As normal as it gets

It must be over since the top energy story is the utility paying of business to drop opposition to a rate hike.

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080924/NEWS01/309240010

Ike - Day 8

Can you imagine 8 days without power?

So considering that generators are on the minds of many.

Wouldn't it be great if a hybrid or fully electric vehicle was capable of plugging a major appliance into?

Ike - Day 5

Most kids are back in school.

Something I forgot to mention. On day 1 while the power was out on a place I was visiting the cable company rolled in with a generator. They kept it going night and day until the power was restored there on Day 3. What was the generator for? To keep the cable phone service up so that 911 could be used. 1 point for keeping things together. Minus 10 points for "paying someone for sitting on top of a generator for three days" being your disaster plan to ensure 911 service.

Again we have to remember that our experience is like having an 18 wheeler blow by and knock your hat off where what happened where the real Ike actually hit is like being hit by said 18 wheeler.

yIKEs it's Ike!

The remnants of Hurricane IKE have certainly reminded us how fragile our energy infrastructure is and how much we depend upon it.

It is now day three and still over half a million customers are without power. This is the point where food in freezers that were closed the entire time start to thaw. The few hours it takes for a refrigerator to rot passed days ago. People who use electric water heating instead of natural gas were on cold showers after the first day (Don't you wish you has a solar water heater about now). Early on the few restaurants with power had very long lines and waits. Most schools have been closed for two days now (the first day being a weekend).

The gasoline prices seem uniformly set at $4.15. Six of the Eight gasoline stations that I happened by were without power. Gasoline stations with no power cannot pump gas unless they are using a power generator (I've never seen a gasoline station with a generator). A local shell station sold out of it's regular unleaded then reduced it's price of super and premium to $4.15 and then ran out everything by the afternoon. Even with people running generators, in general there is still gasoline available.

As the power start to come on things are getting back to normal. Hopefully people will not forget the experience.

While the damage where the true hurricane hit is more severe and deserves more attention this small challenge shows what a hours of simple stiff winds can do the things you depend on.