[EAS] Rochester Station Offers to Charge Cell Phones

[Tim Stoffel]

In Rochester, the main RF site (Pinnacle Hill) is fed from three power grids, with a local 'spot network' switching system between the three of them. In the great ice storm of 1992, they lost power up there for less than two seconds, even though much of the rest of the area was dark. Rochester Gas and Electric (RG+E) had Pinnacle on a priority just beloe hospitals to keep powered up. They did a good job.

I was the only person on Pinnacle Hill for much of that storm. I saw channel 13's tower leaning under the ice load. Luckily, it did not collapse.

RG+E had a garage close to our  station. Even though it was on the grounds of a power plant, they lost power to the building. They had no backup power, and ended up using a cutting torch to get the garage door open so their emergency vehicles could roll. (The station was fed from two power grids, one of them straight out of the power plant, and we had half a second of power outage in 12.5 years!)

Rochester is connected to the 345 kV New York State Power Authority backbone, which runs from the Niagra Power Project to NYC, and hits all the major cities along the way. They were ordered by NYSPA to cut their connection with the 345 kV backbone during the ice storm. Rumor has it they were unable to do so, or experienced considerable delay because there was no local 120 volt power available to throw the switch.

Overall though RG+E was one of the most responsive electric utilities I have ever worked with. When I called them and asked them to jump, the usual response was "How high?".

Tim Stoffel

-----Original Message-----
From: EAS [mailto:eas-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of Adrienne Abbott
So soon people forget these events and don't want to remember them when it's sunny and warm! Power companies tread a narrow line between state regulators, stock holders and rate payers. It's tough to justify expenses to harden lines and generating facilities when you're asking a regulatory panel or shareholders six months after the event, which is usually how long it takes before major utilities can get the paperwork together to apply for permission to start a big project.

Burying a power line is not always the answer. Power lines to one of our main transmitter sites were buried a couple of years ago but that didn't prevent a failure in one of the circuits last month. It took the power company almost two weeks to find the problem, and then they had to dig through 15 feet of snow just to get to ground level