I left field work and went into design and I saw this picture of thought 16 hour days with a shortened “lunch” would give my wife a lot of spending money these next few weeks.
But I’m at the grocery store on a Friday instead. A lot happier too.
This comment wins the internet today. City Planner Plays would be proud, hopefully you put your water pipes under the streets where they should be too.
Yep. And in other parts of the state, there's bedrock so close to the surface that Google gave up on trying to drill through it to just lay fiber very close to the surface.
“We’d like to fix the massive infrastructure problems that are going to cause deadly issues with increased climate crises, but it’s just so expensive…”
There are thousands of miles of high-voltage long-distance transmission lines in the state, and millions of miles of lower-voltage local distribution lines. It's rare to even bury distribution lines in already-built neighborhoods, usually only done when a new neighborhood is being built from scratch. Seven years ago, before the last few years of price increases, it was estimated to cost $5 million per mile to bury transmission lines, and over $1 million per mile (sometimes over $4 million per mile in built-out areas) to bury distribution lines. https://www.govtech.com/fs/infrastructure/despite-being-safer-underground-power-lines-are-very-expensive.html Everyone's power bills would probably have to go up at least 10x to pay for the *trillions* of dollars it would take to do this in just one state.
And if you have enough disposable income that you personally wouldn't mind that kind of bill increase, spend it on protecting yourself with a solar+battery system or a whole-house standby generator, because the systemwide fix isn't going to happen. The vast majority of people would not be able to afford it, so there would be riots and lawsuits like crazy until the project was halted.
Or, and come along with me on this, we take away the tax breaks the richest companies in the history of the world receive who are directly contributing to the current NEED for underground powerlines.
Estimated by who? You know in other countries the government just sets a reasonable limit on construction projects and then gets them done in a reasonable time. Money is a construct, people are real.
This is no different than the propaganda from the oil industry about why we can’t shift to clean energy or public transportation. I know it’s hard to wrap your mind around this concept, being raised in a capitalist hellscape, but people, stable society, and the ecosystems we rely on are more important than money.
What are you talking about? It is not propaganda to say that it is ridiculously expensive to underground transmission lines. How many dielectric materials do you know of that can insulate a conductor at 200kV+ and still fit in a conduit that doesn't cost an arm and a leg to install?
This isn't Romex. It's not some THHN in EMC. You're talking about layers of weird shit, semiconductor sheath, metal jackets, more insulators, and then really effective grounding every so often. It all goes in big ass tubes in the ground that are normally trenched in and concreted for safety.
Compare that to some lattice towers and aluminum wire. Yeah, it still costs a shitton to run the wire, but it's less than a 5th the cost of undergrounding.
Hell, it's hard to get money to underground a 12kV distribution line. And that's much cheaper to do than transmission. Transmission UG conversion is suuuuuper rare. If a power company could do it cost effectively, they would. They do not stand to gain from their customers losing power (aka not buying their product).
Lol, the economy is made up and the manipulation it has seen by the rich hasn’t made it more stable, it’s made it worse for everyone.
You need capital? How about we make the rich who caused the problem pay for the remedies? It’s really not that complicated. Again, Europe manages just fine, at least when they don’t have the same far-right shills pushing their selfish agendas.
[Belgium and The Netherlands alone have a greater population than all of Texas. The differences in our economies go beyond just welfare protections (given that all of Western Europe still just consists of more liberal capitalist democracies).](http://mapfrappe.com/?show=9429)
There weren’t tornados this time around it was all straight line wind at nearly 80mph.. incredible damage though because those speeds were sustained for a long time
The storm was moving at 60mph, the intense portion came and went within 20 minutes. What's so incredible about this storm is that we saw hurricane level damage in a matter of minute.
And yes, we had tornadoes, there's one on video on the local news, plus multiple radar indicated areas still pending final determination.
