Comments on: Ever Wonder What Happens When Your Power Goes Out?

By: Kevin Bethea

Kevin Bethea — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 14:07:07 +0000

One thing is for sure, the power companies want the power retored as bad or worse than we do. After all they are not making money if the meters are not turning, not to mention the cost of the repairs!! If there was a sure fired way to prevent outages from ever happening again, they would be on it like white on rice!

By: Frances

Frances — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 17:08:33 +0000

I have had EREC for many years and with the usual hurricanes and loss of power,I can honestly say we have the best co-op anywhere.They hire great people who work out in weather most of us wouldn’t work in.
Even with a rare outage,the power isn’t off long enough to get upset.After Hurricane Ivan,I was so impressed with the job these men do.Long hours,terrible heat,extreme humidity,rain and lightening,but they still work under these conditions.
I for one don’t think we thank our co-op folks enough.Because of them we have cool homes in the summer and warm ones in the winter.
Thank you EREC for a great job.

By: T

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:42:01 +0000

One possible reason for blips is that when a generator is brought online, it must be paralleled, electrically, to the existing generators and system. In the Navy this was commonly done at a switchboard and to be honest was 1/2 skill and 1/2 luck. To have frequency and voltages perfectly matched at the time the breaker went shut was the luck part and any variation resulted in a spike or surge as the systems equalized. The greater the difference when the breaker is closed and the system paralleled, the greater the surge and stress on the system. I have seen very large generators go from full speed to a violent stop when two generators were paralleled out of phase. Modern day this is done automatically with systems but it is not perfect and surges result. My solution is to watch Best Buy ads and buy those computer UPS, that supply power from a battery backup, when they are on sale. I hook all TVs and Electronics to them to protect the equipment from lighting and surges. Big TVs need Bigger UPS.

By: NJG

NJG — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:47:20 +0000

Have you reported the blips, mine was doing the same thing and Gulf Power came out and found the tree rats (squirrels) chewed on the insulation and they replaced the lines feeding my house and the neighbor beside me…….

By: Wendy

Wendy — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:37:56 +0000

My power blinks off momentarily at least once a week. It goes off for several minutes or more at least once a month. I have never lived anywhere else where that happens. My answering machine and the clock on my microwave are constantly blinking and resetting. I think Gulf Power has worked hard to import some fine third world technology for us.

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 13:14:03 +0000

These fellas do a wonderful job of keeping our power on 7/24. We take these things for granted, kinda like you don’t miss the water till the well runs dry. Just wondering, all our neighboring co-ops have auto reading meters,sure sounds cheaper than all these little vehicles running around reading meters on a daily basis.