in the parking lot. I ask why they were charging so much and the answer I got was "Well, you need one right"
Not to mention they were charging $3.50 for a roll of toilet paper during covid. Since I live near the store, I am now going to let my dogs take a dump right on their front door whenever I walk them that way.

One of the Home stores sold my neighbor a generator for $750. I went back the next day and the same one, although available, was marked up to $999.

So I have vented my frustrations, this is an oil forum and I have hung my dirty laundry, but I hope others can learn from these events.

Very sad...that is not the Iowa way. :-(

 

[zippster223]

Very sad...that is not the Iowa way. :-(

It's the result of non-Iowan's that keep moving here.

 

[RazorsEdge]

I just got electricity restored on Wednesday