I never lost power, but did lose my cable and internet for about half an hour. Ironically, I had charged up my deep cycle battery so in case the power went out, I could at least have cable and internet!
Sadly not all the boosters between you and the head end contain batteries. Cable internet and VoIP are the least resilient to a storm/power outage.
So you think. Did you place/receive any calls after the power outage? (checking dial tone doesnt count because that is artificial and generated by your modem)Well the weird thing is, I never lost my phone (VoIP), at least not until I did a reboot of the whole system.
Sadly not all the boosters between you and the head end contain batteries. Cable internet and VoIP are the least resilient to a storm/power outage.
So you think. Did you place/receive any calls after the power outage? (checking dial tone doesnt count because that is artificial and generated by your modem)
Unless you were on the phone or able to send/receive calls you probably didnt really have service. It wasnt until the reboot that your modem could no longer register with the SIP registration server.
The electricity demand for the city is down due to the loss of the big power consumers: Chrysler, Ford, NaviStar. The real problem are trees. About 10-15 years ago IPL was taken to court for “aggressive” tree trimming and now they are limited to trimming only 3’ around primary distribution wires. Now all those trees that were trimmed back have now grown close to wires. 45’ pole sitting under a +60’ tree with only 3’ of clearance doesn’t look good for the wire hanging on that pole. If you do get a generator, then make sure you have the proper disconnect in place to prevent you from back feeding onto your service.
We removed a tree that was causing IPL problems.
I've got a big Bradford Pear that's all in the lines running along the back of the property. I called IPL and they left a note on my door saying something about "drop lines" - the ones going from the main line to the house - which is not what I called about. Finally on the back of the card they mentioned the main line out back and said they'd take care of it on their "normal" schedule, which is every 3 years. Thing is, the last time they came through, they didn't trim that tree and it was already in the wires then. I don't know when the 3 years will be up, but I sure hope we don't get an ice storm or a bad wind storm between now and then, or there will be a bunch of people without power. I always check it after strong storms like we had last night, but so far it's held up. Just a matter of time though.
Once they get it clear of the lines, I'll probably go ahead and just take it down myself.
Taking IPL to court over this is pretty silly. Real silly actually. Unless they did push the limits but still, if your tree is threatening my power then deal with it. People are just so easily offended/angered.
They don’t trim secondary lines (downstream of the transformer), the drop line is for your service wire that connects to the house from the pole.I've got a big Bradford Pear that's all in the lines running along the back of the property. I called IPL and they left a note on my door saying something about "drop lines" - the ones going from the main line to the house - which is not what I called about. Finally on the back of the card they mentioned the main line out back and said they'd take care of it on their "normal" schedule, which is every 3 years. Thing is, the last time they came through, they didn't trim that tree and it was already in the wires then. I don't know when the 3 years will be up, but I sure hope we don't get an ice storm or a bad wind storm between now and then, or there will be a bunch of people without power. I always check it after strong storms like we had last night, but so far it's held up. Just a matter of time though.
Once they get it clear of the lines, I'll probably go ahead and just take it down myself.
I wish more people would. Every tree that is close to the wire from the substation to the end of that circuit can impact you.We removed a tree that was causing IPL problems.
They don’t trim secondary lines (downstream of the transformer), the drop line is for your service wire that connects to the house from the pole.
Its a Bradford Pear, it’s threatening everything around or under it. Worst ****ing trees in the world, but they’re cheap and they grow fast, so all the subdivisions love them until they find out their roots barely go in the ground and they’ll fall over if you lean on them. We lost 13 trees in our neighborhood and the surroundings yesterday. That’s all I could count, I’m just waiting for mine to get me a new Jeep!Taking IPL to court over this is pretty silly. Real silly actually. Unless they did push the limits but still, if your tree is threatening my power then deal with it. People are just so easily offended/angered.