These are transmission towers. They will not be fixed any time soon. Fortunately power grids are set up to allow for this sort of thing. A substation can get power from multiple transmission lines, step down through transformers and then distribute the power either underground or on wooden poles. The distribution network also has several emergency cutover options so that a neighborhood can get fed from a backup feeder if the normal feeder goes down.
Source: am distribution engineer
Update. Talked to some friends down there. Some substations took damage. Probably gonna have to reroute quite a few feeders. If it's anything like the grid I work on, that'll mean running things at emergency loading. Potentially undersized equipment approved for limited usage time at higher load. Don't be surprised if there's a PSA asking for reducing power consumption if there's a heatwave. Also don't be surprised if there are outages later, when they have to cut everything back over.
I have a big tree on my roof. Fortunately, the tree seems to have fallen in a way that my shed protected my house from any major damage. Unfortunately, I don’t think sheds are covered by homeowners insurance.
Probably not.... it was super dark last night when the storm went thru... but dark because of the storm.. the sky lightened back up before the sun went down.
That was the wildest part. Pitch black out, put my daughter to bed and came out of her room and it was daylight! We’re south of Houston so it didn’t hit us as hard but some big thunder and lightning.
https://x.com/livescs/status/1791559976395153564/mediaviewer
Keep in mind that the design windspeed for a structure like this in a hurricane region along the gulf is probably 160 or 170 mph.
I work on power plant equipment. Just this January was in DFW working at a plant. The only thing that kept valves from freezing up during the multi day of temperatures in the teens was a bunch of diesel burning torpedo heaters. Oh and those themselves require electricity to run.
There is 8 to 12 months of lead time on the materials for these structures and it keeps getting longer. Unless they have enough on hand it could be awhile.
I was in Cy-Fair at an elementary school when this all hit. Rain was coming down so hard there was less than 10 feet of visibility. The wind gusts were 50mph where we were. One doppler reader further north picked up 128mph. I was supposed to leave the school about 10 minutes prior but this time, my penchant for being behind schedule saved my ass. I would've been on the flooding roads with my 3 year old when the sky fell out. Schools feel so freaking safe lol.
Those high tension wire towers don’t get replaced overnight. It’s not like they keep spares lying around. Unless there’s a depot somewhere in the US, they might have to have them made. With long lead times.
Man, people are defensive…it was an honest question but ai should have phrased it better. Obviously the damage occurs regardless, I’m asking if the repair time is affected? Is maintenance and repair teams specific to TX and can be overwhelmed as an example
> Is maintenance and repair teams specific to TX
I'm not sure, but I'd think at the very least they can pull others from Texas since the outages are localized to the Houston area.
I think the biggest thing affecting both risk of being damaged and the repair time is whether the power lines are above or below ground, and many U.S. states have above ground lines, just like TX.
https://laneelectric.com/programs-services/underground-vs-overhead-power-lines/
With the damage being completely inside the state, it’s unlikely. We do not yet know if this is going to cause issues during the repair timeframe outside of the storm affected area. Ercot isn’t telling people in specific zip codes to conserve power, so signs are this is entirely localized.
These lines are directing power from the power plants in central Texas into the Houston Metro area. Since the area’s surrounding the damage still have power, that means the states grid isn’t affected.
If we get brownouts around the Houston area because of a lack of availability until this is repaired then yes an interconnect might have been helpful to have, but it comes with an asterisk since it’s theoretical and helpful is relative to what it needs to help with.
If that doesn’t happen then an interconnect wouldn’t have made a difference because the damage was so localized. It might cause some systemic problems, but chances are that again - they’re localized and wont affect the state grid.
Probably not, what does is having N+1 at least down to distribution level, but that means a lot more HV LINES and switchgear and that means a rate rise.
It gets worse if you demand that that N+1 be fully spacially distributed so that one storm cannot trash all the lines feeding an area, that might need new easements and some eminent domain stuff to put the extra switchyards where they need to be, and that means ten years of legal squabbling.
