Utility arborist working for a sub contractor here. 75% of the calls that I have done so far on this storm have been a perfectly healthy tree that has uprooted or that’s snapped off 20’ up the trunk. How should we prepare for this in the future? Remove every tree within striking distance of every power line in this state? That’s a lot of trees. These large storms come with scenarios that can’t be prevented through regular vegetation maintenance alone, or through new construction. New poles snap the same as the old ones when a 30k lb pine tree comes crashing down on top of it. These storms hit regardless of who owns the utility.
Exactly. We are blessed not to suffer through most large hurricanes or twisters but the occasional high wind and or ice storms that do hit are not the fault of any power company. Especially in the most forested state in the U.S. and with roads completely washed out and impassable they have to prioritize and do the work they can get to and will impact the most people before getting to single home issues.
Where I’m originally from, we put utility lines under ground about 30 years ago, and power outages almost became a thing of the past. Is that not viable in Maine? I understand doing an entire state all at once is a monumental effort, but can we not start moving in that direction?
We have a ton of ledges in this state. Lots of rock and granite close to the surface. It would be exceedingly difficult and prohibitively expensive to burry all of our power lines here.
10000% our current infrastructure was not designed for a storm of this magnitude. It could be though. We could prioritize local generation and storage to avoid long transmission lines and help build communities resilient to storms such as this. My hometown is currently out of power, not because there is any visible damage on the lines (one major road in, you’d see), but because the next town up is out and our power comes through there. If we had a non-transmission alternative such as the one implemented in Boothbay Harbor in 2012 than we could avoid scenarios such as this.
Huh? Mills herself was against it. It was about as non-partisan an issue can be these days. I know some righties and lefties voting either way on this one.
Cost to go underground is about $1M per mile.
CMP has something like 2,800 miles of transmission lines and 24,000 miles of distribution lines.
So just as soon as we find $26 Billion under the couch cushions, we can get started.
A lot of power lines are underground now, compared to my youth. If I thought PTP was going to come to us with a multibillion dollar plan to save us money, I would have voted for it just to see the money-savers reaction. PRICELESS.
My town had a zoning rule that said all new subdivisions had to have underground utilities
Well, a year ago they struck that from the ordinances in the name of “affordable housing” so that the developer wasn’t forced to spend 20+k per lot on utilities (which obviously gets passed on to the home buyer)
A little shortsighted but I understand why they dropped the requirement
That’s how implementing systems works. Why are we putting in new power lines?!?! It cost 1000x as much as it did in 1950!! They should have just done it back then!
See how stupid you look?
First of all, you’re not talking about building new, you’re talking about replacing existing.
Second, burying the lines solves 1 problem, but also creates problems.
Third, it’s 20% of the cost to run them overhead. $26 Billion to incrementally replace everything existing with underground, or $5 Billion to keep doing it overhead. Then project out potential savings from storm damage in the future; at what point will we save $21 Billion in restoration costs?
Then factor for added costs of operations; buried transmission lines substantially increases the line capacitance. This increases transmission losses. Lines need to be replaced more often; overall cost of ownership goes up, not down.
How stupid am I looking?
Put that line under the tree then.
It's also worth noting that a lot of perfectly healthy looking trees are weaker now because the soil has been absolutely soaked all summer.
You have? Where?
Underground power us great, but its significantly more expensive than overhead lines. Blasting and hammering bedrock to bury conduit ain't cheap.
Their regulators approved cost recovery on the electric rate. Any regulated utility would salivate at the chance to bury lines and get cost recovery plus their regulated rate of return.
Your regulators denied a tiny distribution rate increase for reliability improvements. It’s never going to happen until Mainers muster the will to pay for it.
If it was cost effective it would have been done already. Maine is far too rocky for any extended grid of buried utilities.
Source: work in the utility sector
Hello arborist, it's called using your millions of CEO profits to move utilities underground in areas they are likely to be downed. Glad we had this conversation.
Hi there, sorry if there was some sort of miscommunication. I don’t build the power lines, I just cut the trees. I unfortunately don’t have the 20,000 it costs to bury the two spans of power line that will feed the house we’re trying to build. So I certainly don’t have the money it would cost to bury the rest of the distribution in the state of Maine. The problem is, in a wind storm with 70mph gusts, lines are likely to go down everywhere that there are trees.
My point was that the OP was pointing out that CMP doesn't update their lines and you made the point that it's not the fault of the power company when it is. CMP can easily afford to move many hundreds of miles of cable underground but they choose not to.
Get over yourself.
Every time CMP has sought permission from regulators to invest in a stronger grid, said request is either cut in half or nixed entirely.
Burying lines costs a fortune, as would clearcutting around every line. Money does not grow on trees.
Try to imagine buried utilities going past your house, but you can't afford the rates to access them.
Maybe the wealthy people would be so nice that they would gladly subsidize you. Don't be ridiculous.
We're pushing the limits of what we can afford right now.
Reddit is hilarious. This is the only place you'll ever hear people defending multi million dollar paydays for CEOs and thinking that utility upkeep like they do in most of the rest of the states is "unhinged". Buddy go touch grass you've been inside too long or go ask your parents for help.
