Monster storms and aging power grids nix many July 4th festivities in Eastern US

Storm damage and high temperatures have left 1.3 million homes and businesses in the eastern United States without power since Friday. At least 23 people have been killed, some crushed by falling trees, others from heatstroke. From Illinois to Virginia, "Many Fourth of July celebrations were canceled as local governments confronted damage from the hurricane-force winds and high heat and drought conditions that made firework shows risky." There's an intense image comparison here at the NASA website, showing before/after satellite images that reveal massive blackouts in DC, Richmond, and other cities affected by the "derecho" storms.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: climate change • Energy • heatwave • july 4th • summer

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Good thing they cut public spending or this might have been avoidable!
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones
  
  The obvious solution to an aging, vulnerable power grid in the face of, um, storms totally unrelated to mythical global warming, is to cut capital gains taxes so that everyone* can afford their own portable generators.
  
  As for rising sea levels: Mops.
  
  * Everyone who counts. Candles and dung fires were good enough for our pioneer ancestors.
  - kairos
    
    North Carolina recently underbid even the mops: we simply passed a four-year moratorium on admitting to the existence of the notion of “sea level rise” in the course of any state policymaking process.
    
    Problem…solved? What problem? I’m sorry, what were we talking about again?
    - http://www.facebook.com/csismeiro Carlos Sismeiro
      
      Don’t mention it, or you will be breaking the law.
      
      And why should they spend their time solving problems that can easily be ignored when there are cancer screenings to stop and mammograms whose payment should be halted?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  If the Founding Fathers wanted us to have a Right to Air Conditioning, they would have put it in the Constitution.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

For once, I feel glad that the Portland area has been late exiting the spring rainy season. We had a really wet June and it rained a bit last night.

I’m taking my nieces on their first-ever visit to a fireworks stand tomorrow, and entertaining them and their parents with a parking-lot fireworks show. (The safe, legal, boring stuff, but plenty spectacular for people like me who grew up in New York.)

* * *

I hope everyone in the derecho-blasted zone sees some relief soon.
http://twitter.com/GideonTJones Gideon Jones

Similar story here in the western US due to the wildfires/drought/winds. Fireworks shows cancelled, and fireworks banned many places. And yes, many places here (*cough*Colorado Springs*cough*) with badly neglected infrastructure and public safety budgets exacerbating the problems.
catherinecc

America the failing.
- http://www.facebook.com/csismeiro Carlos Sismeiro
  
  Land of the burned where homes are scorched.
soapdish

Something’s not right with that comparison. It implies that basically Philadelphia and all of southern New Jersey including the corridor to NYC is without power. As a resident of central NJ I’m pretty confident that’s not the case. I’m not saying there aren’t a ton of people without power but I am saying that this appears to be a wildly inaccurate representation of the actual situation.
- http://www.facebook.com/andrew.pendleton Andrew Pendleton
  
  No it doesn’t. The post-storm photo was taken while there were clouds over Philadelphia, hence the label “clouds” over Philadelphia on the map.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_KHCUTUOZ2YXERCXQQN324LZSZY Mike

The fact that the power company is locking out their workers might also have something to do with it.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/13475/con_ed_locks_out_8500_workers_as_summer_heat_wave_hits/
CDD

One post on my timeline to my Facebook “friends” before deleting the account was like this :
“We live in a Caribbean Island exposed to hurricanes every season. We are exposed to be without power,water etc for long periods of time if we get hit. Don’t count on the government prepare your self.” This apply also to the eastern part of the US. So to all the people affected, Stay strong and out of the sun! and learn from this experience for the next time.
$16228947

This comes as no surprise as I live in hurricane country, but we get a three day warning forecast before most tropical storms make landfall. The last event we experienced here wrecked the power grid all over our state, and there were a number of comments from out-of-state linemen and repair personnel about its age and (dis)repair.