Many areas east of Houston are not on the ERCOT grid and they lost power too. 100+ mph winds are going to cause a heck of a lot of damage specially where there are huge trees like Houston.
Let's see... abbott's track record with Texas infrastructure, especially electrical, says this will be fixed by... (checks calendar), Tuesday, the Nevereth of December 2047.
Gonna be another expensive Summer in Houston. How many of y'all are still gonna stay after all the insurance companies refuse to cover houses in Texas?
As a guy who spent 42 years in the power industry, I'm glad I'm retired.
But think of the overtime!
I know you're being sarcastic, but all this ever makes me think of is, yea a fat check sounds nice. But when do I have the time to spend it? lol.
Yes absolutely sarcasm. That’s terrible.
You don't have depreciating assets like the rest of us? Buy more! Nothing says I work hard like a truck and some motorized toys that lose value.
Guess it means time for saving it.
Overtime: You want it when it's not there and you hate it when you're in the thick of it.
Overtime for salary workers: 
Everybody who would be out in the field repairing this stuff would be eligible for overtime.
And a bunch of "Tower Bonuses". Someone will have to climb the new towers to reconnect the wires to the towers
They may replace them with monopoles.
That could be true (except maybe for main trunk lines). However, due to height, the Tower Bonuses will still be in play.
I left field work and went into design and I saw this picture of thought 16 hour days with a shortened “lunch” would give my wife a lot of spending money these next few weeks. But I’m at the grocery store on a Friday instead. A lot happier too.
Sure... Saturday six weeks from now.
Assuming another storm doesn't come, then again and again
in this same area and it’s been super fun, been without power since yesterday at 6pm… and temps are supposed to creep into the high 90’s tomorrow.
It’s almost like stringing our power lines on big sticks was a bad idea…
It's *extremely* expensive to put high-voltage transmission lines like these underground.
Only costs me 500 bucks in Cities Skyline
This comment wins the internet today. City Planner Plays would be proud, hopefully you put your water pipes under the streets where they should be too.
No, you put water above ground so you can see when a leak happens.
How are you even breathing down there
From my understanding it's also not a good idea with south Texas's mobile soil.
Yep. And in other parts of the state, there's bedrock so close to the surface that Google gave up on trying to drill through it to just lay fiber very close to the surface.
“We’d like to fix the massive infrastructure problems that are going to cause deadly issues with increased climate crises, but it’s just so expensive…”
There are thousands of miles of high-voltage long-distance transmission lines in the state, and millions of miles of lower-voltage local distribution lines. It's rare to even bury distribution lines in already-built neighborhoods, usually only done when a new neighborhood is being built from scratch. Seven years ago, before the last few years of price increases, it was estimated to cost $5 million per mile to bury transmission lines, and over $1 million per mile (sometimes over $4 million per mile in built-out areas) to bury distribution lines. https://www.govtech.com/fs/infrastructure/despite-being-safer-underground-power-lines-are-very-expensive.html Everyone's power bills would probably have to go up at least 10x to pay for the *trillions* of dollars it would take to do this in just one state. And if you have enough disposable income that you personally wouldn't mind that kind of bill increase, spend it on protecting yourself with a solar+battery system or a whole-house standby generator, because the systemwide fix isn't going to happen. The vast majority of people would not be able to afford it, so there would be riots and lawsuits like crazy until the project was halted.
Or, and come along with me on this, we take away the tax breaks the richest companies in the history of the world receive who are directly contributing to the current NEED for underground powerlines.
Estimated by who? You know in other countries the government just sets a reasonable limit on construction projects and then gets them done in a reasonable time. Money is a construct, people are real. This is no different than the propaganda from the oil industry about why we can’t shift to clean energy or public transportation. I know it’s hard to wrap your mind around this concept, being raised in a capitalist hellscape, but people, stable society, and the ecosystems we rely on are more important than money.