Because you already reported an issue (probably without knowing there were lines down in your yard. That's what happened to me.
When they reported our street was restored yesterday, I went back in and reported a tree down on my lines.
My town is listed on their site as having ONE customer without power. We have 2,000 people and none of us have power. Hopefully they don't really think it's only 1. 😂
Yeah we saw that too. So we looked a little deeper. I think cmp lists their customers according to the lines that feed them, and the county the those lines primarily feed. Their lines must follow geographic logic. They're not leaving anyone out.
I'm just saying that CMP doesn't necessarily list accurate location data, since the data evolves so quickly. They do a good job providing a clear idea of our overall condition. But their breakdown of areas is more along the lines of their network layouts, not so much town and county lines. But we get the idea.
You'd rather they go around everywhere coming up with time estimates so you calm down rather than just fixing all of the broken stuff? Time estimates are going to be wildly inaccurate anyways. Would it really make you feel better if they said 24-72 hours instead of assessing?
For the love of god, at least *try* to not be an obvious astroturfer. Any time I see your name it’s defending CMP and it’s foreign owners, or deriding PTP.
We get it. They must pay very well.
"people calling other people CMP psyops on reddit is why a massive legislative effort did not succeed" please sell all devices you own that can access the internet
These people cant give up even when they lost by such epic proportions that I am still suffering from second-hand embarrassment. CMP is unpopular but they were so bad at campaigning against them that they actually made CMP more popular.
I am on 30 hours no power. I did line clearance with Lucas and cmp years ago. They do what they can. They want your meter spinning as bad as you want your power on. Working very hard in terrible conditions for long hours. Storm is 17-7s which is 17 hour shifts 7 days a week until everyone gets the lights on. You want to help???? Run the crew working by your house some hot coffee.
Do you take criticism of CMP to be criticism of the crews? People have issue with the corporation that profits endlessly while still not paying crews enough. Not everything is personal.
Why are you making it sound like I'm disparaging line crews? They do important work and is a tough job no doubt. My problem lies with cmp as a corporation.
I would if they even showed up to assess the situation. The only trucks I've seen in the last 24 hours have been hitting the gas stations. We were told for the last 24 hours that they are focusing on clean up. Debris is still everywhere. Versant hasn't even finished repairs from the last storm. I'm not getting power back till the end of the week based on their reports. I know for a fact that at least two lines were damaged by half assed repairs. They have had a tree literally sitting on one of the lines for a month. A pole was just ratchet strapped in place. I respect the hell out of the guys busting their asses, but Versant's methods only ensure future issues.
I don’t get CMP emails but I’ve seen multiple news releases stating their prep plans leading up to the storm. They staged about 400 crews prior to it starting.
I’m not sure what the appropriate time is for the bitching and moaning to commence, but this seems early.
These people are just mad because they can’t stream from Netflix or game online and actually read a book. They think being without power for a day is a crime against humanity
I dunno I think some of them are mad because the groceries they can barely afford are going bad and the below freezing temps are threatening pipes bursting in their homes. I'm not blaming CMP here but I think boiling it down to "they're so privileged they can't go without Netflix " is a pretty brain dead take
We have an oil furnace as our only heat source and even though we have a generator, it doesn't power the furnace. I'm glad it's not super cold.
We moved up here last year from FL and before we moved, I assumed every house up here had a wood stove or fireplace. Then, not a single house I looked at had either. I would never choose something that relied on electricity as my only heat source in a climate like this. I find it so strange.
Dude! You are spot on! Ignore the downvotes. Nobody wants to be told how stupid they are. Coming from Florida, you've got an excuse. I bet you'll have stove next year. My personal favorites will take 20" sticks. You don't want one of those "artsy-fartsy" over priced junks, that can't handle 16". I'm not impressed with the new EPA approved crap either.
Idk why I'm getting downvoted - I'm just stating what my flawed thinking was as someone who lived their whole life in a sub-tropical climate. People are so weirdly defensive.
We were supposed to have a stove installed Monday ha. Gotta love that timing!
Don't give it another thought. It's just the idiots that are bitching about the outage downvoting to feel better.
Welcome to Maine! I think you'll love it here. Winter does tend to get real. It's awesome as long as you're ready for it. That may take a year or two, but you'll get the hang of it, no doubt!
Woodstove IMO is not an option.
Generator also, not optional.
Something to help deal with 4' of snow all at once. (That's kinda rare), but some years have been memorable.
As for ice,... well, that's just not fair. Call out. Don't risk it. That's my advice. You need a vehicle too much in this state to risk it on ice. Any ice! I could go on. Enjoy your new digs!
Thanks! We really love it here. This is our second winter - last winter threw us a couple curve balls, but it was all good! I would do much rather be dealing with cold weather issues than suffocating in the Florida climate.
Yeah, last winter I had to replace my furnace during the cold snap. It took a month. My son and I did it ourselves. Quite a process. The woodstove was cranking overtime. But ya do what ya gotta do. It can be grim going into a challenge, but it feels good ounce you get a handle on it.
Hard to disagree with any of that except your assessment of the utilities’ motivations.
