This is sad and cruel that the people are still without power and now freezing. The government really could be doing more for these poor people. Sick and cold no fuel to leave totally a slap in the face by the guy that came to visit for a few photos and then leave.

 

As in other big storms, there will be weeks of no power in some areas. I worked in Hugo and Andrew and Katrina. People that have generators have fuel problems, people will steal a generator if it is outside the house and not chained down. Some try to run generator in the basement, crawlspace, garage, etc., and have carbon monoxide seep into the house. Very, very, very dangerous - children can die first, their lips start turning purple.

And fools will try to run a lot of their house off the generator without a transfer switch, and leave main breaker turned on. This can backfeed power thru your transformer, up to thousands of volts, and kill a lineman miles away.

As I recall, Hugo blew out power all the way from Charleston to Charlotte, and parts of Charlotte had no electric service for 3 weeks.

The storm victims will continue to suffer for months to come in areas. Politicians need to get out of the way and let rescue and other professionals get the job done. How many thousands of military trucks with six wheel drive and high ground clearance are within five day drive of the area? Why are they still on their bases, training soldiers to prepare for the next war? We are spending money to train military to handle deployments, generators, field conditions, communications, mobile hospitals, etc. They can do this real world in the storm area and we have not spend much more money on it. The fire fighters, EMS, and local guys need some back up here. A few van loads of FEMA experts is not what I'm talking about.

Get the plodding politicians, hungry for a photo op, and their amatuer appointees out of the way and let the guys and gals who own more steel toes than wing tips get it done.

Rant over.

 

Actually the Gov. has done tons so far and is going to do more.
My oldest son in the the Army, they have deployed troops and equipment to help out.
Whats the President supposed to do, wave a magic wand and make it all disappear just like he was able to with the BP oil spill?
The power company crews from all across the country (even CA) are there doing the best job they can to get the power back on, the problem is the old antiquated system servicing to many people and the weather not letting up.
They cant go up in the cherry pickers with winds over 40mph.
Less than a week after Sandy they got hit with a snow storm.
Some of these people live on a island with only one way on/off, kinda their own fault there if you ask me.
Maybe all of these people should have their own generators.
The gas stations could rent one, I have customers who do it all the time, a semi trailer generator cranking away for over a week to power a warehouse.
The people who designed the hospitals should have known better than to put the generators under ground, you put them on the roof.
If you have a whole house generator do not buy a natural gas powered one, earthquake, whatever and the gas company will shut off the gas supply to the neighborhood and you wont have power.
The power crews can only work 14hrs a day per Federal law.
So extend the working day you say? Then what about those guys safety? Does that not matter?
Or the safety of others when the guy who has worked for 20hrs straight drives his truck over a kid?
Things are getting cleaned up faster than after Katrina but this was a large heavily populated area that sustained lots of damage and it is going to take time.