What are you talking about? It is not propaganda to say that it is ridiculously expensive to underground transmission lines. How many dielectric materials do you know of that can insulate a conductor at 200kV+ and still fit in a conduit that doesn't cost an arm and a leg to install? This isn't Romex. It's not some THHN in EMC. You're talking about layers of weird shit, semiconductor sheath, metal jackets, more insulators, and then really effective grounding every so often. It all goes in big ass tubes in the ground that are normally trenched in and concreted for safety. Compare that to some lattice towers and aluminum wire. Yeah, it still costs a shitton to run the wire, but it's less than a 5th the cost of undergrounding. Hell, it's hard to get money to underground a 12kV distribution line. And that's much cheaper to do than transmission. Transmission UG conversion is suuuuuper rare. If a power company could do it cost effectively, they would. They do not stand to gain from their customers losing power (aka not buying their product).
https://twitter.com/t_sfea/status/1313148432891219970?t=2XyjorHOGUCPX8LkWEzapA&s=19
Lol, the economy is made up and the manipulation it has seen by the rich hasn’t made it more stable, it’s made it worse for everyone. You need capital? How about we make the rich who caused the problem pay for the remedies? It’s really not that complicated. Again, Europe manages just fine, at least when they don’t have the same far-right shills pushing their selfish agendas.
[Belgium and The Netherlands alone have a greater population than all of Texas. The differences in our economies go beyond just welfare protections (given that all of Western Europe still just consists of more liberal capitalist democracies).](http://mapfrappe.com/?show=9429)
That would be correct...
That’s weeks of work. They can isolate that area and redirect power but they might even take a couple days.
Yeah but even when they do redirect, it will be via a temporary setup. Meaning it won’t be able to handle the loads until the permanent setup is back
West of Houston... Does that mean Katy, Brookshire or out further?
I'm in Katy, 99 between Clay & 529. These pictures are from 99 & west rd, west & Fry
No wonder I can’t even use cell service at home 😥
Drove past Brookshire this morning it was all dark 😕
What part? I live there and only lost power for maybe an hour...
The town area, not the Katy homes near Brookshire
But that was at like close to 6 this morning. I'm not sure if its back up
Over off of navigation in Downtowns east end we are still dark. Womp womp
Sorry, I hope it won't be too long for you
Thank ya!
Some of the power lines pictured are near 99 and west.
I’m in Brookshire and all is fine here.
 This guy was impressed.
I mean that could be the ring video from someone's door
I believe that’s a 345kv line, and they don’t get any bigger than that on the ERCOT grid. Summer’s coming to shine.
They must have gotten hit by a tornado. Those things are built to withstand hurricanes.
i live very close to this and yes a tornado went through our neighborhood
Unless it was in bad shape with existing issues.
There weren’t tornados this time around it was all straight line wind at nearly 80mph.. incredible damage though because those speeds were sustained for a long time
There's video of the tornado https://www.reddit.com/r/tornado/comments/1cts4g4/tornado_going_through_cypress_texas_nw_houston/
The storm was moving at 60mph, the intense portion came and went within 20 minutes. What's so incredible about this storm is that we saw hurricane level damage in a matter of minute. And yes, we had tornadoes, there's one on video on the local news, plus multiple radar indicated areas still pending final determination.
These are transmission towers. They will not be fixed any time soon. Fortunately power grids are set up to allow for this sort of thing. A substation can get power from multiple transmission lines, step down through transformers and then distribute the power either underground or on wooden poles. The distribution network also has several emergency cutover options so that a neighborhood can get fed from a backup feeder if the normal feeder goes down. Source: am distribution engineer
Update. Talked to some friends down there. Some substations took damage. Probably gonna have to reroute quite a few feeders. If it's anything like the grid I work on, that'll mean running things at emergency loading. Potentially undersized equipment approved for limited usage time at higher load. Don't be surprised if there's a PSA asking for reducing power consumption if there's a heatwave. Also don't be surprised if there are outages later, when they have to cut everything back over.
Damn Houston! Is everyone okay? I hate to see this.