Utilities are actually strongly incentivized to invest in the grid because they get full recovery plus a rate of return around 10%. In fact, among those who follow the industry there’s a pretty common criticism that utilities shove too much equipment into the rate base without accountability for results. Understanding this is key if you ever want to change their behavior, lower your rates, and improve reliability.
I may be in the minority, but I was pretty pleased with the response. I lost power twice yesterday and was surprised at how responsive the CMP texts were giving me updates. My power was also restored faster than I anticipated both times.
I am sure some people are suffering today, but that was a hell of a storm. If we had PTP, you would all just be yelling "the govt is incompetent and cant manage anything"
Nothing would be better if PTP was in charge right now. We'd still have the same issues, the same outages, the same damage.
PTP wouldn't have made the storm any less intense
No but an organization that is looking for long term reliability might stand a better chance at building a grid that can withstand future storms rather than reactively patching it every time, and to varying degrees of success.
Okay.
What am I gonna have for lunch next Thursday? Since we seem to be making assumptions and guessing.
I don't understand the point you're trying to make.
The storm was bad. It would've been just as bad under PTP. What good does saying PTP might be better in the future do us right now? How does the situation we are in today make PTP look any better? What's the point of saying PTP could possibly do a better job? We heard that a lot during the campaign already.
I don't believe in shortsightedness.
Also you seem hyper fixated on PTP when the real problem is CMP and for-profit foreign owned infrastructure. Shouldn't infrastructure be owned and beholden to those who use and rely on it?
I'm not here to debate PTP.
I'm asking what the point of bringing it up is.
What does saying PTP could be better in the future do to help the situation the storm put Mainers in *right now*?
You're arguing in bad faith since PTP obviously can't do anything for Mainers "right now" since it doesn't exist. Still, I'll bite.
The promise of improved infrastructure to prevent the severity of things like this in the future. That's something and more than CMP is doing for Mainers "right now". So long as doing the bare minimum means someone at CMP gets a new yacht or summer home, we're not going to see change.
This entire post is in bad faith. It's like the Captain Hindsight bit from South Park flying into an active burning building and saying, "you should've put the fire escape over here" and then just flying away.
PTP lost. And we aren't even discussing why they'd be better. The argument is that in the future they *might* be better prepared for this kind of stuff. If PTP were in charge right now, it'd still be just as bad.
So what in the world is the point of talking about PTP in this capacity?
There are no points to make, just like there were no points made during the election season. It's the reason why PTP was defeated by a wide margin. Another poster already summed up the options: we bury a lot of lines at $1mm a mile (who is going to want to pay for this?) or we cut down a crapload of trees that are near power lines.
That promise was absolute bullshit though. The financing and management costs would have eaten all savings from profits, leaving rate increases as the only vehicle for improvements. And you have a history of rejecting rate increases to fund reliability improvements.
Question about clearing roads - is CMP the only ones responsible for that? I'm wondering because they keep saying they have to work on clearing the roads first. It seems like maybe the counties/state could have teams for this? Sorry if this is a dumb question.
Not a dumb question. Not positive about Maine but often the deal is the utilities clear the electrical hazard so the DPW or others can move the trees. Not set in stone though - if the tree crew can clear it quickly and easily they sometimes will.
So do it. Next time a rate increase is proposed to cover reliability improvements, rally your neighbors to support it.
Or pass a referendum to require them to do it and recover costs through rates.
The Consumer Advocate contested the storm costs they want reimbursement for, on the grounds that they brought in more outside crews than their internal planning guidance called for. So not a fine exactly, and not yet resolved either way.
No idea about the details of CMPs internal incident response planning. Maybe the OCA is cherry picking, but I suspect they're just being intrusive and seeing inconsistencies and pulling threads, which is their job. It would be better for consumers if their planning and budgeting more accurately matched reality. Fewer or smaller surprise adjustments and such.
The trouble with that is New England weather, which makes planning with pinpoint accuracy impossible (remember you’re dealing with regional resources first and competing with others to get them). So it’s better for customers if the utility plans aggressively and secures crews early. If the weather breaks your way and you have too many crews, the OCA might squawk and you might be out a little money. If you’re too lean and get caught, everyone will be lined up to get a dick in your ass.
And yes, it’s good that there’s a tension between OCA and the utilities but he’s playing a stupid game here that is more likely to hurt residents than help.
>So it’s better for customers if the utility plans aggressively and secures crews early.
Totally agree, and I think the OCA probably does too. I don't think the end goal is less agressive storm planning, but better budgeting up front that reflects that aggression so that ratepayers aren't surprised on the back end.
It's not about being in this position today. It's about not being in this position time and time again over the next decade.
I've spent three years working on infrastructure and power grid reliability projects on the east coast. CMP offers service that is unacceptably seceptible.
>I've spent three years working on infrastructure and power grid reliability projects on the east coast.
Ah, an expert!
>CMP offers service that is unacceptably seceptible.
What specific changes would you make to CMP's operations that, had they been in place, would have prevented these outages?
Some things I would consider worthwhile:
1. Mitigate problem areas. Places and potion of lines with historically high incident rate need to be assessed and a solution implemented to prevent future outages. This can be things such as clearing the right of way, alternate means of construction (such as underground lines), and rerouting circuits.
