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@cwayne@hachyderm.io @torvalds But I mean, they must've known when they built the grid that certain areas are susceptible to this. Or the weather conditions changed so much that this is a new phenomenon. I mean, I know nothing about infrastructure planning ofc; and a big part why I'm wondering is because I see in the news every year that there's larger blackouts across certain areas of the US.

I guess a portion of it is simply increased extreme weather events due to climate change.

@brauner @cwayne@hachyderm.io @torvalds I don't think there's a pattern of this being anything new in the US. I've known power outages here due to weather events my whole life - where I grew up it was more due to tornadoes, but the occasional freezing rain outage was a thing.

Power lines are buried in downtown Portland. The scaling works better in an urban center.

I know Germany buries most of its utilities. How much of that is due to "clean slate" planning after the war?

vorlon

@brauner @cwayne@hachyderm.io @torvalds and as Chris says, failure of the utility companies to do maintenance (because they are for profit instead of state owned) IS a factor. Look at the wild fires in California caused by lack of trimming forests away from the high voltage trunks!