By Mike Tidwell
Here’s the truth about the increasingly painful and widespread power outages in our region: It’s not Pepco’s fault.
The freakishly strong winds of late? Not Pepco. The unprecedented flooding? Not Pepco. The record snow last winter and heat this summer? Not Pepco.
We all want reliable power, but it’s time to stop barking up the Pepco tree and start recognizing the real problem: Our weather is definitely changing. It’s part of a worldwide climate shift, the evidence for which has reached avalanche proportions. Until we come to terms with this weather weirdness, no amount of screaming at Pepco will create a long-term solution.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no huge Pepco fan. I’ve spent my share of days battling the monopoly’s bureaucracy over bill discrepancies. But when it comes to storm restoration, my lights tend to come back on within 24 hours in Takoma Park. This despite newly intense and frequent storms that longtime residents say defy memory.
Others have lost power for longer, I know, and it’s understandable that the media and politicians are focusing on the easy target: Pepco. Critics mostly point to a study showing that Pepco had placed in the bottom 25 percent among utilities ranked using two major reliability measurements. But that study covered only day-to-day service, not storm restoration. As Montgomery County (Maryland) Councilmember Nancy Floreen says, “The real issue is they (Pepco) are at the bottom percentile on outages when the sun is shining.”
Extreme weather is the problem
But it’s storm outages – not day-to-day service – that has everyone up in arms, leading to the recent public hearings and investigation of Pepco. We had two major outages last winter, after all, due to the historic Snowmageddon storms. And nearly half a million Pepco customers have lost power this summer during four outages spawned by ferocious winds and flooding.
Yet in terms of storm recovery, there’s no comprehensive study showing Pepco is significantly better or worse than utilities nationwide. In fact, despite some company website glitches and phone message snafus, Pepco seems to be doing a decent job amid, again, extraordinary circumstances. A good example is the July 25th storm that generated heavy rain and amazing wind gusts of up to 90 miles per hour, knocking out power to more than a quarter million Pepco customers. The company rapidly activated response crews and called in reinforcements from other companies. The crews worked intensely and – by credible accounts – effectively to restore power. But not everyone had juice within 24 hours, leading to criticism that prompted Pepco Vice President David Velazquez to ask, “Is it physically possible to restore service to 300,000 customers in 24 hours? I’m not sure it is.”
When enough trees fall, in other words, and enough trunks and branches are dangerously intertwined with wires and roof shingles, even a million repair trucks probably won’t speed things up. Repairs take time.
Global warming is the culprit
Pepco, of course, has been equally misguided in blaming tree owners for the power woes. The company says 90 percent of the recent outages have been triggered by trees falling on private property whose owners often fail to give approval to Pepco tree-trimming crews. But even if this claim were true, why the sudden uptick in outages (and attendant public rage) right now? What could explain the trend? Has there been a sudden and mysterious increase in the number of anti-tree-trimming homeowners, resulting in more damage? That’s obviously not true.
What has increased, however, are the storms themselves. The evidence for this is much more than anecdotal. If you believe in satellites and you believe in photography, then you know that satellite cameras have fully documented the stunning collapse of Arctic sea ice in recent years. Evidence of rapid global warming is pouring in from all corners of the planet, and our use of fossils fuels is the primary cause of the warming, according to the National Academies of Sciences of every major nation on earth, including our own.
Meanwhile, in July, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that our planet had just suffered the warmest decade, the warmest 12 months, the warmest six months and the warmest April, May and June on record. The District of Columbia, meanwhile, is on course to break the record for hottest summer in city history this year.
One consequence of this indisputable warming trend is that extreme weather events are becoming more frequent around the world, according to both scientists and some of the world’s largest insurance companies. There’s evidence, for example, that category 4 and 5 hurricanes are becoming stronger and lasting longer thanks to warmer ocean water.
Warming means more wet stuff comes down
A hotter planet also means more evaporation of ocean water. And a hotter atmosphere can hold more of that water as vapor in the air. It’s basic physics. And what goes up must come down. It’s not our imagination that rainstorm intensity is rising in our region. In a study released last March, scientists examined precipitation patterns from Maine to New Jersey over the past 60 years. The study revealed an amazing uptick in multi-inch rain events across the region, with strong evidence pointing to rising temperatures as a key culprit.
Trends are what are important here, and Pepco itself has identified an unsettling pattern this summer. Unusually high winds, it says, have repeatedly assaulted trees whose roots are themselves anchored in unusually loose and soft soil thanks to the “anomalously” high rainfall this summer. So branches and trunks are coming down at very high rates. Hmmmm.
But what about the snowfall last winter? The power went out twice due to extreme white stuff. Global warming? How? Well, first, we didn’t set records for cold temperatures last winter. Not even close. What we did do was shatter records for precipitation in the form of snow. Again, an overall warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, and significant snowfall events are on the upswing in the United States even as temperatures rise significantly. It’s all the extra water in the air. Since 1970, global warming has added at least four percent more moisture to the atmosphere, according to studies.
More severe weather in our future, unless we change
These changes in climate and weather mean that all types of infrastructure – not just utility lines – will experience ongoing and intensifying stress in coming years. Unless the nations of the world – including the United States – commit soon to major greenhouse gas reductions, then local places like Rock Creek Parkway will continue to flood severely, with major headaches for area commuters. Sea-level rise will continue t
o erode shorelines from Baltimore Harbor to Haines Point. And extreme storms will continue to take down trees and cause major power outages across the region.
It’s finally time to come out of the dark on severe weather. If Pepco is to blame for anything, it is this: the company invests woefully insufficient resources into solar and wind power. The same applies to all the region’s utilities. .
Better service means more than rapid repair crews. It means better energy flowing through the wires, rain or shine.
Mike Tidwell is executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.
“In 1979, President Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House. In 1986, President Reagan removed them and they were never replaced. Years later, Unity College in Maine adopted the panels where they have lived ever since. Until now.” Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org has organized a solar road trip from Unity College down to Washington, DC to ask President Obama to re-install solar panels on the White House roof as part of the 10.10.10 Global Work Party events.