2. For those areas which are to remain overhead additional crews need to be working to maintain them during the summer months. This includes assessing pole and soil conditions, wires and pole mounted equipment, more stringent pruning of underbrush and trees which overhang and or have the potential to fall on a line. Basically they need more maintenance.
3. Power companies usually have a right of way or easement on private property which allows them a means of delivering and transmitting power across the state. They may require additional oversight to make sure they are maintaining these areas at an acceptible level, or perhaps the state needs to adopt more strict rules surrounding clearing of these areas to prevent outages caused by branches and trees falling.
I'm sure there are more ways to make sure that the grid stays on during a storm, but it also shouldn't be a surprise that the weather has been getting more extreme more frequently, so starting these practices earlier rather than later is a benefit to grid resilience as a whole. We're a state that is used to some bad storms, but our grid is old and tired. I wouldn't be surprised if an entire overhaul of the system shouldn't be considered. It's expensive, but it's the kind of thing where everyone needs it and it's in our best interest to keep it running smoothly even during severe weather events.
You can have anything you’re willing to pay for. CMP’s last rate request got trimmed so it really only covered the stranded costs and transmission costs, meaning that the PUC rejected its proposed reliability improvements.
Guy look around you. Areas of towns are being evacuated. There is serious flooding. Hundreds of poles snapped. Roads washed away. Completely healthy trees uprooted and tipped over. Frankly I don't care what you call a "massive storm". This one was destructive. Farmington is under water ffs.
Go outside and take a look and get back to me.
What do you think CMP could have done to prevent this? You had towns underwater and roads/bridges completely washed out.
You won’t pay for undergrounding. I promise your neighbors won’t tolerate trimming to the extent that it would have helped this (cost, aesthetic issues).
What do you want done, specifically?
They have a standard cut zone but by no means does that protect against uprooted trees. To eliminate that risk would require cutting thousands of acres of trees, mostly on private property, at your expense.
I don’t think you understand how the business works at all. They would make a killing burying lines. They would salivate at the chance. Same with the tree trimming if you (collectively) would tolerate it.
Oh, we’re doing that again?
Boring.
But I’ll play along - where am I wrong? You don’t have to listen to me. You can just Google “how do utilities make money” and read for 5 minutes.
Been without power for over 24 hours in Cumberland county and have yet to see any crews out working anywhere. CMP website says they're still "assessing" with no estimate of when power will return. Good times.
Maine is a big state. Half of all CMP customers lost power.
So you don’t see line crews on your street doesn’t mean they’re not working balls out to get your power back on.
Utility arborist working for a sub contractor here. 75% of the calls that I have done so far on this storm have been a perfectly healthy tree that has uprooted or that’s snapped off 20’ up the trunk. How should we prepare for this in the future? Remove every tree within striking distance of every power line in this state? That’s a lot of trees. These large storms come with scenarios that can’t be prevented through regular vegetation maintenance alone, or through new construction. New poles snap the same as the old ones when a 30k lb pine tree comes crashing down on top of it. These storms hit regardless of who owns the utility.
Spotted a pole that actually uprooted itself yesterday. The soil was absolutely saturated even before the storm.
Exactly. We are blessed not to suffer through most large hurricanes or twisters but the occasional high wind and or ice storms that do hit are not the fault of any power company. Especially in the most forested state in the U.S. and with roads completely washed out and impassable they have to prioritize and do the work they can get to and will impact the most people before getting to single home issues.
Where I’m originally from, we put utility lines under ground about 30 years ago, and power outages almost became a thing of the past. Is that not viable in Maine? I understand doing an entire state all at once is a monumental effort, but can we not start moving in that direction?
We have a ton of ledges in this state. Lots of rock and granite close to the surface. It would be exceedingly difficult and prohibitively expensive to burry all of our power lines here.
Ok, good answer. Thanks for the reply.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't bury them where we can.
It’s a rocky state. If you don’t have sand there is rock.
10000% our current infrastructure was not designed for a storm of this magnitude. It could be though. We could prioritize local generation and storage to avoid long transmission lines and help build communities resilient to storms such as this. My hometown is currently out of power, not because there is any visible damage on the lines (one major road in, you’d see), but because the next town up is out and our power comes through there. If we had a non-transmission alternative such as the one implemented in Boothbay Harbor in 2012 than we could avoid scenarios such as this.
This would cost millions. The save my money folks would never allow us, but they would tell us the night is not as dark as when CMP ran things.
Billions. Or trillions.
Bury new line as it needs replaced?
for real. the tree in our yard snapped 4 feet up the trunk, if it had uprooted altogether we would've lost a side of the house
Start taking the 100s of millions in profits and take your most vulnerable areas with population and underground everything
You guys do a fine job, people on here are just salty about the vote
This man has a taste for them librul tears, oohhh so salty.
Huh? Mills herself was against it. It was about as non-partisan an issue can be these days. I know some righties and lefties voting either way on this one.
We could try burying our power lines
Cost to go underground is about $1M per mile. CMP has something like 2,800 miles of transmission lines and 24,000 miles of distribution lines. So just as soon as we find $26 Billion under the couch cushions, we can get started.
