Blackouts in the sub/urban jungle

Here's hoping we can continue discussing themes from the previous thread without stepping on toes.

I've noticed that blackouts during the day lasting more than a few minutes commonly induce this strange behavior in Americans that I've seen everywhere I've lived. For the first 60 seconds nothing happens as everyone sits in their residences in confusion and denial that the power is actually out. 2-3 minutes after it goes out - almost on queue - 25-50% of the people in the area walk outside and look around confused, wondering if it's just them. They encounter one another - the neighbors who they might know as a face and a name - and awkwardly ask one another if their power is out too. This sense of relief washes over as they realize that it's not just them and they start to talk to each other, something they usually do not do. Whatever sense of community people lose due to electricity they seem to naturally rebuild in its absence. I've seen this same thing on camping trips around the campfire in the Boy Scouts when all these modern kids are removed from their Xboxes, internet, and phones - they interact with those around them, tell stories, make up songs, and often find they have much less interest in staying up all hours.

Another thing I've noticed is just how quiet the average neighborhood is during a power outage. Birds chirping, cars passing by, neighbors talking outdoors, the wind blowing - all things that go unnoticed with the air conditioning running, computers humming (and playing music, youtube, etc), TV's running, and all the other electronics that let us distract ourselves indoors and oftentimes alone. The passage of time becomes much more apparent - especially if you choose to pass the time reading by sunlight or do some other activity suddenly dictated by the hour.

At night, I find myself lighting the house with oil lanterns - of which I have a few - and only use flashlights for specific short-duration tasks.

I occasionally consider battery backup for the secondary DC-powered lighting project I plan to finish later this year, but power outages are quite rare here - on the order of perhaps twice a year for 4 hours or less. I might do a forced local outage by throwing the main breaker on occasion just to see how well I can manage and to see how my preparedness preparations work.

i rule the night between many Coleman lanterns and flashlights i hate it in the summer when its hot though. i have mostly rechargeable flashlights so i keep making sure the batts are charged

idleprocess said:

Another thing I've noticed is just how quiet the average neighborhood is during a power outage. Birds chirping, cars passing by, neighbors talking outdoors, the wind blowing - all things that go unnoticed with the air conditioning running, computers humming (and playing music, youtube, etc), TV's running, and all the other electronics that let us distract ourselves indoors and oftentimes alone.

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It's those times I take advantage of by jumping on the HF bands sans all the RFI I normally suffer from all those appliances

Norm

Norm said:

It's those times I take advantage of by jumping on the HF bands sans all the RFI I normally suffer from all those appliances

Norm

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I was edging my lawn this afternoon with a cordless electric weedeater/edger while listening to music on my phone and noticed that playback would occasionally glitch when I thumbed down on the switch - chalked it up to a big DC spark on motor start that flipped a bit somewhere in the phone. Can only imagine what entire neighborhoods full of electronics do to RF conditions.

One thing I've noticed is how much smoother traffic flows when the traffic signals go out due to power outages. It seems the sense of community which is regained when power is lost extends to the streets as well where people get used to operating on lines of sight, instead of having their behavior programmed by traffic signals. I feel this actually makes the case for just turning the traffic signals off for good. They might allow higher speeds through intersections than operating on purely visual clues allow but this rarely results in higher overall travel speeds due to all the time wasted waiting for signals. Don't get me wrong. I feel electricity is essential to modern life. At the same time though I think we've used it to overprogram our lives to the point that technology is working against itself. Traffic signals I think provide one of the best examples of that. Once they go out and the initial adjustment period passes, people negotiate intersections far more efficiently and safely than before. It's also much safer for cyclists and pedestrians when traffic keeps to the 20 mph or less needed to operate visually.

That is definitely not true here (DC area) you do not want to be driving when the signals are out! People just operate on the chicken principle (that is, they approach an intersection with no intention of stopping or even slowing down, and if two cars are approaching simultaneously, well, you know.)

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The power went out here after a small storm two nights, ago right after dark. I put a couple lights on low in the house for my wife and kid to navigate by, and I went outside and fired up the coleman stove and made some coffee in an old fashioned percolator. Enjoyed the quiet while it lasted-all of four hours.

jtr1962 said:

One thing I've noticed is how much smoother traffic flows when the traffic signals go out due to power outages.

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Quite the opposite case in DFW where traffic is force-concentrated onto relatively few arteries - light synchronization provides quite the benefit over having a 4-way stop at every intersection.

