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Hurricane Estimates For 2007: (as of 3 April 2007)
17 Named Storms (average is 9.6)
85 Named Storm Days (average is 49.1)
9 Hurricanes (average is 5.9)
40 Hurricane Days (average is 24.5)
5 Intense Hurricanes (Category 3-4-5) (average is 2.3)
11 Intense Hurricane Days (average is 5.0)
Even with all this forecasted storm activity and the incredible number of
outages that come with it, severe weather still accounts for less than half
of all power outages.
38% Weather: Lighting, wind, rain, snow, heat, cold and ice
26% Utility Equipment problems and grid overload
12% Fallen trees or tree growth
10% Animal contact
8% Human Error: Digging, cranes, traffic, vandalism, etc.
6% Misc: Mechanical damage, construction error, fire, etc.
Source for this information : U.S. Government Energy Information
Administration
SERC Region System Disturbances – 2003 – 2007
The SERC Reliability Corporation is responsible for providing and delivering power to a large area collectively known as the southeast portion of the United States. This area is divided into 5 Regions and the VACAR Region covers the Commonwealth of Virginia. Outages occur throughout the year and these outages are of public record and the major incidents are provided here to assist you in determining how frequently your power may be lost in your home. The outages are reported by an independent organization, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC).
In 2003, there were four major outages that affected over 2.5 million residents. The majority of those outages were due to Hurricane Isabel, which affected more than 1.8 million residence in September.
** August 14th, 2003 – A blackout occurred that lost an estimated 61,800MW of customer load. The exact number of residents affected was not known, but that area covers over 50 million customers.
In 2004, there were three major outages that affected over 200 thousand residents and the majority of those outages were due to Hurricane Charley and Tropical Storm Gaston in August.
In 2005, there were no major reported outages.
In 2006, there were two major outages that affected over 210 thousand residents and these outages were the direct result of Tropical Storm Ernesto in September.
These outages are reported as major disturbances and does not take into consideration the “normal” outages that are present in the Northern Virginia area due to wind, trees, inclement weather, or construction. |
