I'll bet the infrastructure updates are limited by some stupid L.A. of CA. law that would make it cost five times as much to string household wire as it does to put up a high-tension towers in Iowa between two cities.

One of the things happening here in NJ & NY that doesn't seem to be getting much air time on national media outlets is that the unions are screwing with folks. Big time!

There have been a few reports so far in the local news:

The first was a line crew from Alabama was turned away because they were not union. This happened just a couple of days after the storm hit.

The next report was that non-union workers from out of state had to join the local IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) for a period of 30 days, pay the union dues and fork over 12% of one's annual salary to the union or no work would be given out. Interestingly the 30 day period was put forth by the union as a "plus," but, what it really does is force non-union workers to pay union dues (and more - 12% annual salary - WTF?) and NOT get union benefits as there is a waiting period of 30 or 60 days before one is eligible for benefits.

Then there was a report of a lineman from FL who was beaten up and sent to the hospital. The initial report was that a disgruntled customer did it. The next day the local news reported that it wasn't a customer; but, rather, it was someone from an "eating establishment" (the local TV news showed what looks to me like a bar - but, they called it an "eating establishment") who had a disagreement with this young guy the night before and track him down to where he was doing line work.

HA! believe that story and have I got a bridge to sell to you. Customer indeed; What customer is going to track down someone he had a bar fight with? More likely it was pissed off (or for hire) union thugs who were sending a message to non-union out-of-stste workers to get the f*ck out of their union territory. Seriously, unions can sometimes be just like dogs peeing to mark their territory.

Then there was a report of LIPA (Long Island Power Authority) removing electrical meters from homes and power would not be restored until a "licensed" (read that as a union) electricians certified the homes as safe to be re-connected to the power grid. While this move might make sense for flood damaged homes - it was being done to homes that simply lost power. Just more action from union thugs to steal money from homeowners.

Just this evening there was a report of a church that couldn't get someone to remove the trees from off their roof until January. So a man who runs his own tree service, from out of state, was driving by and offered to do the work NOW and at a lower cost. The church agreed. The next day the guy's trucks had their tires slashed and air-hoses (for the braking system) cut in several places. The guy also had received not one, but two, threatening phone calls telling him that he was stealing work from others. The police are "investigating." (I won't hold my breath for anyone to be caught - union guys tend to stick together and cops are union)

Surely, this kind of crap is just the tip of the iceberg.

Sorry, for the long angry rant Amy, but, perhaps this is the kind of crap that happens in California with equal (or more) frequency and that is one reason why the power grid is such a mess; along with so much else as we all go to hell in a handbasket.

I'm guessing you can thank the environMENTALists and NIMBYs for preventing the necessary updates to your power grid to avoid these outages. AB 32 probably does not help out any, either.

Surely, this kind of crap is just the tip of the iceberg.
Just watch Goodfellas to recall the connection b/w unions and the mob. I honestly cannot understand why people would want to live in big cities like LA or NYC or Chicago; too big and too corrupt. These areas have populations bigger than many countries.

Am I the only one hoping for hunndereds of thousands of fugal induced deaths after the spring thaw?

Actually you have it exactly backwards. It takes longer to restore power here precisely because we do have a first world grid which means two things are more important than getting your power back on: safety, and rebuilding it right. Your TiVo is a distant third.

I just finished dispatching an outage that could have been 15 minutes shorter except that we have this circuit on an extra super duper safe profile for lineman safety and it doesn't come back on by itself when power is restored.

Charles, I have a lot of issues with unions myself, but frankly mutual aid is one of the things they do best.

If you want an angle on this, look at how the two different regulatory schemes in California affect the incentives of Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) versus municipally owned utilities. We have to report reliability indexes, you can put numbers to it and find out if you are an actual victim or if this is just life. I am biased working for a couple of munis but I bet we put a lot more money into vegetation management and system reliability improvements than what I imagine the IOUs do.

And hey, at least it's candle light not compact fluorescent light, right?

Charles, I have a lot of issues with unions myself, but frankly mutual aid is one of the things they do best.

I guess it depends where:

http://m.npr.org/news/U.S./165321973?start=10

"Because, I mean, Long Island construction trades at the time — and the garbage haulers and the security guard unions — were rather upset that the Shoreham project may come to a halt. And they certainly had the capability to retaliate against the whistle-blowers. One of them just decided to go up to Alaska and stay there."

Stink, that's not an article about mutual aid actually.