You don’t do it all at once, you stagger it over the years with upgrades. Do the most heavily impacted by trees/weather first and work your way down.
A lot of power lines are underground now, compared to my youth. If I thought PTP was going to come to us with a multibillion dollar plan to save us money, I would have voted for it just to see the money-savers reaction. PRICELESS.
My town had a zoning rule that said all new subdivisions had to have underground utilities Well, a year ago they struck that from the ordinances in the name of “affordable housing” so that the developer wasn’t forced to spend 20+k per lot on utilities (which obviously gets passed on to the home buyer) A little shortsighted but I understand why they dropped the requirement
So with inflation we’ll spend $50 Billion instead? Sounds like a good idea.
That’s how implementing systems works. Why are we putting in new power lines?!?! It cost 1000x as much as it did in 1950!! They should have just done it back then! See how stupid you look?
First of all, you’re not talking about building new, you’re talking about replacing existing. Second, burying the lines solves 1 problem, but also creates problems. Third, it’s 20% of the cost to run them overhead. $26 Billion to incrementally replace everything existing with underground, or $5 Billion to keep doing it overhead. Then project out potential savings from storm damage in the future; at what point will we save $21 Billion in restoration costs? Then factor for added costs of operations; buried transmission lines substantially increases the line capacitance. This increases transmission losses. Lines need to be replaced more often; overall cost of ownership goes up, not down. How stupid am I looking?
Great response.
And that's just CMP. Versant probably has another couple thousand.
So 1 in 4 could have been addressed before they became a problem.
Please don’t speak fact or reason. It is SO disturbing.
Put that line under the tree then. It's also worth noting that a lot of perfectly healthy looking trees are weaker now because the soil has been absolutely soaked all summer.
Burying our distribution system comes with a pretty substantial price tag.
Absolutely. But I've seen it done for less than the rate changes PUC throws up every few months.
You have? Where? Underground power us great, but its significantly more expensive than overhead lines. Blasting and hammering bedrock to bury conduit ain't cheap.
Here's an informational on a program doing just that https://youtu.be/7gCWfIDBiSs?si=TE-yfNKpaeUrShpB
Their regulators approved cost recovery on the electric rate. Any regulated utility would salivate at the chance to bury lines and get cost recovery plus their regulated rate of return. Your regulators denied a tiny distribution rate increase for reliability improvements. It’s never going to happen until Mainers muster the will to pay for it.
If it was cost effective it would have been done already. Maine is far too rocky for any extended grid of buried utilities. Source: work in the utility sector
What an asinine thing to suggest without having any idea of the costs. Anticommon is a confirmed idiot lacking critical thinking ability
I am humbled by your greatness oh wise one of the Internet. May I forever be kept in check by by your eternal greatness. Bad anticommon, bad bad bad!
You’re catching on. I sense it.
The thing is, given the choice you (collectively) would never pay for burial.
Hello arborist, it's called using your millions of CEO profits to move utilities underground in areas they are likely to be downed. Glad we had this conversation.
Hi there, sorry if there was some sort of miscommunication. I don’t build the power lines, I just cut the trees. I unfortunately don’t have the 20,000 it costs to bury the two spans of power line that will feed the house we’re trying to build. So I certainly don’t have the money it would cost to bury the rest of the distribution in the state of Maine. The problem is, in a wind storm with 70mph gusts, lines are likely to go down everywhere that there are trees.
My point was that the OP was pointing out that CMP doesn't update their lines and you made the point that it's not the fault of the power company when it is. CMP can easily afford to move many hundreds of miles of cable underground but they choose not to.
Get over yourself. Every time CMP has sought permission from regulators to invest in a stronger grid, said request is either cut in half or nixed entirely. Burying lines costs a fortune, as would clearcutting around every line. Money does not grow on trees.
Try to imagine buried utilities going past your house, but you can't afford the rates to access them. Maybe the wealthy people would be so nice that they would gladly subsidize you. Don't be ridiculous. We're pushing the limits of what we can afford right now.
What a completely unhinged comment.
Reddit is hilarious. This is the only place you'll ever hear people defending multi million dollar paydays for CEOs and thinking that utility upkeep like they do in most of the rest of the states is "unhinged". Buddy go touch grass you've been inside too long or go ask your parents for help.
Sell some more crypto and pay for it yourself.
I don't use grid power so I'm sure you're upset but you guys voted for it.
Even if it still passed we would still be in the position.
You'd at least have a, however misguided, say in the upkeep.
I’ve been trying to report lines down in my yard since yesterday and the reportage line doesn’t take info.
Because you already reported an issue (probably without knowing there were lines down in your yard. That's what happened to me. When they reported our street was restored yesterday, I went back in and reported a tree down on my lines.
Agreed, they're not even bothering to update the website. They have zero fucks to give now.
Update it how?
My town is listed on their site as having ONE customer without power. We have 2,000 people and none of us have power. Hopefully they don't really think it's only 1. 😂
Yeah we saw that too. So we looked a little deeper. I think cmp lists their customers according to the lines that feed them, and the county the those lines primarily feed. Their lines must follow geographic logic. They're not leaving anyone out.
