The 2018 "complain about the weather" thread

[classicdrogn]

D'oh. Hopefully normal service will be restored decently quickly, though I imagine the crews are stretched a little thin right now.

Fortunately things are actually pretty nice in my area at the moment... as long as you're not one of the people who got their house blown up or burned down by leaks caused by 10x overpressure in the natural gas line a couple days ago, or even just without heat and appliances. I'm doing my best to enjoy the one week of clement weather we typically get per fall or spring while it lasts.

[robkelk]

I have power! (As of 50 minutes ago, according to the clock that was blinking.) No idea how long it'll last, but the UPS is recharging. (Its status chirp woke me up...)

The power company's outage map is currently replaced with an outage list. They're aware of 110 distinct issues affecting approximately one-eighth of the city... but that's just the Ottawa side of the river, and doesn't include the rural areas around the city.

[robkelk]

Update:
Six people in hospital, two of them in critical condition.

Corner of Greenbank and Hunt Club - a minor arterial junction, but the power lines through there supply most of the southern suburbs:



   

source


Compared to this, me needing to check the food in the fridge is a minor annoyance...

[robkelk]

We now have confirmation that the funnel cloud touched down three times - the photos above are from the second time, where it took out the main power substation for the southwest section of the city.

[hazard]

I think I've identified the problem with your electrical network.

Have you considered using buried powerlines instead? They're fairly common in the Netherlands, although they don't handle most of the electrical power AFAIK, we've got a large number of them where we don't simply need a dozen or more high voltage wires across the same route.

[robkelk]

Burying the powerlines costs more than putting them on poles... as long as they aren't destroyed by a tornado, that is.

[hazard]

Well, yes, that would be kinda the point.

The cost is why we don't bury every powerline (well, that and safety concerns because there does need to be some space between powerlines, even buried), but it also means that a single storm is much less likely to cut off all the electrical supply.

[robkelk]

Outages on the Ottawa side of the river, as of 04:00 ET Sunday morning.



Source - presumably they got it from the power company. (It looks like one of their maps.)

Epsilon and Dragonflight each live in the middle of a couple of the bigger red blobs. Still haven't heard from them... but going to see whether they're okay would involve getting in the way of cleanup crews.

[Epsilon]

I'm fine. The tornado hit less than a city block from where I live. Looks like I'll be out of power for a long time, which really sucks. Currently leeching power and Wifi off the Bayshore network. No building damage to my home, so hunkering down with bottled water and dry goods for a few days and travelling out to eat as much as possible. Water works but its cold showers for me. ;p

Dragonflight's home was much closer to the destruction than mine. Huge trees knocked over in his neighbourhood. Once I've charged up everything and had food (the lines are insane) I'll drop off my stuff and walk over to see how he's doing.

[robkelk]

May as well empty your refrigerator now, if you haven't already.

[robkelk]

The CBC Radio weekly nation-wide call-in show is devoting the entire two-hour show today to tornadoes, focusing on this event.

Oh, and Environment Canada has determined that we got two tornadoes - the one that crossed the river, and the later one that took out the power substation.

[robkelk]

Outages on the Ottawa side of the river, as of 04:00 ET Sunday morning.



Source - presumably they got it from the power company. (It looks like one of their maps.)

Outages on the Ottawa side of the river, as of 06:40 ET Monday morning. Crews have been busy.


  hydro-map-0640-monday-september-24.jpg (Size: 79.01 KB / Downloads: 121)

At this point, the 90-90 Rule kicks in - there's a transformer station that needs to be repaired before the rest of the red marks can be cleared.

[hazard]

They probably have a transformer station stored somewhere they can slot in, but that still will take a while. At least, I'm imagining it's one of the smaller transformers, rather than one of the main infrastructure ones.

Because if it is? Oh boy.

[robkelk]

It provides power to a quarter-million people, so I'm guessing this is a Sam Beckett case. "Oh boy."

[hazard]

Yeah, if you are lucky? They've got a transformer stored somewhere in the Ottawa region. If not? This can take weeks as they either try to get one from elsewhere in the country, or they have to wait for one to be built. And that can take months; there's just not enough demand for that kind of heavy infrastructure for large production numbers, with many reserved before production even starts.

[robkelk]

They've been building a new HQ in the east end of town - they might not have had the budget to keep a transformer in storage in the west end.

[hazard]

Well, let me give you one more bit of hope: It's possible it can be repaired in situ instead of needing replacement. It's not as if I have the damage report on hand.

It's just that, well, power supply for 250 000 people? That's a lot of energy, going through a pretty small piece of equipment for that energy. If that thing short circuited it's a brick of partially molten and arc welded metal only good for scrapping, and it probably short circuited.

[robkelk]

Something else to consider - just because the station provides power to a quarter-million people doesn't mean a single transformer provides power to a quarter-million people. We learned 20 years ago about the dangers of a single point of failure in these facilities.

[hazard]

Oh?

What incident are you referring to?


That said, yes, single point failure is always a tremendous risk, especially for key infrastructure like water supplies, sewers and electrical power.

[Norgarth]

I suspect Rob was referring to the big blackout that nailed northeastern north america several years ago. It affected large chunks of Ontario, Quebec, and a bunch of US states extending down to New York.

[robkelk]

I suspect you might be thinking of a more recent blackout.

I'm thinking of the one 20 years ago, the January 1998 North American ice storm - it did quite a lot of damage to the infrastructure.

EDIT: If the power company's estimates are accurate (which they are better than half the time), the last outage in Ottawa should be cleared by 5am tomorrow. Fingers crossed that the estimates are right - then the repar crews can stop working 16-hours on and 8-hours off.

[classicdrogn]

You mentioned checking on Dragonflight earlier as his place is closer to the tornado track than yours - any news there?

[robkelk]

Heard from him yesterday evening - he's okay.

As for power restorations, we're so close... there's four pockets left in Ottawa from the tornadoes, all of which overlap at that substation, plus two new outages elsewhere. Maybe noon. Then we can offer to help outlying areas that have a different power supplier (and have also been getting their power back over the last few days).

[robkelk]

There's been a fatality because of the heavy weather.

---

How hydro workers got our power back on in 52 hours
tl;dr: They routed power from the step-down station in the east end of the city.

[robkelk]

Back to the weather.

At least we're not in Calgary today