KILLSTORM 2011! (Hurricane Irene)

[MKSheppard]

Power went back on here at 4:30 AM today.

[Simon_Jester]

Finally got power back at 5 PM, about 40 to 45 hours in...

[Alferd Packer]

We were apparently extremely lucky in that regard. You go a few blocks east of my neighborhood and the sound of generators running is so loud you can hardly think.

[Starglider]

Seriously people, buried lines and mesh topology. </rant>

The US power grids are 'mesh topologies'. They're just so heavily loaded that it only takes a relatively small number of downed lines before rerouting everything would exceeding available spare transmission capacity.

[Simon_Jester]

Also, a storm like this causes a lot of outages on the local level- individual power lines getting knocked down neighborhood by neighborhood by individual trees.

A mesh topology can route around any one break easily enough, but when the breaks are happening in massive parallel, you still have problems.

[The Vortex Empire]

Lost power early Sunday morning, still don't have it back. Some outlying areas of RI aren't expected to have power back until Saturday, so no idea when it will be back for me. Still, we've got a generator powering the house and seems Irene missed the cable for the Internet, 'cause it's still online. No flooding whatsoever, where I lived, most of the heavy rain was to the west of me. Still, 400,000 people in the state lost power, and most of my town still hasn't been restored.

[Dalton]

My power's been restored, but according to estimates 45% of LIPA's grid was damaged with a ton of power outages still yet to be fixed.

outage map.jpg (58.48 KiB) Viewed 851 times

[Flagg]

MSNBC

Battle over disaster aid brewing in Congress
FEMA admits budget shortfall could reach $5 billion, before accounting for Irene damage

WASHINGTON — A political battle between the tea party-driven House and the Democratic-controlled Senate is threatening to slow money to the government's main disaster aid account, which is so low that new rebuilding projects have been put on hold to help victims of Hurricane Irene and future disasters.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has less than $800 million in its disaster coffers. A debate over whether to cut spending elsewhere in the federal budget to pay for tornado and hurricane aid seems likely to delay legislation to provide the billions of dollars needed to replenish FEMA's disaster aid in the upcoming budget year.
Story: Irene gone? New Jersey still flooding, evacuating

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said the House will require offsetting spending cuts. Irene caused significant damage in Virginia, and Cantor's own district sustained damage from last week's earthquake.

Key Senate Democrats said they'll oppose the idea of offsetting cuts when a bill funding FEMA gets under way in the Senate.

Of $130 billion provided in FEMA disaster funds over the past two decades, some $110 billion has been provided as emergency funding in addition to the annual budget.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, said Tuesday the number and cost of disasters have grown dramatically over the past few years and that it's unrealistic to require offsetting spending cuts. Durbin presided over a recent hearing on disaster costs.

"If (Cantor) believes that we can nip and tuck at the rest of the federal budget and somehow take care of disasters, he's totally out of touch with reality," Durbin said.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat from Louisiana — her state is still rebuilding six years after Hurricane Katrina — said that she will take advantage of a little-noticed provision in the recently passed debt limit and budget deal that permits Congress to pass several billion dollars in additional FEMA disaster aid without budget cuts elsewhere. The provision in the new law would allow at least $6 billion in disaster aid to be added to the budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.

Landrieu chairs the Appropriations homeland security panel responsible for FEMA's budget, and she's pushing back hard against a GOP demand that boosts in disaster relief be "paid for" with cuts elsewhere in the budget.

The House FEMA funding measure, passed in early June, provides $1 billion in immediate disaster funding paid for by cuts to a loan program backed by the Obama administration to encourage the production of fuel-efficient vehicles and taps into Obama priorities like first responder grants to add $850 million to the administration's $1.8 billion disaster aid request for 2012.

"We should address emergency aid in the way we traditionally have in the past — without political strings attached," Landrieu said. Her version of the legislation will provide a significant increase in disaster aid funding without offsetting spending cuts as permitted under the just-passed budget deal, she said.