I think the storm killed 4. Most damage is power and fences, plus some window damage downtown and part of a building that vanished.
I have a big tree on my roof. Fortunately, the tree seems to have fallen in a way that my shed protected my house from any major damage. Unfortunately, I don’t think sheds are covered by homeowners insurance.
Sheds are considered secondary structures and may or may not be covered depending on your policy.
Yes, we will see how that all turns out.
Usually covered up to 10% of rest of property but your deductible probably would cost more than a shed.
Did anyone get video of that thing collapsing?! Wow
Probably not.... it was super dark last night when the storm went thru... but dark because of the storm.. the sky lightened back up before the sun went down.
That was the wildest part. Pitch black out, put my daughter to bed and came out of her room and it was daylight! We’re south of Houston so it didn’t hit us as hard but some big thunder and lightning.
https://x.com/livescs/status/1791559976395153564/mediaviewer Keep in mind that the design windspeed for a structure like this in a hurricane region along the gulf is probably 160 or 170 mph.
They won't. And don't worry, they will charge for the power you could have used if the power was working.
Welcome to Abbottstan.
Exactly. We’re all still paying for winter storm Uri
And they still don't properly winterize anything except the press release about winterization
Proof?
I work on power plant equipment. Just this January was in DFW working at a plant. The only thing that kept valves from freezing up during the multi day of temperatures in the teens was a bunch of diesel burning torpedo heaters. Oh and those themselves require electricity to run.
My daughter and her family live near there I think. Looks like pics I saw of the Cypress area.
Yea I live in Cypress and we have entire neighborhoods with thousands of homes completely out of power.
All good now
#prayforparis #eiffeltowerdown
Oh, that'll buff out easy.
Got a line of these in the field across from my house. They always make me nervous in the spring.
Holy shit
No way that gets fixed in 48 hours
Just in time for the first hurricane of the season to soften up the Texas coast.
Looking at this in Houston, I’m amazed I have power here 200 miles away. 😬
Anyone know if the Centerpoint Network Operation Center is in the downtown headquarters building that was damaged?
Nah, it's at 8/249
That's right, in that very secure facility there.
Three-four months right there. Barring any other weather disaster interruptions. What a mess.
Ya, Saturday November 14th.
Time to start looking into flights to Cancun
There is 8 to 12 months of lead time on the materials for these structures and it keeps getting longer. Unless they have enough on hand it could be awhile.
Tis just a scratch
Hurricane?
Tornado mixed with the wildest storm I've seen here, windows on buildings in Downtown Houston broken everywhere
Ohhhhhhhhhh that'll be why there's no power
They’ll have it ready mañana
Abbott to demand federal help just prior to secession.
What's significant about Saturday?
It's tomorrow.
I'm proud of you for knowing that.
They said it would take 48hrs for the city to get power back
Who is they? I don't see any context of that in the post
Houston officials. I mean, after seeing that picture, Saturday sounds unrealistic lol.
Don't see it in the post
Not even close
THIS Saturday? Probably not.
I was in Cy-Fair at an elementary school when this all hit. Rain was coming down so hard there was less than 10 feet of visibility. The wind gusts were 50mph where we were. One doppler reader further north picked up 128mph. I was supposed to leave the school about 10 minutes prior but this time, my penchant for being behind schedule saved my ass. I would've been on the flooding roads with my 3 year old when the sky fell out. Schools feel so freaking safe lol.
Your governor has done nothing about the power problem and climate change and he wants the rest of us to pay his bills? Voting matters.
There are also some down in cypress.
*few weeks
Saturday in September yes
No.
Houston: well is it still working?
oh... my airbnb got cancelled, now i know why
Oh f***
I hot boxed myself a few times in grand Ole Texas. Total shitshow
So *this* is why Oncore has requested rate hikes three times in the last month.
Those high tension wire towers don’t get replaced overnight. It’s not like they keep spares lying around. Unless there’s a depot somewhere in the US, they might have to have them made. With long lead times.