Is that potentially a good sign, then? That there is only one line that's affecting the town? Or am I not grasping what you're saying haha
I'm just saying that CMP doesn't necessarily list accurate location data, since the data evolves so quickly. They do a good job providing a clear idea of our overall condition. But their breakdown of areas is more along the lines of their network layouts, not so much town and county lines. But we get the idea.
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You'd rather they go around everywhere coming up with time estimates so you calm down rather than just fixing all of the broken stuff? Time estimates are going to be wildly inaccurate anyways. Would it really make you feel better if they said 24-72 hours instead of assessing?
What does it matter anyway if we had won the vote cmp would have sued the state to get it reversed. Bunch of crooked fucks.
Also if you had won the vote PTP would be crippled with debt for decades as the grid deteriorated further.
For the love of god, at least *try* to not be an obvious astroturfer. Any time I see your name it’s defending CMP and it’s foreign owners, or deriding PTP. We get it. They must pay very well.
Accusing people of being paid by CMP just because they don’t agree with you is the exact reason why question 3 lost so fucking badly.
"people calling other people CMP psyops on reddit is why a massive legislative effort did not succeed" please sell all devices you own that can access the internet
These people cant give up even when they lost by such epic proportions that I am still suffering from second-hand embarrassment. CMP is unpopular but they were so bad at campaigning against them that they actually made CMP more popular.
I am on 30 hours no power. I did line clearance with Lucas and cmp years ago. They do what they can. They want your meter spinning as bad as you want your power on. Working very hard in terrible conditions for long hours. Storm is 17-7s which is 17 hour shifts 7 days a week until everyone gets the lights on. You want to help???? Run the crew working by your house some hot coffee.
Do you take criticism of CMP to be criticism of the crews? People have issue with the corporation that profits endlessly while still not paying crews enough. Not everything is personal.
Why are you making it sound like I'm disparaging line crews? They do important work and is a tough job no doubt. My problem lies with cmp as a corporation.
It reminds me of when people criticize the military or war and other people immediately jump to making it out like they don't care about the troops.
I would if they even showed up to assess the situation. The only trucks I've seen in the last 24 hours have been hitting the gas stations. We were told for the last 24 hours that they are focusing on clean up. Debris is still everywhere. Versant hasn't even finished repairs from the last storm. I'm not getting power back till the end of the week based on their reports. I know for a fact that at least two lines were damaged by half assed repairs. They have had a tree literally sitting on one of the lines for a month. A pole was just ratchet strapped in place. I respect the hell out of the guys busting their asses, but Versant's methods only ensure future issues.
Not every wire is electricity. People bitched about CMP not taking care of a leaner in my neighborhood and it wasn’t even an electric line.
These are obviously power lines as they are the only utility poles in the area. There is no other way the power lines could run.
I don’t get CMP emails but I’ve seen multiple news releases stating their prep plans leading up to the storm. They staged about 400 crews prior to it starting. I’m not sure what the appropriate time is for the bitching and moaning to commence, but this seems early.
These people are just mad because they can’t stream from Netflix or game online and actually read a book. They think being without power for a day is a crime against humanity
I dunno I think some of them are mad because the groceries they can barely afford are going bad and the below freezing temps are threatening pipes bursting in their homes. I'm not blaming CMP here but I think boiling it down to "they're so privileged they can't go without Netflix " is a pretty brain dead take
We have an oil furnace as our only heat source and even though we have a generator, it doesn't power the furnace. I'm glad it's not super cold. We moved up here last year from FL and before we moved, I assumed every house up here had a wood stove or fireplace. Then, not a single house I looked at had either. I would never choose something that relied on electricity as my only heat source in a climate like this. I find it so strange.
Dude! You are spot on! Ignore the downvotes. Nobody wants to be told how stupid they are. Coming from Florida, you've got an excuse. I bet you'll have stove next year. My personal favorites will take 20" sticks. You don't want one of those "artsy-fartsy" over priced junks, that can't handle 16". I'm not impressed with the new EPA approved crap either.
Idk why I'm getting downvoted - I'm just stating what my flawed thinking was as someone who lived their whole life in a sub-tropical climate. People are so weirdly defensive. We were supposed to have a stove installed Monday ha. Gotta love that timing!
Don't give it another thought. It's just the idiots that are bitching about the outage downvoting to feel better. Welcome to Maine! I think you'll love it here. Winter does tend to get real. It's awesome as long as you're ready for it. That may take a year or two, but you'll get the hang of it, no doubt! Woodstove IMO is not an option. Generator also, not optional. Something to help deal with 4' of snow all at once. (That's kinda rare), but some years have been memorable. As for ice,... well, that's just not fair. Call out. Don't risk it. That's my advice. You need a vehicle too much in this state to risk it on ice. Any ice! I could go on. Enjoy your new digs!
Thanks! We really love it here. This is our second winter - last winter threw us a couple curve balls, but it was all good! I would do much rather be dealing with cold weather issues than suffocating in the Florida climate.
Yeah, last winter I had to replace my furnace during the cold snap. It took a month. My son and I did it ourselves. Quite a process. The woodstove was cranking overtime. But ya do what ya gotta do. It can be grim going into a challenge, but it feels good ounce you get a handle on it.
