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Tom Mihalek / Reuters
Utility poles await use by crews in Seaside Heights, N.J., on Tuesday.
When some residents in New York's Westchester County called utility Consolidated Edison on Friday to find out why it was taking so long to restore power, they were told that it wasn't for lack of manpower or equipment.
It was poles ... utility poles.
Despite the caravans of power trucks in neighborhoods across the New York City area, a shortage of the specially-treated wooden poles used to string overhead power transmission lines and hold up transformers may be slowing the recovery.
Specialty pole suppliers like Cox Industries and Bridgewell Resources are producing and trucking as many as 1,500 poles a day to customers in the Northeast since Hurricane Sandy slammed into the New Jersey coastline on Monday, flooding entire towns and leaving millions of homes in the dark. More than 3.5 million people remained without power as of Friday afternoon.
But in some cases suppliers say they cannot keep up. Class 1 and 2 utility poles, which are the largest in diameter and among the most commonly used in the Northeast, sold out fast and the orders are still coming, said Chris Slonaker, an East Coast sales manager for Bridgewell, which is based in Tigard, Ore.
"The stock that was available at the time of the storm is all gone, and we are trying to replenish it," said Slonaker, whose company supplies power poles to Consolidated Edison, Public Service Enterprise Group, Verizon Communications and several rural electric cooperatives.
Residents of the Jersey Shore talk to Nightly News about surviving Hurricane Sandy as they search for pieces of their past amid the wreckage. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.
ConEd, which still had about 500,000 customers without power as of Friday afternoon, would not immediately comment on why its customer service personnel had told some homeowners that utility pole supplies were a challenge. A spokeswoman said the biggest obstacles to restoring power to customers with overhead lines was impassable roads and thousands of downed power lines.
To complicate matters, because of high demand, stockpiles of the southern pine trees used to make the poles are in short supply at plants Bridgewell buys from. Trees are arriving at plants daily and several thousand poles are under construction now, Slonaker said.
They should be ready to ship to the Northeast by the middle of next week for a 900-mile trip that takes two to three days -- which could mean another week or more -- without electricity and heat even as a cold snap settles into the area.
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Most of the dozen or so plants Bridgewell buys utility poles from have been operating 24-hours a day since the storm. They usually operate only 8-hours a day during normal weather and 16-hours a day after most big weather events. Typically, Bridgewell ships 50 truckloads, each with about 30 poles, each day for one or two days after a storm. But Hurricane Sandy has led to an influx of orders far larger.
"Orders have continued at this pace" every day since Sandy struck on Monday, Slonaker said.
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And even after producing the poles, Bridgewell is finding there are more orders than there were trucks. Hundreds of flatbed trucks that would normally deliver plywood and other supplies are being outfitted with wooden stakes so they can haul the 35-to-50-foot utility poles.
Orangeburg, South Carolina-based Cox Industries is sending upwards of 1,200 poles per day to warehouses in Hainesport, N.J., and Hicksville, N.Y., on Long Island from its production factories in the Southeast, said Don Surrency, a sales manager at the company.
Surrency said Cox has not had trouble keeping up with orders to PSE&G, Long Island Power Authority or Verizon and is sending about 40 trucks per day, each loaded with 25 to 30 poles. But getting them to the right place hasn't been easy.
"There are other obstacles you don't typically see in storms," said Surrency.
Among them: The dense population, blocked or difficult to pass roadways -- sometimes because of cars that have simply run out of gas, he said.
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Truck drivers have, so far, not encountered the fuel shortages many residents in New York and New Jersey have experienced, Surrency and Slonaker said.
John Margaritis, a spokesman for PSE&G, the biggest power provider in New Jersey, said that supply of utility poles has not been an issue. The utility in hard-hit New Jersey still had 692,000 customers without power as of Friday afternoon.
LIPA did not return calls and emails for comment on Friday.
Before the storm, most of the utilities Bridgewell deals with had already ordered extra supplies of poles. But Slonaker says those ran out quickly.
"They were prepared, but this was bigger than expected," he said. "It's hard to prepare for this."
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Leave a Comment:
"electrifying" power to the poles !at least these "poles" do there job unlike the dead pols in office
They're doing a tough job. Everybody wants their's on first. That's not the way it works. They restore the lines that will get the most people back online first. But I feel for the people that are still without.
They need to go sub-surface.
We wouldn't have these problems if all the electric/cable & telephone were underground.
Creek, What they need is to cut trees around power lines, and make poles with metals and wood to be more resistant. I wonder why keep many tall trees around electric lines and houses. Yes, trees are health and beautiful, but we should have common sense and keep all safe. I used to have power lines underground at my house, but when we renovated it we were not allowed to keep underground power line for safety reasons, that was what the engineering department told us. So much safety codes when we do construction but no common sense when people plant trees or just let them grow wild around streets and houses.
There is a children's poem which comes to mind.
