Vegetation Caused 75% Of Storm Power Outages
Trees and vegetation caused around 75% of all the outages related to Tropical Storm Leslie, BELCO said this morning [Sept 10].
A statement from the Company said: “With that in mind, we would like to remind property owners – while the storm is fresh in everyone’s minds – of the importance of trimming trees away from power lines to help keep the own power on during storms. Doing so is not just for themselves, but for the wider community, including neighbours and all others on a circuit.”
The full statement from BELCO is below:
It is worth noting that trees and vegetation caused around 75% of all the outages related to Tropical Storm Leslie.
With that in mind, we would like to remind property owners – while the storm is fresh in everyone’s minds – of the importance of trimming trees away from power lines to help keep the own power on during storms. Doing so is not just for themselves, but for the wider community, including neighbours and all others on a circuit.
Property owner are responsible for keeping their tree limbs away from power lines and removing limbs when they are cut.
BELCO contacts property owners along main line circuits year-round, asking that they trim their trees away from power lines to help prevent storm-related outages, as main line circuits serve large numbers of customers. Trimming trees safely and well in advance of storms is the best way to maintain clearance.
When a storm is imminent, as part of preparation work, BELCO inspects main line circuits with the objective of minimizing outage probability. If we find that property owners have not trimmed their trees away from lines, then BELCO has the right to cut private-property trees that might have an impact on our system. Property owners are responsible for removing the cut limbs.
BELCO requests that property owners contact us, if they are going to trim vegetation that may be dangerously close to power lines. If we are notified approximately 3 weeks in advance, then we can schedule a service interruption, de-energizing the circuit, so that the property owner or contractor can work safely.
I bet if Belco billed the irresponsible homeowners who’s vegetation are encrouaching on power lines people will be making a big pissy fit. In hindsight, as a person who lost power, I’d support Belco in this initiative.
I am guessing that if all the wires were underground, everyone would of kept their power…
100% correct…but your bill would be oh…much higher. Underground systems costs 20 times as much to install. And there ARE faults on underground systems, they are not perfect. Traffic disruptions to fix them could likely be more common.
I believe it was in the early 2000′s that belco requested an increase stateing in aproximately 10yrs there would be enough to do the underground sytems island wide….
government has its share of trees that need to be trimmed as well and private home owners
Maybe if The parent Company wasnt to busy buying up Companies and forming questionable partnerships there would be enough money in the kitty for a tree trimmer and oh maybe even enough to upgrade the plant (which should have been bugeted for) and there would be no further need to rape the consumer
Sounds like a person who has never trimmed more than a finger nail, never mind along every road across and entire nation. Have you any idea how man miles of road can be packed into 21 square miles? Hint: it is more than 21 miles! What is easier: each owner taking repainsibility for their property or one company taking responsibility for thousands of other people’s properties?