natural disaster in Kentucky's history... about 700,000 people were left without electricity, many for weeks. Well it certainly didn't leave them with out power, because the people around here responded quite powerfully indeed. I particularly appreciated a local radio station that spent all of it's on-air time broadcasting storm-related information. And as bad as it was, this storm was actually much less destructive than either the Great Ice Storm of 1998 or possibly the 2008 Northeastern storm which left about twice as many people without electricity for upwards of 10 days or more. The Northeastern storm only rates as the "worst storm in a decade" in New England and in 20 years for upstate New York. Notably, only about 4 deaths were attributed to it, while Kentucky's caused more like 30 which is on par with the fatality rate of the Great Ice Storm of 1998... which left many more people without electricity for two or three times as long all over the Northeast and a large area in Canada.
I've heard again and again that it's too expensive to bury power lines... but with at least three massive ice storms in about 10 years, I'm trying to imagine it would cost more than picking up the pieces.
Reminds me of an interesting word of warning from one of my favorite bands...
1 comment:
My 90 yr. dad and 83 yr. old mom were there so we went up and got them; they lived in an all electric house - well, except but including central gas heat but of course it required a blower which required electricity - no back-up gas logs or heaters of any kind, so they wound up going to the local shelter, which I appreciate, but sleeping on just cots isn't too good for people that age
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