N8N said:

That is definitely not true here (DC area) you do not want to be driving when the signals are out! People just operate on the chicken principle (that is, they approach an intersection with no intention of stopping or even slowing down, and if two cars are approaching simultaneously, well, you know.)

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As I said, it's a learning process. If the traffic signals were taken out for good, eventually enough drivers would get into collisions playing chicken and realize you have to slow to 20 mph or less at intersections all the time in order to negotiate them safely.

idleprocess said:

Quite the opposite case in DFW where traffic is force-concentrated onto relatively few arteries - light synchronization provides quite the benefit over having a 4-way stop at every intersection.

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A lot of it depends upon grid density. A lot of streets here in NYC have intersections (and traffic signals!) every 250'. Moreover, they're often intentionally unsynchronized to slow down traffic. This could mean it takes 6 minutes to go 10 blocks. Of course, cyclists and pedestrians totally ignore traffic signals when you have this many of them, so they pretty much lose most of their safety value. There's such a thing as overkill, and many cities, especially NYC, have gone totally overboard with traffic signals. We have over 12,000 signalized intersections. I doubt the entire state of Texas has that many. While you might make a case for traffic signals on roads with relatively high speeds and few intersections, you can't justify them in a dense urban environment. Traffic in places like NYC shouldn't be moving faster than about 20 mph except on highways. 20 mph is slow enough to use uncontrolled intersections (i.e. no stop signs or traffic signals). Hans Monderman did a lot of good work in this area. He basically felt that things work best when there are no markings or controls, and each user has to negotiate with every other user.

When you word it like that, it reminds me of this commercial for Orange.

This thread is quite relevant for the UK where the national grid has recently warned that we're going to have a very narrow margin between supply and demand of power this winter.

Re. traffic problems- roundabouts are the solution! (except where it's really busy but junctions snarl up too in these places unless lit).

gravelmonkey said:

Re. traffic problems- roundabouts are the solution! (except where it's really busy but junctions snarl up too in these places unless lit).

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Totally agree but it seems here in the US we're averse to using them.

gravelmonkey said:

Re. traffic problems- roundabouts are the solution! (except where it's really busy but junctions snarl up too in these places unless lit).

jtr1962 said:

Totally agree but it seems here in the US we're averse to using them.

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They started using roundabouts several years ago here in Vermont and they work pretty well. Unfortunately, the one they installed in my area was squeezed into a space that is really way too small for one and it has problems with large tractor trailers, people who don't know how to use roundabouts and get confused or by a surprisingly large percentage of people who are very inconsiderate, dangerous drivers who like to play chicken with other cars and just come blasting into the roundabout regardless of the traffic. The small size seems to limit the options for easy entry and this makes things even worse by confusing newbies passing through for the first time. Over in next door New Hampshire there are many roundabouts and they work beautifully because they are much larger and seem designed to be pretty idiot-proof for most drivers by facilitating easy entry and egress. Roundabouts really are the solution.

Back on topic. I got home a couple of hours ago and the power was out! We've had a very windy day and this brings down tree limbs onto the wires, thus taking them out....another unsafe thing related to blackouts. Interestingly, there has been a widespread deployment of smart meters in my state and despite the controversy surrounding them I've noticed that when we do have blackouts, and we have them quite often from downed lines, the repair crews are able to locate the source of the outage much faster and show up to fix it.

I recently read about a NY City cab driver who after hitting a J-walker continued another ten blocks before stopping. The amazing fact of the story was the cabby wasn't ticketed even though the person he hit had landed on the hood of his cab, and remained there for the entire ten blocks......He told the investigating officer: "I couldn't stop, all my lights were green!"

~ Chance

idleprocess said:

They encounter one another - the neighbors who they might know as a face and a name - and awkwardly ask one another if their power is out too. This sense of relief washes over as they realize that it's not just them

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Personally I arrange my various flashlights to shine at my windows to give the impression of full power and then go out and tell people, No, no my power isn't out, yours is?

jtr1962 said:

Totally agree but it seems here in the US we're averse to using them.

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That's because you'd get more than a few idiots going in the wrong direction on a roundabout and head-on collisions would skyrocket. Hell, there are drivers who have no clue how to use a 4-way intersection with stop signs present.

Going into the OT weeds a bit here...

jtr1962 said:

A lot of it depends upon grid density. A lot of streets here in NYC have intersections (and traffic signals!) every 250'. Moreover, they're often intentionally unsynchronized to slow down traffic. This could mean it takes 6 minutes to go 10 blocks. Of course, cyclists and pedestrians totally ignore traffic signals when you have this many of them, so they pretty much lose most of their safety value.

