CTH
The Lee County Electric Cooperative (LCEC) provides power utility coverage to approximately 200,000 homes in Sanibel, Cape Coral and Pine Island: three of the hardest hit western zone regions in the Hurricane Ian disaster. Hundreds of people have asked me in my extensive travels why there are zero power trucks visible in Cape Coral working on the power grid, downed power lines and broken infrastructure. Now, it looks like we have the answer.
What LCEC is intentionally doing is jaw-dropping. In all my years of hurricane recovery, there has never –NEVER– been a more crystal-clear example of a decision to put profits over people. LCEC is literally taking advantage of tens of thousands of vulnerable residents. Tonight, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is calling them out More
Many power companies sold off their generating capacity during deregulation. Same thing happened out in California, the companies were contractually required to supply power at a lower rate than they could buy it; they took a huge loss which they then passed on to their customers.
And like I said before, a little over a hundred years ago Florida was a swamp that hardly anyone lived in – millions have moved into the path of hurricanes. Like all the nullwits that lived in the floodplain of the Mississippi River and got flooded out every ten years, maybe it’s time to move somewhere else. No one is surprised when Florida gets hit by hurricanes.
a more crystal-clear example of a decision to put profits over people
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Someone actually said that! It’s always about the money, it’s always the bean counters. The more $$$ they save, the bigger the Xmas bonus. Perhaps Sanibel is going to take longer to repair, so the tactic is to get more people back on line and using power, than to sacrifice millions over 250,000. What the electric company is doing makes sense from a business standpoint. /just saying
Maybe if Washington wasn’t on some hair-brainless mission in other parts of the world they could focus American Taxpayer Dollars on Americans in trouble for a change. But yet once again we come last after they fill their pockets in the dark of night.
The island is not habitable. The island is destroyed. There’s no reason to get the power back on out there. They’re still evacuating people off the island and looking for dead bodies.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/sanibel-island-lee-county-facing-impacts-hurricane-ian/story?id=90698639
The island is not habitable. The island is destroyed. There’s no reason to get the power back on out there. They’re still evacuating people off the island and looking for dead bodies. Road getting onto the island is destroyed.
Those barrier islands are little more than sand spits, you gotta be crazy to build anything more than a shanty on one.
I don’t go for that analysis. The period of no electrical delivery puts a huge gaping hole in the accounts receivable for the billing period. This isn’t a fractional offset caused by fractional increases in energy pricing, the billing has hit zero. Nada, zip, zilch. From every customer without a running meter.
I’d rather look into did they actually sign up for mutual assistance. They may not have done so. That costs money to participate in on an ongoing basis.
What most people don’t know is that many power companies have phased out company linemen in favor of private companies that travel all over the country to respond to these emergencies.
I’m up here in North Maine, and many of the companies that normally would have been dispatched to Florida were, instead, working up in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland restoring power after Hurricane Fiona flattened Cape Bretton Island and western Newfoundland.
https://www.reuters.com/world/canada-braces-possibly-historic-storm-hurricane-fiona-2022-09-24/