11 things to ponder about a power failure in winter

In case you haven’t heard, we had a freak snowstorm in the Northeast on Saturday. Over 1,000,000 people have no electricity. [See outage map for Connecticut.] There are some things that are obvious when the power goes out. When it’s dark, you can’t see anything in your house and the refrigerator doesn’t work. But here are some things you may not appreciate unless you are living through a major power outage in cold weather.

1. Even if you have a gas furnace, it does not work because the thermostat is electric. Unlike the power failure that followed Hurricane Irene in August, it’s very cold right now. For example, it’s 48° in my house.

2. This leads to an issue with sleeping. You can’t stay in your house. There aren’t enough blankets to make 48° comfortable. Even if you could sleep, try taking a shower in the morning.

3. Check into a hotel? Not so fast. Most have no power either. And the hotels that have it are full with people who thought of that option before you.

4. The food will stay cold in the refrigerator because the house is so cold, but you can’t cook it with a microwave or an electric stove.

5. So just go out to eat? Most of the restaurants are closed due to lack of electricity too.

6. It takes at least a day or two to stop turning on light switches.

7. There’s no Wi-Fi, no internet.

8. Most of the traffic lights in town are not working. A pleasant surprise is that drivers are being patient and courteous. The problem is that the flow of traffic is not very smooth. This results in significant delays.

9. Most of the gas stations do not have power to run the pumps. This leads to long lines at the few stations that do have working pumps. It’s reminiscent of the initial gas crises of the 1970s. The lines spill over on to the streets, causing more traffic delays.

10. Outpatient and walk-in clinics are closed because of lack of electricity.

11. Our emergency department is swamped with people who have no heat in their homes or electricity to run their home oxygen equipment. More and more people are getting sick because of the cold.

A power failure in winter is not fun.

Voodoo Weather Forecast

The folks over at Accuweather.com have outdone themselves this time. How? Well, on one page of their website, they are predicting a major storm for February 2 with the headline “Groundhog Day Storm May Affect More than 100 Million People.” As you can see from the map, heavy snow is predicted for the entire Northeast, including New York City.



Just for fun I then clicked on the Accuweather.com extended forecast for New York City and guess what? The forecast is “Mostly cloudy, snow possible.”



Now if you had plans to fly to Florida from New York on February 2 at 8:00 a.m. as I do, what would you do?

As I said in my previous blog on weathermen, I’d like to be reincarnated as one. No accountability, no penalty for errors, no one seems to care if you are right or wrong. Some science, meteorology, eh?

I Want To Be Reincarnated as a Weatherman

As I sat here yesterday morning, two inches of snow were on the ground and the snow was showing no sign of letting up. The forecast was “Snow showers with no accumulation.” Once again, the forecast was wrong.

Just how accurate are weather forecasts? A New York Times article described in detail a study that was done in Missouri. It showed that television meteorologists were remarkably bad at predicting the weather and the further out the forecast went, the worse they did.

A website called “Forecast Advisor” tracks the accuracy of forecasts for any area of the country. The first screen shot shows three different forecasts for yesterday. The first was posted yesterday and the other two are revisions. None was correct as it is snowing heavily when the site was accessed. The second screen shot lists cumulative accuracy statistics for the New York City area.

At first glance, the accuracy for last year looks pretty good. But here’s an interesting thought. According to the New York Times article if you predicted it would not rain every day, you were right 86% of the time.

The website Weather Report Card gave “D” grades to all five major weather services that it follows regarding both temperature and precipitation forecasts for Monday, January 24, 2011.

Now contrast this with my current profession, general surgery. How would you feel about me if I told you I made the correct diagnosis of appendicitis 76% of the time last month? Or say I told you that you needed hernia surgery but at surgery I only found a hernia 86% of the time? I think I would very soon be out of business.

Not so the weathermen. It seems that they are immune to criticism or accountability. In fact, the Times report stated, “When station managers were asked about this [accountability], one said, ‘There’s not an evaluation of accuracy in hiring meteorologists. Presentation takes precedence over accuracy.’”

This is why I’d like to be reincarnated as a weatherman. You can be wrong as often as you like. And if you are, no one cares. In addition, you get to engage in witty banter with the news anchors and the sports guy. My really special reincarnation wish would be to come back as the guy who stands on the beach during a hurricane and tells you it’s raining hard as his hat blows away and billboards fly past. By the way, what do those guys do when there are no hurricanes? I want that job too.