Storms and electricity

[Voltairine]

Shit! At least you guys seem to be prepared. I guess you need to be.

Grew up in Blighty and lived through the 'winter of discontent', plus the odd storm-related and we-don't-know-what-the-fuck-happened blackouts. So when I moved to Hong Kong, I would have a few candles and a kind of storm lantern/torch thing on hand. Don't have them now as they were never needed. I don't know... should I have something?

[EvilDRMike]

Well we lose power all the time here in the Perth hills. Most of the time it is a few seconds but we sometimes have a day. Worst we had was 3 days. Which is enough to turn you to religion with no tv and no internet. The candle thing gets a bit dull after about 10 mins or so. Also the kids are somewhat unamused by the whole thing. Luckily it has only been that bad once and best of all we got nothing in the storm that hit the other week. Yay for us and the blood sacrifices I've been making (mostly DIY injuries).

EDM

[Xeno]

We get outages more frequently than in other places I have lived but usually short, and not owing to storms.

The odd thing I notice from the UPS indicators is the frequency of over-voltage, pretty much every morning.

I think the longest outage we have had anywhere was only around 25-30 hours, after Canberra's 2003 bushfires.

[loubert]

It isn't too bad up here, usually only when there are some very strong winds around do we lose power. Durring Yasi we lost power for just over a week I think it was.
All over head power lines around where I reside, the underground ones are for the better off's so I am told .

[Seamus]

When you have storms in Australia, do you all lose power? Or just those out in the sticks?

Here in Adelaide we rarely have widespread power outages.We tend to have small areas effected due to storms when trees fall on power lines.

Our biggest power losses occur in heat waves,when the power plants simply cannot cope. In recent years,this problem has been addressed by targeted rolling power cuts of a couple of hours.

[Voltairine]

I was told by someone in the power sector that electricity in Hong Kong is expensive because the supply is "bullet-proofed", and that costs money. In 25+ years I've not had to endure a power outage, just the odd local problem such as when some bozo flicked the wrong switch.

It would rather suck if we didn't have a steady supply here, all those stairs! And that seaview flat on the 62nd floor wouldn't seem so great!