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Downtown Dallas is somewhat like this with similar intersection spacing. Unless one is killing time, one does not transit through downtown.

I make an effort to take the train downtown because parking is a nuisance and everything is close enough together that walking is not an issue.

jtr1962 said:

There's such a thing as overkill, and many cities, especially NYC, have gone totally overboard with traffic signals. We have over 12,000 signalized intersections. I doubt the entire state of Texas has that many.

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Let's see ... using some random square miles in my suburb, I'm getting 10-16 traffic lights per square mile. We'll say 10 is average. Dallas proper is just under 385 square miles, so approx 3850 signals using 10 per square mile. Fort Worth is only slightly smaller at 350 square miles but lower population density, so perhaps it drops down to 6 signals per square mile for another 2100 signals. The rest of the directly-adjacent suburbs are another ~1500 square miles, so I think we're hardly short of traffic lights in the DFW region. This is of no surprise since the density is much lower than NYC - a consequence of the region being laid out early in the auto age that's not likely to change rapidly.

idleprocess said:

Downtown Dallas is somewhat like this with similar intersection spacing. Unless one is killing time, one does not transit through downtown.

I make an effort to take the train downtown because parking is a nuisance and everything is close enough together that walking is not an issue.

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Ugh.
Downtown Dallas is a mess.
I know there is construction going on all around the metroplex but downtown Dallas is absurd.

idleprocess said:

Another thing I've noticed is just how quiet the average neighborhood is during a power outage. Birds chirping, cars passing by, neighbors talking outdoors, the wind blowing - all things that go unnoticed with the air conditioning running, computers humming (and playing music, youtube, etc), TV's running, and all the other electronics that let us distract ourselves indoors and oftentimes alone. The passage of time becomes much more apparent - especially if you choose to pass the time reading by sunlight or do some other activity suddenly dictated by the hour.

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Reminds me of when I was a sophomore at A&M and the power went out on the Northside late one Autumn night. It wasn't too hot outside but it started to get a bit toasty in the dorms so all the students spilled out onto the lawns.
It was really funny because before then we barely knew our neighbors and it just became a big outdoor fest with people playing musical instruments, tossing a frisbee/football around, and just talking.

During a week-long outage several years back, the thing that surprised me most was the amount of traffic going down the main neighborhood street. This was after a few days of no power, and all the news on the radio was about how hard it was to find gas, and how long the lines were, I would've thought the LAST thing people would be doing was driving more!

And it was dicey with no traffic signals. But I'd still rather be in the car than trying to cross roads on foot, after my experience last week, when I was crossing at a crosswalk, with the signal, and nearly got run over by a guy in a pickup (handicap tags no less!). He had pulled out for a right turn and I couldn't tell if he was going to stop or not so I darted forward to get out of the way; he went on without a second glance.

So NO, I don't trust the other drivers at intersections when the power is off! (or anytime, for that matter)



And I have noticed the phenomenon where people walk outside a few minutes after the power is out. The "dazed and confused" look is kind of funny actually. Nothing like being forced to quit the electronics cold-turkey I guess, though now with smart-phones it's less of an impact. The lack of flashlights I noticed during that no power week was terrible by the way. Some younger kids and teenagers at least had some 2 dollar 5mm lights like you'd get at a gas station; the adults were worse, usually a half-dead, 2D incan.

idleprocess said:

...They encounter one another - the neighbors who they might know as a face and a name - and awkwardly ask one another if their power is out too. This sense of relief washes over as they realize that it's not just them and they start to talk to each other, something they usually do not do. Whatever sense of community people lose due to electricity they seem to naturally rebuild in its absence.

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Good observation Idleprocess. I have noticed this also, even after a severe storm where the power remained on but tree limbs were strewn around. It's as if nature pressed a reset button on human contact. It is nice to see these occasional glimpses into simpler and seemingly friendlier times.

PhotonWrangler said:

Good observation Idleprocess. I have noticed this also, even after a severe storm where the power remained on but tree limbs were strewn around. It's as if nature pressed a reset button on human contact. It is nice to see these occasional glimpses into simpler and seemingly friendlier times.

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In case it's not evident, I find this spontaneous phenomenon fascinating - it's a small thing to look forward to during the unpleasantness of a power outage. All of a sudden the fairly closed nature of social life in the suburbs opens up as a result of the interruption since most people are suddenly no longer too busy to interact with those immediately around them.