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Just as an example, we had a 4 day power outage here in Quebec last year in Montreal with a million people out of electricity. The only redeeming factor was tha

Just as an example, we had a 4 day power outage here in Quebec last year in Montreal with a million people out of electricity. The only redeeming factor was that it wasnt during the very cold periods and that it was late in the winter, but still a 4 day outage in the second biggest city in Canada (2nd time it happened in the past 20 years though last time it lasted more than a week lol) is pretty dysfunctional but we Canadians have normalized said disfunction. Compare that to how the Texas outages were covered and put under the spotlight even in our local media and it shows a good example of the "we are not the US!!" Mentality where we completely ignore our own issues even when they are worse than our neighbors. In this case it's even worse since we should be more prepared and have a better infrastructure to handle freezing rain since it happens every year! While the Texas situation was an outlier. Yet, it was all about patting ourselves in the back about how we are so good at recovering from the power outage lol

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Gonna call bullshit on this, and saying this as someone who was without power for nearly a week in both 2021 and 2023 in Texas due to cold weather. After looking it up online, it looks like the April 2023 outage in Montreal was caused by an ice storm, which is what the issue was in the 2023 outage in Texas. Bad ice storms are going to cause power outage mayhem in pretty much any location where lines aren't buried. I actually started to get annoyed by people complaining about the authorities during Texas' 2023 outage: I have never seen that level of tree carnage everywhere, with many roads impassable due to downed trees and lots of folks with multi-thousand dollar cleanup bills for tree damage in their yards. I don't know if this was the same situation as in Montreal, but the fact is that ice storms are just brutal to electrical infrastructure pretty much everywhere. This is in stark contrast to Winter Storm Uri in 2021 where the whole Texas grid nearly failed because of perverse economic incentives that discouraged investment in weatherization of power plants (the problem then was brutal cold, not ice). That definitely was poor management/governance, but at least it sparked some badly needed improvements to power generator regulations. Given we're currently getting an Arctic blast, we'll see how it holds up.
- mardifoufs 3y ago
  My point is that we have had multiple ice storms, and we have had the exact same problem happen before. We mitigated some of it, but still have had multiple trees and debris that fell right onto critical junctions. This is just as bad imo, remember that in 1998 we also had a month long outage that was due to the exact same reasons. I wouldn't expect Texas to be ready for a cold snap but I sure would expect our infra to be ready for an ice rain storm. To assume that it just isn't possible is again, very Canadian. Again, I would understand if it was a network wide failure that led to a grid collapse or something, but this is not the case. In any case, if the same had happened in the US the media coverage and the mentality there would've led to a lot more introspection and self critique. And I know it sounds weird because Americans aren't exactly known for that, but compared to Canada? Yes they sure seem to be nowadays. Another example that comes to mind was that here in Quebec we had one of the worse mortality rates in the world in the early days of COVID (something like triple our neighbors in Ontario and worse than new York) but we were still obsessed with covering how the US was going to soon be on the brink or something. Just as we had to send the army to nursing homes because patients were literally left to die. And you know what's the e overall conclusion about how COVID was dealt here in Quebec? That we did pretty good lol. We even reelected the same exact government all while that was happening with a stronger majority. That's the mentality I'm talking about here, of complete lack of introspection and a weird inferiority complex with the Americans.
- maerF0x0 3y ago
  > power outage mayhem in pretty much any location where lines aren't buried. at least in austin a big part of it was a failure of the power companies to respond to tree/line interactions long before the storm. People reported trees across the lines. The branches got super heavy with ice and took out the lines. Proper maintenance / arborcare would have meant far fewer issues.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

Gonna call bullshit on this, and saying this as someone who was without power for nearly a week in both 2021 and 2023 in Texas due to cold weather. After looking it up online, it looks like the April 2023 outage in Montreal was caused by an ice storm, which is what the issue was in the 2023 outage in Texas. Bad ice storms are going to cause power outage mayhem in pretty much any location where lines aren't buried. I actually started to get annoyed by people complaining about the authorities during Texas' 2023 outage: I have never seen that level of tree carnage everywhere, with many roads impassable due to downed trees and lots of folks with multi-thousand dollar cleanup bills for tree damage in their yards. I don't know if this was the same situation as in Montreal, but the fact is that ice storms are just brutal to electrical infrastructure pretty much everywhere. This is in stark contrast to Winter Storm Uri in 2021 where the whole Texas grid nearly failed because of perverse economic incentives that discouraged investment in weatherization of power plants (the problem then was brutal cold, not ice). That definitely was poor management/governance, but at least it sparked some badly needed improvements to power generator regulations. Given we're currently getting an Arctic blast, we'll see how it holds up.

mardifoufs 3y ago
My point is that we have had multiple ice storms, and we have had the exact same problem happen before. We mitigated some of it, but still have had multiple trees and debris that fell right onto critical junctions. This is just as bad imo, remember that in 1998 we also had a month long outage that was due to the exact same reasons. I wouldn't expect Texas to be ready for a cold snap but I sure would expect our infra to be ready for an ice rain storm. To assume that it just isn't possible is again, very Canadian. Again, I would understand if it was a network wide failure that led to a grid collapse or something, but this is not the case. In any case, if the same had happened in the US the media coverage and the mentality there would've led to a lot more introspection and self critique. And I know it sounds weird because Americans aren't exactly known for that, but compared to Canada? Yes they sure seem to be nowadays. Another example that comes to mind was that here in Quebec we had one of the worse mortality rates in the world in the early days of COVID (something like triple our neighbors in Ontario and worse than new York) but we were still obsessed with covering how the US was going to soon be on the brink or something. Just as we had to send the army to nursing homes because patients were literally left to die. And you know what's the e overall conclusion about how COVID was dealt here in Quebec? That we did pretty good lol. We even reelected the same exact government all while that was happening with a stronger majority. That's the mentality I'm talking about here, of complete lack of introspection and a weird inferiority complex with the Americans.
maerF0x0 3y ago
> power outage mayhem in pretty much any location where lines aren't buried. at least in austin a big part of it was a failure of the power companies to respond to tree/line interactions long before the storm. People reported trees across the lines. The branches got super heavy with ice and took out the lines. Proper maintenance / arborcare would have meant far fewer issues.