Back in the 1930′s President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in an effort to end the current recession, initiated actions to provide modern comforts of electricity to millions of households all over the United States. The fastest and most economical solution at the time was the use of wood, and the impact of FDR’s initiative is still visible in form of the familiar electricity posts that decorate streets all over the country.

More than 70 years later the only improvement of the current power distribution system seems to be the addition of telephone lines and, in recent years, cables for the world wide web.

All those comforts of modern life like electricity, telephone, and Internet connection have become an integral part of our life that we tend to ignore the dependency that comes with it. A sore reminder came with a recent savage storm toppling huge trees like they were toys and knocking out power to thousands (including yours truly) in the neighborhood. All in all, we lived without electricity for two full days.

Dealing without electricity was only a small challenge. After all, we have a gas stove and sufficient supply of candles and flashlights. On the other hand we lost all food in the refrigerator and the freezer.

More devastating for me personally (and my wife as well) was the absence of an Internet connection. It was a blogger’s nightmare! All the power backup devices we have installed last only for a few hours, and our cable connection was gone as well. On top of that our cellphones worked only part-time (See also my post AT&T Reaches 99% Of All Voice-Mailboxes).

All this makes you wonder about the technological advantages in the year 2010. All modern technology will fail when it is based on a distribution system that hasn’t significantly improved during the last 70 years. In our case we are dealing with Western Mass Electric Company (WMECO), a company that, like many others, is either not able or not willing to invest into a more reliable system. They rather deal with the occasional disasters one by one. In their view that seems to be the most economical solution. I doubt, however, they compared the benefit of a more reliable system against the unpredictable costs of a disaster clean-up (the same seems to be true for the oil spill situation in the Gulf of Mexico), not mentioning the monetary damage to the people who depend on their services.

This is just how Corporate America works. Profit counts more than human life or the environment that human life so heavily depends on.

Fast-Moving Storm Savages County; Thousands Lose Electricity

GREENFIELD – A huge thunderstorm – powered by record-breaking heat – ravaged Greenfield and other parts of Franklin County, toppling huge trees like playthings and knocking out power to thousands  who may not see it fully restored for days.

Crews worked throughout Thursday to clear hundreds of trees that had fallen on power lines, homes, cars, and streets.

Storm damage was strewn all over the county, with public works crews, firefighters, police, and utility crews working throughout the night and into Thursday to clean up downed trees, poles, and utility lines. About 30,000 customers lost power in 15 minutes.

A state of emergency was declared in several Franklin County towns Wednesday night and residents of Greenfield were asked to stay home during the day on Thursday.

By 8 p.m. on Thursday, 11,752 WMECO customers in Franklin County were without power, including 4,131 in Montague and 2,328 in Greenfield.