CER2520@ritvax.isc.rit.edu (Curtis E. Reid) (03/10/91)
[Moderator's Note: Below are three recent dispatches from Mr. Reid.
Due to a lack of space, I was unable to run these earlier in the week
as they arrived (one by one). PAT]
Today is Thursday, March 7, 1991.
Approximately 100,000 of 325,000 are still without power. The area
where I live is still without power after 80 (3 days) hours.
I am excerpting several paragraphs from our local newspaper, {Democrat
and Chronicle}, Thursday, March 7, 1991, front page and page 10A:
"Almost 100,000 Rochester Gas and Electric Corp. customers
remained without power yesterday as hundreds of work crews
continued to clear tree limbs and repair power lines in a
region still reeling from the ice storm."
....
"States of emergency were still in effect for Monroe as well
as Livingston and Ontario counties, along with parts of Genesee,
Wayne and Orleans counties."
....
"Monroe County Executive Thomas R. Frey, meanwhile, requested
that [Governor] Cuomo seek federal disaster assistance for
the county. If such a request were granted, federal funds or
assistance would be available for the cleanup."
....
"Motorists were still trying to adjust to driving without
traffic signals at intersections.
"'It looked like most of the community was playing chicken at
those intersections without police officers,' said Monroe
County Sheriff Andrew P. Meloni yesterday morning.
"By the afternoon, about 40 traffic signals were repaired but
some 120 remained out of service."
....
"Rochester Telephone Corp. reported that 15,000 customers
remained without service last night. That was the same number
reported Tuesday.
"Progress was hampered because the company received a host of
new requests to repair telephones out of service. In all, about
18,000 calls have been received by Rochester Telephone, which
serves Monroe and Livingston counties, along with parts of
Wayne, Ontario, Gensee and Wyoming counties."
------------------------------
Today is Friday, March 8, 1991:
The power at my residence in Henrietta has been restored after 84
hours of no electricity. Only half of the town were restored. Many
portions of the counties are still without power.
There are a lot of good articles in the newspaper. They are too
numerous to excerpt them all however I am selecting some that I think
might be of interest to you as Telecom Digest readers. All are
excerpts from Rochester, NY's {Democrat and Chronicle} newspaper dated
Friday, March 8, 1991.
Front page headline: Disaster aid sought
"As bitter cold drove reluctant local residents to heated
public shelters last night, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo announced
he would ask President Bush to declare Monroe and other
counties in western and northern New York a major disaster
area.
"Cuomo sent a preliminary letter to the White House yesterday
and said a formal request would follow as soon as paperwork
was completed. The designation as a 'major' disaster area
would qualify local governments for the highest level of
reimbursement for cleanup expenses."
....
"Cold, wind and snow yesterday also slowed Rochester Gas and
Electric Corp. crews, but they managed to restore power to
nearly 30,000 customers by mid-afternoon. RG&E expected to
return light and heat to at least 27,000 more customers by
the end of today.
From page 6A:
"That still would leave another 40,000 customers -- three-
quarters of them residential customers -- without power by
tonight, when bitter cold was forecast again.
"RG&E senior vice president David Laniak has said he believes
the company will restore power to nearly all customers by
this weekend."
....
From page 1B:
Headline: 23,000 area telephone customers lack service
"A total of 23,000 Rochester Telephone Corp. customers in
the Rochester area were recorded as lacking service
yesterday, the highest number since the weekend's
devasting ice storm.
"One reason the number is getting higher is that people are
reporting lost service as they return home once electric
power is restored, said Diana Melville, assistant manager
for community and media relations. About 3,000 service
calls have been made.
"The increase means the problem is worse than the company
initially believed. 'Realistically, we're going well into
next week before this is cleared up', she said.
"The net total of customers known to lack service went from
15,000 Monday to 18,000 Tuesday, to 15,000 Wednesday, to 23,000
yesterday, Melville said. Rochester Tel's local affiliate,
Rochester Telephone Operating Co., has a service area that
includes 360,000 customers in Monroe and Livingston counties,
and parts of Wayne, Ontario, Genesee and Wymoning counties.
"Another reason more progress hasn't been made is some of the
repaired telephone lines were damaged again by falling branches,
or inclement weather, such as brisk winds Wednesday night, she
said.
"The workers think they're running on a treadmill. For example,
telephone crews completed 1,200 jobs Wednesday, but there were
3,000 new reports of no service. Yesterday, crews completed
1,650 jobs, but there were 1,400 new reports of no service.
"The company is using its own 300 crew members, along with
100 crew members from other telephone companies. The repairs
are being made from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
"In the beginning of the week, the crews went to affected homes
to make repairs, but they often couldn't do their work because
of suspected live electric wires that were down, Melville said.
Now repairs are coordinated to follow Rochester Gas and Electric
Corp.'s repair of power lines, she said.
"Greater Rochester Cablevision hasn't determined how many of its
customers have lost service. The company asked customers to
call only if they have electrical power but no cable service or
if they know their cable lines are down."