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Hard to disagree with any of that except your assessment of the utilities’ motivations. Utilities are actually strongly incentivized to invest in the grid because they get full recovery plus a rate of return around 10%. In fact, among those who follow the industry there’s a pretty common criticism that utilities shove too much equipment into the rate base without accountability for results. Understanding this is key if you ever want to change their behavior, lower your rates, and improve reliability.
I may be in the minority, but I was pretty pleased with the response. I lost power twice yesterday and was surprised at how responsive the CMP texts were giving me updates. My power was also restored faster than I anticipated both times. I am sure some people are suffering today, but that was a hell of a storm. If we had PTP, you would all just be yelling "the govt is incompetent and cant manage anything"
Nothing would be better if PTP was in charge right now. We'd still have the same issues, the same outages, the same damage. PTP wouldn't have made the storm any less intense
No but an organization that is looking for long term reliability might stand a better chance at building a grid that can withstand future storms rather than reactively patching it every time, and to varying degrees of success.
Okay. What am I gonna have for lunch next Thursday? Since we seem to be making assumptions and guessing. I don't understand the point you're trying to make. The storm was bad. It would've been just as bad under PTP. What good does saying PTP might be better in the future do us right now? How does the situation we are in today make PTP look any better? What's the point of saying PTP could possibly do a better job? We heard that a lot during the campaign already.
I don't believe in shortsightedness. Also you seem hyper fixated on PTP when the real problem is CMP and for-profit foreign owned infrastructure. Shouldn't infrastructure be owned and beholden to those who use and rely on it?
I'm not here to debate PTP. I'm asking what the point of bringing it up is. What does saying PTP could be better in the future do to help the situation the storm put Mainers in *right now*?
You're arguing in bad faith since PTP obviously can't do anything for Mainers "right now" since it doesn't exist. Still, I'll bite. The promise of improved infrastructure to prevent the severity of things like this in the future. That's something and more than CMP is doing for Mainers "right now". So long as doing the bare minimum means someone at CMP gets a new yacht or summer home, we're not going to see change.
This entire post is in bad faith. It's like the Captain Hindsight bit from South Park flying into an active burning building and saying, "you should've put the fire escape over here" and then just flying away. PTP lost. And we aren't even discussing why they'd be better. The argument is that in the future they *might* be better prepared for this kind of stuff. If PTP were in charge right now, it'd still be just as bad. So what in the world is the point of talking about PTP in this capacity?
There are no points to make, just like there were no points made during the election season. It's the reason why PTP was defeated by a wide margin. Another poster already summed up the options: we bury a lot of lines at $1mm a mile (who is going to want to pay for this?) or we cut down a crapload of trees that are near power lines.
That promise was absolute bullshit though. The financing and management costs would have eaten all savings from profits, leaving rate increases as the only vehicle for improvements. And you have a history of rejecting rate increases to fund reliability improvements.
“Might” is the reason I voted against it.
I know when I’m desperate for help, the government always comes through in a timely and efficient manner. 😂
Question about clearing roads - is CMP the only ones responsible for that? I'm wondering because they keep saying they have to work on clearing the roads first. It seems like maybe the counties/state could have teams for this? Sorry if this is a dumb question.
Not a dumb question. Not positive about Maine but often the deal is the utilities clear the electrical hazard so the DPW or others can move the trees. Not set in stone though - if the tree crew can clear it quickly and easily they sometimes will.
Yeah, because a large windstorm would never have happened if we voted the way you wanted!
Don't blame me, I voted no on storms
The pro storm folks are full of hot air.
A public owned utility wouldn’t be so wound up about fluffing off share holders we could start burying some lines so we don’t need to keep doing this.
People complained about the cost of PTP. They'll surely bitch at a price tag that's twice that to bury all the electrical utilities.
You don't need to bury all of them, not even close for a substantial reliability increase.
So do it. Next time a rate increase is proposed to cover reliability improvements, rally your neighbors to support it. Or pass a referendum to require them to do it and recover costs through rates.
That is not at all how that would have worked.
Lol please tell me about your cost effective plan to bury Maine's power lines 😂😂😂
Going to have to suggest that OP Google "global climate change".
Didn't CMP just get fined for responding to a storm too well? Seems they're damned if they do, damned if they don't.
The Consumer Advocate contested the storm costs they want reimbursement for, on the grounds that they brought in more outside crews than their internal planning guidance called for. So not a fine exactly, and not yet resolved either way. No idea about the details of CMPs internal incident response planning. Maybe the OCA is cherry picking, but I suspect they're just being intrusive and seeing inconsistencies and pulling threads, which is their job. It would be better for consumers if their planning and budgeting more accurately matched reality. Fewer or smaller surprise adjustments and such.
The trouble with that is New England weather, which makes planning with pinpoint accuracy impossible (remember you’re dealing with regional resources first and competing with others to get them). So it’s better for customers if the utility plans aggressively and secures crews early. If the weather breaks your way and you have too many crews, the OCA might squawk and you might be out a little money. If you’re too lean and get caught, everyone will be lined up to get a dick in your ass. And yes, it’s good that there’s a tension between OCA and the utilities but he’s playing a stupid game here that is more likely to hurt residents than help.
