The Calvary

I seem to be one of The Few, The Proud, The Brave who had power restored yesterday. It came on about 6pm. It was beautiful.

This morning, I saw three power trucks on the road, and though there were still quite a few street lights out on my route in, and several blocks still without power, there was... progress. Which, you know, really, was all I was hoping for. Some kind of indication that we weren't stuck in the second half of The Stand.

They're using the fairgrounds downtown as the staging area for the power and debris trucks, and I passed them on the way in. It was pretty awesome to see 50 second shift trucks and crews get geared up for another day. I very nearly took a picture. It filled me with love!

On the one hand, I don't want to blame Dayton for being incompetent - most of the crews were in Texas, and it took them that extra day to get up here. But you know, it also doesn't surprise me that this get noticeably better once you get in the folks from out of state who know what the fuck they're doing.

It doesn't help that Dayton Power & Light just goes out of its way to look incompetent:

Other major utilities in the region, including Duke Energy and American Electric Power which serves the Columbus area and southeast Ohio, offer the public specific projections, by telephone or Web site, about when customers in given areas can expect to have their service restored.

DP&L lacks the technology to do that, Tatham said.

Often, residents have been able to determine where power has been restored by "driving around," Tatham said.

Yeah. It's an incredibly organized strategy we employ.

Montgomery County Sheriff Phil Plummer said he has been in contact with DP&L about the repair schedule, but needs to know more about when each area is to be reconnected. That would help the sheriff's office deploy patrol officers accordingly to deter criminals who might try to loot in areas still without electric service, Plummer said Tuesday.

DP&L relies on information that local governments relay about reconnect priorities, Tatham said.

"As far as identifying priorities down to a neighborhood, that would be difficult to do," Tatham said.

Right. Because... making a priority list in the event of a disaster isn't something that... people do. Shit, if FEMA doesn't do it, why should DP&L?

Retards.

In any case, there are still lots of folks without power this morning, but at least there's progress.

Then everybody will head back to Texas.