------------------------------
Today is Saturday, March 9, 1991:
Approximately 43,000 are still without power -- they are widely
scattered all over the counties. Estimate restoration to Monday
evening -- a change from this weekend. 24,500 are without telephone
service. Price tag: $36 Million.
Below are excerpts from Rochester, NY's {Democrat and Chronicle} dated
March 9th:
Front page headline:
"Price tag of disaster starts at $36 million"
From front page:
"On Day Five of Rochester's Ice Storm recovery, the pace of
electric restoration slowed and the first cost estimate
came in: $36 million just to haul away debris.
"Gov. Mario M. Cuomo toured stricken Rochester-area neighbor-
hoods and did his best to cheer up a frazzled populace, whose
response to the crisis he called superb."
....
"About 43,000 customers in Monroe County remained without
power yesterday afternoon. RG&E revised its estimate of
when they expect to connect all but scattered power failures
from this weekend to Monday evening."
....
From page 10A:
....
"Laniak [RG&E Vice President] also continued yesterday to
defend RG&E's handling of the crisis, and the way it set
its priorities. But he said, in essence, that the company
never anticipated having to deal with such massive damage.
It does not possess the extra communications gear needed
to field large numbers of out-of-town crews, he said, and
its written emergency plan was based on a lessor wind or
lightning storm."
....
Different article on same page:
....
"In contrast, Rochester Telephone Corp. again reported an
increase for the second day in the number of customers
without phone service. As of yesterday, about 24,500
customers lacked service, the highest total since the storm
occured, according to Diana Melville, assistant manager for
community and media relations.
"Although the company made about 3,000 repairs yesterday, it
also got 7,000 new reports of no service, Melville said.
She said a few of those 7,000 might be customers repeating
a request to get service returned. Many of the others,
however, probably represent people returning to homes and
finally reporting problems.
"Of the 24,500 lacking service yesterday, about 19,000 of
those customers reported that the "drop line" that goes
directly to their home was disconnected or damaged,
Melville said.
"Repairing large numbers of drop lines is time-consuming,
she said.
"Melville repeated her prediction that service won't be
restored to all customers until well into next week."
....
Curtis E. Reid
CER2520@RITVAX.Bitnet (Bitnet)
CER2520@RITVAX.isc.rit.edu (Internet)sichermn@beach.csulb.edu (Jeff Sicherman) (03/10/91)
It's hardly an issue here (Southern California) unless it gets so dry the lines turn to dust and blow away ... but I was windering (sic): What fraction of utility lines are underground, particularly Telephone, and does it vary from region-to-region, state-to-state, or over smaller areas as to the practice and preponderance ? It would seem that they were more survivable from natural disasters (though less from back-hoe made ones). It would seem that overhead and otherwise exposed phone lines are most vulnerable under conditions that they might be most emergency-critical. I wonder if a cellular-based system wouldn't be more dependable in these circumstances. Future wire-based local network installations would have a limited-bandwidth cellular component in neighborhoods and at the CO. Each subscriber would have a cellular capability (perhaps more restricted than regular cellular and on different frequencies) either built into the phone (with price and size going down this shouldn't be a major problem) or perhaps as part of an *active* network interface, that permits them to tap into the stand-by cellular ports under restricted conditions to prevent overload (like the network restrictions that are imposed when disasters occur). Jeff Sicherman
mrapple@quack.sac.ca.us (Nick Sayer) (03/11/91)
sichermn@beach.csulb.edu (Jeff Sicherman) writes: > I wonder if a cellular-based system wouldn't be more dependable in > these circumstances. Future wire-based local network installations > would have a limited-bandwidth cellular component in neighborhoods and > at the CO. Each subscriber would have a cellular capability (perhaps > more restricted than regular cellular and on different frequencies) > either built into the phone (with price and size going down this > shouldn't be a major problem) or perhaps as part of an *active* > network interface, that permits them to tap into the stand-by cellular > ports under restricted conditions to prevent overload (like the > network restrictions that are imposed when disasters occur). That's an interesting prospect. It begs a similar question: If it weren't for the fact that an enormous amount of copper is already in the ground or thirty feet above it, what would the phone company use? Does it cost more to use cellular to "wire" up a city than copper or glass? I envision a cubic-foot box in the attic with a piece of (short) coax leading to a small beam on the roof aimed at the local CO, and a couple of screw terminals on the side of the box providing the demarkation point. It would plug into an AC jack, but have an internal battery backup. Such a box would end up looking and acting just like our current demark. If that's no good, then perhaps a scheme could be envisioned where the box is tied to a piece of glass that loops around the whole neighborhood party-line style. Or even to a bunch of copper doing the same thing. It would use Frequency Division Multiplexing. That would help, wouldn't it? Nick Sayer mrapple@quack.sac.ca.us N6QQQ [44.2.1.17] 209-952-5347 (Telebit)