Utilities threatening not to restore power for weeks

It's another record!


No, I don't mean the good kind of record.

After the September blackout set a record for the largest electricity outage in Kentucky's history, state regulators say that record has already been shattered this week. For the record to be broken twice within a few months means either the weather has gotten more extreme or our power infrastructure has become even more fragile.

I think it's both.

And now, particularly in western Kentucky, utility companies say it will be at least mid-February before power is restored! By then it will have been 3 weeks since the power was lost.

The blackout has also caused water shortages, forcing some residents to haul dirty water out of creeks to drink.

What power companies rule the roost in western Kentucky, and who allows this situation? I know Kentucky has become a rubber-stamp state with regard to utility deregulation and rate hikes, but you'd think with people paying more for electricity, it wouldn't take 3 weeks to restore power.

And let's not kid ourselves: If it takes that long to restore electricity after a storm like this, the electric company isn't delivering the services it gets paid to deliver. Period. (This is not the worst blizzard Kentucky has seen.) And we need to hold utility companies' feet to the fire much as Massachusetts residents are doing to Unitil.

Too many Americans have been conditioned into holding utilities blameless no matter how unreliable their service is - for the media has rarely balked at amplifying the perspective of major corporations like power companies. Well, the buck stops here. I know corporate bullshit when I see it.

At very minimum, regulators should not allow utilities to increase rates again to cover business "lost" by the latest outage - as what happened after the Blackout of '08. But you know it's coming.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090130/ap_on_re_us/winter_storm_outages_4)