For want of a nail the shoe was lost
For want of a shoe the horse was lost
For want of a horse the rider was lost
For want of a rider the battle was lost
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
We can have the latest high tech gadgets, most wonderfully designed homes with gorgeous furniture, latest conviences and expensive belongings. But for want of a simple tree cut to the right dimensions holding up those electric lines servicing that home , so when we flip lovely switches we get power for heat, keeping our foods cold, allowing us to cook and giving us light in the darkness as well as communication with the outside world, it all is for naught. We still must depend on Mother Nature providing us with the humblest of her gifts in the end. How quickly we are reminded of the delicate connections which enable us to go about our existence in the modern age. And that we still are connected to nature no matter how far we think we have roamed.
In some instances, would under ground electric lines suffice? These lines are usually buried in conduit or are heavily insulated and depending on size can run several hundred feet (If not several thousand feet) and can reduce down time in heavy storm pron areas. In extreme cold weather these underground cables are not subject to the heavy ice storms of the northeast and many repairs do not require overhead line trucks. After severe storms hit a region and some areas have lost power, with underground electric a simple set of tests before power is restored can be accomplished for continuity and power restored with ground level repairs. Salt water and other contaminants on ground box connection service centers would take less time for repairs and less costly to consumers to maintain. It is understandable the infrastructure upgrades to underground electric would be costly, but would pay for themselves after a super storm such as Sandy. It is also noted that in some areas separated by other infrastructure obstacles that under ground would have to go back to overhead until such obstacles where no longer a problem. I see this as a possible future upgrade to areas pron to ice storms and heavy flooding but understand the importance of a watertight electric system as well.
Buried infrastructure while possible is very expensive. It is further complicated by the type of housing and construction in the N.E. The density, lot spacing and other factors play into the decision. In NEW construction is possible to allow for right of way, pedestal placement etc.
Burying lines underground is very expensive. In my neighborhood, the lines are buried because the development started in the late 1990's. However, the transmission lines that service the neighborhood are all above ground. It does make a big difference in electrical outages but companies have to outweigh the cost with the benefit. I know that after the Trigo wildfire in New Mexico, the rural cooperative that services a bunch of communication sites and some secret squirrel stuff from the air force at the top of Capilla Peak buried their line up the mountain. It took quite a while to get it done. But now they don't have to worry about it in the future. Also, high voltage (250-500 kv lines) are even more expensive to bury and generate a LOT of heat. There are only a couple of 500 KV lines that are buried in the world and only for short stretches. Plus, you have to have a big substation at each end of where it is buried.
Bottom line is it is up to the company to decide if they want to "take the plunge" (pun intended...)
worked for duke energy for 31 yrs. the bottom line is the storm was much greater than anyone expected, even though it was forecast by the weather service. there is only so much you can do to be prepared. you cannot argue against nature. it's force is greater than man and all the modern 'gadgets' in the world. underground service is good in some areas and duke buried a lot of cable. but there are always some overhead lines that connect the power even up to the underground areas. what has created the most issues in this storm is the density of population and the vast number of homes just side by side that were damaged. the debris, the road damage, all the cars in the way so much involved. also you have a number of homes so damaged they cannot pass any inspection to get the power back on. i know the customes without power are running out of patience but you have to put things in perspective. even with katrina the damage was horrific but not sure it involved as many people in such a 'small' area. i know the lineman and utility company workers are doing their best to get people's power back on as soon as possible.
This same topic comes up year after year, disaster after disaster. If they had started burying lines, in pvc conduit, gradually, so many circuits per year, it would eventually be done. No more tre problems, no more drunken driver hit poles, no more dead birds and critters. Maybe utullities should be taken from the hands of corporate America and put into public utillites so that the almighty dollar doesn't drive maintenance and construction.
Don't feel sorry for these crews, yes they are working long hours and in dangerous conditions. But trust me, they are being paid very very well. Do a search and see what a lineman makes. These guys are on double and triple time pay scales to due to the hours of work.
Why not stell poles, many places use steel poles, especially in areas with poor access, they last longer, no rot, no lighting damage, and are user friendly.
Can anyone answer this question for me? Why don't the USA use concrete ploes like the Brazilians instead of cutting down thousands of trees?
they use concrete poles in places like Guam and Japan which have typhoons. Might be a little more expensive but they last forever
I don't know why they use wood poles however, even if they were steel or concrete, the trees rip down the wires anyway. It's the wires that need the most protection.
If power poles and phone poles can last for a very long time buried in wet ground and exposed to the weather, wouldn't it make sense for FEMA or for a consortium of utility companies to maintain a very large and thoughtfully located inventory of utility poles so that waiting for new utility poles to be produced isn't the factor that delays the restoration of power and phone services to disaster-stricken households. Given the costs of running utility pole manufacturing 24/7 until the demand goes away, and the prices paid by utility companies during periods of an emergency need for a scarce product, getting a long-term contract to build up a very large inventory of utility poles seems useful. It would also be a good way to keep forest product workers employed during a housing construction slowdown.
I'm at a loss to understand why they can't reuse most of the poles. I understand some would have been broken from trees falling across lines, but the majority (usually I'm not there) are just pulled or pushed out of the ground. The norm is to replace but this is not the norm.
The pangs of distress.