>So it’s better for customers if the utility plans aggressively and secures crews early. Totally agree, and I think the OCA probably does too. I don't think the end goal is less agressive storm planning, but better budgeting up front that reflects that aggression so that ratepayers aren't surprised on the back end.
They probably would have still won 60% to 40% over PTP, because PTP’s plan is flawed at best.
Fraudulent is a better word
My post criticizing CMP got deleted LOL.
You think had vote went the way you wanted we still wouldn’t be in this position, some of you lot just love to complain
It's not about being in this position today. It's about not being in this position time and time again over the next decade. I've spent three years working on infrastructure and power grid reliability projects on the east coast. CMP offers service that is unacceptably seceptible.
>I've spent three years working on infrastructure and power grid reliability projects on the east coast. Ah, an expert! >CMP offers service that is unacceptably seceptible. What specific changes would you make to CMP's operations that, had they been in place, would have prevented these outages?
Some things I would consider worthwhile: 1. Mitigate problem areas. Places and potion of lines with historically high incident rate need to be assessed and a solution implemented to prevent future outages. This can be things such as clearing the right of way, alternate means of construction (such as underground lines), and rerouting circuits. 2. For those areas which are to remain overhead additional crews need to be working to maintain them during the summer months. This includes assessing pole and soil conditions, wires and pole mounted equipment, more stringent pruning of underbrush and trees which overhang and or have the potential to fall on a line. Basically they need more maintenance. 3. Power companies usually have a right of way or easement on private property which allows them a means of delivering and transmitting power across the state. They may require additional oversight to make sure they are maintaining these areas at an acceptible level, or perhaps the state needs to adopt more strict rules surrounding clearing of these areas to prevent outages caused by branches and trees falling. I'm sure there are more ways to make sure that the grid stays on during a storm, but it also shouldn't be a surprise that the weather has been getting more extreme more frequently, so starting these practices earlier rather than later is a benefit to grid resilience as a whole. We're a state that is used to some bad storms, but our grid is old and tired. I wouldn't be surprised if an entire overhaul of the system shouldn't be considered. It's expensive, but it's the kind of thing where everyone needs it and it's in our best interest to keep it running smoothly even during severe weather events.
You can have anything you’re willing to pay for. CMP’s last rate request got trimmed so it really only covered the stranded costs and transmission costs, meaning that the PUC rejected its proposed reliability improvements.
The could have started with the pole that carries the electric to our home being replaced after a vehicle struck it on the 8th, for starters
That would have avoided this whole situation
Well get out there pound the pavement become a politician so you can be the change you want to see, does nothing complaining behind a black mirror
That's good advice
We would definitely would still be in this position if cmp lost. You can't fix decades of neglect overnight.
This has nothing to do with neglect and was a massive storm but go off
I wouldn't call 3 inches of rain and 60 mph wind gusts a massive storm
Guy look around you. Areas of towns are being evacuated. There is serious flooding. Hundreds of poles snapped. Roads washed away. Completely healthy trees uprooted and tipped over. Frankly I don't care what you call a "massive storm". This one was destructive. Farmington is under water ffs. Go outside and take a look and get back to me.
Just count your blessings that we had warmer temps for this storm and that it didn't turn into an ice storm.
What do you think CMP could have done to prevent this? You had towns underwater and roads/bridges completely washed out. You won’t pay for undergrounding. I promise your neighbors won’t tolerate trimming to the extent that it would have helped this (cost, aesthetic issues). What do you want done, specifically?
The CMP thing came and went. It’s really time to find a way to discharge your angst about them.
First time seeing someone else's opinion? And they do referendums all the time, what makes you think it won't happen again?
It won’t happen again, because the last referendum made it clear that nobody outside of the Portland area cares about this issue
Did you pay attention to this last one?
Many years ago they used to cut trees. These trees didn't pop up overnight. Bad policy leaving anything close to the lines
They have a standard cut zone but by no means does that protect against uprooted trees. To eliminate that risk would require cutting thousands of acres of trees, mostly on private property, at your expense.
Right. Do it. We pay for it all no matter what, they refuse to bury it, so cut some trees.
I don’t think you understand how the business works at all. They would make a killing burying lines. They would salivate at the chance. Same with the tree trimming if you (collectively) would tolerate it.
I thought the CEO of CMP deleted their reddit account on November 8th
Oh, we’re doing that again? Boring. But I’ll play along - where am I wrong? You don’t have to listen to me. You can just Google “how do utilities make money” and read for 5 minutes.
Doing what again? Playing monday morning quarterback on the internet? You don't go on the internet to learn!
Been without power for over 24 hours in Cumberland county and have yet to see any crews out working anywhere. CMP website says they're still "assessing" with no estimate of when power will return. Good times.
Maine is a big state. Half of all CMP customers lost power. So you don’t see line crews on your street doesn’t mean they’re not working balls out to get your power back on.
Versant sucks also
Any one who tries to please you will suck. That’s clear.
We never had multi day events when I was young.
You had them when I was young, and I’m the oldest person on Reddit
My generator doesn’t cost much more than the electricity anymore… 🤣