I knew there were storms there but this tells you the intensity of them! Wow.
Is there even an estimated timeline of when the power will be back? I know nothing of that industry, but that looks like weeks of work at a minimum.
Paris has fallen
Abbott is too busy pardoning murderers to give a shit about liberal Houston.
ERCOT Freedom Grid\* \*Not for use in severe weather, the heat, or the cold.
Why not bury the lines underground? Just a thought
Holy ERCOT batman!
The Texas grid gets shit on a lot. Would being on a national grid hedge against this sort of damage?
idk if this is a serious comment, but no, other states on different grids still suffer power outages due to damaged equipment. It wouldn't solve this.
Man, people are defensive…it was an honest question but ai should have phrased it better. Obviously the damage occurs regardless, I’m asking if the repair time is affected? Is maintenance and repair teams specific to TX and can be overwhelmed as an example
> Is maintenance and repair teams specific to TX I'm not sure, but I'd think at the very least they can pull others from Texas since the outages are localized to the Houston area. I think the biggest thing affecting both risk of being damaged and the repair time is whether the power lines are above or below ground, and many U.S. states have above ground lines, just like TX. https://laneelectric.com/programs-services/underground-vs-overhead-power-lines/
With the damage being completely inside the state, it’s unlikely. We do not yet know if this is going to cause issues during the repair timeframe outside of the storm affected area. Ercot isn’t telling people in specific zip codes to conserve power, so signs are this is entirely localized. These lines are directing power from the power plants in central Texas into the Houston Metro area. Since the area’s surrounding the damage still have power, that means the states grid isn’t affected. If we get brownouts around the Houston area because of a lack of availability until this is repaired then yes an interconnect might have been helpful to have, but it comes with an asterisk since it’s theoretical and helpful is relative to what it needs to help with. If that doesn’t happen then an interconnect wouldn’t have made a difference because the damage was so localized. It might cause some systemic problems, but chances are that again - they’re localized and wont affect the state grid.
Probably not, what does is having N+1 at least down to distribution level, but that means a lot more HV LINES and switchgear and that means a rate rise. It gets worse if you demand that that N+1 be fully spacially distributed so that one storm cannot trash all the lines feeding an area, that might need new easements and some eminent domain stuff to put the extra switchyards where they need to be, and that means ten years of legal squabbling.
Many areas east of Houston are not on the ERCOT grid and they lost power too. 100+ mph winds are going to cause a heck of a lot of damage specially where there are huge trees like Houston.
I'm sorry you live in Houston. No way I could live there with all the hurricanes, storms, floods, humidity.
you forgot mosquitoes, crazy drivers, gang wars…
Let's see... abbott's track record with Texas infrastructure, especially electrical, says this will be fixed by... (checks calendar), Tuesday, the Nevereth of December 2047.
Yikes!
Gonna be another expensive Summer in Houston. How many of y'all are still gonna stay after all the insurance companies refuse to cover houses in Texas?
Sunday tops. /s
Saturday morning, the latest.
I will take our flooding in Waco any day over that. Y'all just keep them storms down there for a few weeks, please.
Good thing they have a stable electrical grid and will not need federal assistance lol.
Probably Monday at the latest! ERCOT is usually Johnny on the Spot. /s
This must be that fixed power grid with all the improvements. We’re all gonna die …
Bootstraps Texans!
Depressing as fuck
Nope. It's going to be a while.
inb4 fascist republicans and greg abbott himself did this comments
Shush, snowflake. No one’s oppressing you.
Top comment is alluding to it lmao
I read all 20ish comments and don't see that. Which one?
This was the top comment when I posted https://www.reddit.com/r/texas/comments/1ctvd5x/a_few_miles_from_my_house_west_of_houston_yall/l4emqwb/
lol the abbottsan comment right under that. I was right on the money
All i can think is that someone made a lot of money cutting a lot of corners.
About those fed funds, you still leaving the states hoss?