

Mother Nature takes out the Northeast - ccraigIW
http://weblog.infoworld.com/venezia/archives/020557.html

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kylec
The article reminds me of the ice storm of '98. I remember being without power
(and, consequently, heat) for several days while the power company was working
overtime to restore power across the state.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_ice_storm_of_199...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_ice_storm_of_1998)

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elai
I dont understand, why does -5 to -15 destroy new hampshire infrastructure??
It's bloody -35 in calgary right now. (and around -5 on the northwest coast) I
wonder why it's so cold this winter.

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raamdev
It wasn't the temperature, it was the combination of 4 inches of rain on
Friday + just-below-freezing temperatures and wind. That combination caused
crap-loads of ice to form on trees, wires, and even telephone poles (some
poles fell over from the weight of the ice). There were seemingly healthy 18"
trees that just fell over from the weight of all the ice, blocking roads and
pulling down power lines with them.

My parents live in NH, at the end of a dead-end dirt road and they're probably
going to be without power until Wednesday. I spent most of the weekend trying
to keep their generator working for them (my hands still smell of gas). All
the Home Depot's in the area are price gouging, selling the generators as they
come off the truck for $200 more than they're normally priced (and only
allowing one per-customer). I even heard that people were driving truck-loads
of generators up from further South and selling them off the back of their
trucks.

(I attempted to write something creative about all this on my blog if you're
bored at work: <http://tinyurl.com/5uyu6n>)

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helveticaman
>All the Home Depot's in the area are price gouging, selling the generators as
they come off the truck for $200 more than they're normally priced (and only
allowing one per-customer). I even heard that people were driving truck-loads
of generators up from further South and selling them off the back of their
trucks.

I know this sucks for people in New Hampshire, but if Home Depot weren't
allowed to raise prices you would not have people driving truckloads of
generators in to meet demand. Plentiful and expensive generators are better
than fairly priced generators that have completely run out. It's the beauty of
the market.

Having said that, yes, it does suck that people in New Hampshire are being
charged extra for generators, and I'd probably be pissed too.

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iigs
If this follows the pattern of the Snow/Wind storm that hit Seattle over the
winter of 2006-2007, about one month after the power comes back on people will
be selling their generators for half price on Craigslist.

I would expect gouging to exacerbate this -- people will want to recover some
of the money they spent too much of.

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nice1
Not to worry, with all the global warming this should blow over any minute
now.

~~~
speek
bah... Global Cycling