Landrieu isn't getting a lot of help from the White House. Its February request for disaster funding next year is insufficient to fund pending demands from past disasters like hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Gustav and the massive Tennessee floods of last spring — and it threatens to slow rebuilding efforts in Joplin, Mo., and the Alabama towns devastated by tornadoes last spring.

The shortfalls in FEMA's disaster aid account have been obvious to lawmakers on Capitol Hill for months — and privately acknowledged to them by FEMA — but the White House has opted against asking for more money, riling many lawmakers.

"Despite the fact that the need ... is well known," Reps. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., and David Price, D-N.C., wrote the administration last month, "it unfortunately appears that no action is being taken by the administration." The lawmakers chair the House panel responsible for FEMA's budget.

FEMA now admits the disaster aid shortfall could approach $5 billion for the upcoming budget year, and that's before accounting for Irene.

As a result, funds to help states and local governments rebuild from this year's tornadoes as well as past disasters have been frozen. Instead, FEMA is only paying for the "immediate needs" of disaster-stricken communities, which include debris removal, food, water and emergency shelter.

"Going into September being the peak part of hurricane season, and with Irene, we didn't want to get to the point where we would not have the funds to continue to support the previous impacted survivors as well as respond to the next disaster," FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate told reporters at the White House on Monday.

Earlier this year, the administration requested $1.8 billion for FEMA's disaster relief fund, despite pent-up demands for much more. Appropriations for last year totaled four times that amount.

FEMA estimates that the request still left the disaster fund short by $2 billion to $4.8 billion for the upcoming fiscal year. Those are figures the agency provided to Congress last spring — before Irene or the tornadoes that destroyed huge swaths of Joplin or beat up the South.

It's hardly the first time that longer-term rebuilding projects like schools and sewer systems have been frozen out to make sure there's money to provide disaster victims with immediate help with food, water and shelter. But it's frustrating to communities like Nashville, Tenn., which is rebuilding from last year's historic floods.

Associated Press writer Alicia A. Caldwell contributed to this report.

This is outrageous. I knew these were a bunch of callow heartless cunts, but to be so politically suicidal while doing it... It boggles the fucking mind.

[Dalton]

I am firmly convinced that Eric Cantor has lost all grip on reality.

[Flagg]

He just wants Boners job and knows that the way to get it is to pander to the Tea Bagger nutbars. That means "cuts cuts cuts" even when it's completely heartless and impractical. You know, just like the rest of the Republican party.

[Broomstick]

That, and the nutjobs want Obama to have an equivalent of Katrina because, Og forbid, you simply can't have a black Democrat do something better than a Republican.

I just wish the asshats who voted for this jackasses would wake up and smell the coffee... but I don't really expect it.

[Pelranius]

He just wants Boners job and knows that the way to get it is to pander to the Tea Bagger nutbars. That means "cuts cuts cuts" even when it's completely heartless and impractical. You know, just like the rest of the Republican party.

It would be difficult to grab Boner's job if Cantor's own electorate gets pissed off enough to throw him out by the ear come 2012 for playing around with their Federal aid, by some act of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

[Flagg]

He just wants Boners job and knows that the way to get it is to pander to the Tea Bagger nutbars. That means "cuts cuts cuts" even when it's completely heartless and impractical. You know, just like the rest of the Republican party.

It would be difficult to grab Boner's job if Cantor's own electorate gets pissed off enough to throw him out by the ear come 2012 for playing around with their Federal aid, by some act of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

He doesn't seem to be worried about that, so I'm assuming he doesn't have anything to worry about, sad as that may be.

[wautd]

Tea Bagger nutbars.

Bachmann thinks Irene was an act of God. Because obviously God has nothing better to do than be angry at all that government spending

[Flagg]

No no, she was just joking remember? How funny!

[Dalton]

Yes, like that hilarious joke where Bush was looking around for WMDs in the Oval Office. That was a real gas.