KY Ice Storm: 769,000 Without Power, 25 Dead, $50 Million Spent

RDemocrat at BlueGrassRoots reminds us that when you want visual evidence of what's going on in Kentucky, the Hillbilly's got it.

Jim Pence is one of the finest Progressives we have here in Kentucky. For quite some time now I have gone to his site, and his YouTube feed and laughed endlessly at some of the most creative political vids made in this whole country. His contributions to Democratic candidates, and the Democratic blogosphere in Kentucky have been immense.

However, I think this time he has even outdone himself. After getting my internet back up, I have been several places trying to get news on the tragedy here in Kentucky, and made my customary stop into hillbillyreport to check on what Jim had.

What I found was quite frankly the finest coverage available on the internet about the human aspect of this monumental event, and how it effected thousands of Kentuckians.

According to the Kentucky Public Service Commission, last week 769,353 Kentucky households and businesses suffered power failures.

At the peak of last week's massive ice storm, more than one-third of Kentucky electric customers were without power, according to new figures compiled by the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC).

Information gathered from all electric providers in the state show that 769,353 customers were without power at the worst of the storm, late on January 29. Kentucky has about 2.2 million electric customers. The outage affected 35.7 percent of them.
"These numbers simply bring into sharper focus what we already knew," Governor Steve Beshear said. "This is the worst disruption of essential services on record in Kentucky."

As of early today, 208,335 Kentucky customers remain without power.

But the real story is at the Hillbilly's place. Check it out.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

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No Such Thing as a Power Outage

I love it when the universe delivers an engraved, personal invitation to me to rant about a pet peeve.

There is no such thing as a power "outage." It's a power failure. When the power fails, that's a power failure.

Decades ago, power company public relations hacks fooled, lied, pressured and threatened newspapers into calling power failures "outages." Power "failure" sounded way too much like the truth: the power failed. The power company is not omnipotent; it can fail, and does fail - far too frequently. Can't have people thinking that. They might start wondering why they're paying way too much money for something that often fails.

The power didn't "out," like a gay teenager. It failed. Fail, failed, failure. Failure, Failure, FAILURE.

It's especially a power failure when the power fails more than 607,000 people in Kentucky - an all-time record for the state.

The failure is not just of the utility companies, but also of the Public Service Commission, the General Assembly and the Governor, who all FAILED to prevent this catastrophe by forcing the utility companies to bury the power lines.

Although many individuals and entitites share this failure, it remains a failure. A power failure.

Do NOT let anyone get away with using the out-word.

It's a power FAILURE.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

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