how can a neighborhood without underground electric wires lose power?
In: Technology
Trees can fall on power lines. Thieves can cut the copper to sell it for scrap (no joke, that’s a big problem for my dad’s factory, where people climb up the pole and cut 1,200 amp 3-phase). Lightning can strike a pole. Pig transformers can overheat and explode. Power distribution can catch fire. Wind can blow down poles, grounding and severing live lines. There are an infinite number of ways an above ground utility line can lose service.
Tree falls on wire. Wire breaks. Electrons spill onto the ground, and no longer flow through the wire to your house. You have “lost power”. Even if the wire in your neighborhood is underground, that’s only to the substation. Except in Manhattan, almost all the medium voltage distribution wires in the US are above ground where arboreal evildoers can attack them freely.
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