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Power outages from severe weather have doubled over the past two decades across the U.S., as a warming climate stirs more destructive storms that cripple broad segments of the nation’s aging electrical grid, according to an Associated Press analysis of government data.
Forty states are experiencing longer outages – and the problem is most acute in regions seeing more extreme weather, U.S. Department of Energy data shows. Blackouts can be dangerous and even fatal for the elderly, disabled, and other vulnerable groups.
As utilities upgrade decades old transmission lines and equipment, power grid maintenance costs are rising. Customers who are subject to more frequent and prolonged weather outages pay more for electricity.
“The electric grid is our early warning,” said University of California, Berkeley grid expert Alexandra von Meier. “Climate change is here and we’re feeling real effects.”
The AP analysis revealed:
• The number of outages tied to severe weather rose from about 50 annually nationwide in the early 2000s to more than 100 annually on average over the past five years.
• The frequency and length of power failures are at their highest levels since reliability tracking began in 2013 – with U.S. customers on average experiencing more than eight hours of outages in 2020.
• Maine, Louisiana and California each experienced at least a 50% increase in outage duration even as residents endured mounting interruption costs over the past several years.
• In California alone, power losses have affected tens of thousands of people who rely on electricity for medical needs.
The AP analyzed the electricity disturbance data submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy by utilities to identify weather-related problems. The analysis also looked at utility-level data, which included outages lasting longer than five minutes and how frequently they occurred. Officials from the department declined to comment.
Weather disasters, which are now more common than ever, are rolling across the country with seasonal consistency.
Winter storms called nor’easters barrel into New England and shred decrepit electrical networks. Hot summers can bring about hurricanes that batter the Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard, causing communities to be left in darkness for many months. In fall, West Coast windstorms can cause power outages across large areas in order to protect against wildfires caused by downed equipment.
Maine
The power grid’s fragility hit home for Lynn Mason Courtney, 78, a blind cancer survivor living in a retirement community in Bethel, Maine, a rural town of 2,500 along the Androscoggin River.
When Courtney’s building lost power and heat for three days following a 2020 winter storm, the temperature inside fell to 42 degrees. Extended loss of heat isn’t something most people are prepared for in a cold state such as Maine, she said, and one resident relied on old camping gear to try to keep warm.
“I developed hypothermia. I was dehydrated,” Courtney said. “Two people on oxygen had nowhere to go. They just stayed in the apartment and hoped like hell that the power would come back on.”
Winter storms left more than 500,000 people without power in Maine in 2017 – more than a third of the state’s population. And in recent years, the state has seen record numbers of weather-related interruptions; the state never recorded more than five per year until 2018, but in 2020 it had 12, AP’s analysis found.
As with much of the nation, Maine’s electrical infrastructure was built decades ago and parts are more than 50 years old, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The brittle condition of the state’s power grid and repeated disruptions worsened by climate change worry Courtney.
“When the power goes out, it’s extraordinarily difficult and dangerous,” she said. “If you’re disabled, it’s scary. You’re not safe.”
According to Colin Zarzycki, Penn State University meteorology professor, storms that threaten power reliability will be more common as the planet warms.
Warmer temperatures hold more moisture which in turn increases the energy of storms, regardless of season. This phenomenon can lead to more destructive tropical hurricanes in the Southeast and Pacific, which cause flooding along the West Coast.
On the East Coast, some nor’easters will convert to rainstorms as freezing weather shifts north. Zarzycki said that the snowfalls could be even more severe than ever.
Some areas will see less snow, but more sleet or freezing rain. This can cause greater damage to electrical systems. Because ice-laden equipment is easier to blow over, winds can also cause it to fall.
“Those really high-end nor’easters, the ones that take over CNN for days, those are going to occur with the same or increased frequency,” Zarzycki said. “Where these events occur could lead to increased vulnerability, because the infrastructure is not prepared.”
Louisiana
Combining at-risk infrastructure with climate change can be deadly. According to local coroners, heat caused or contributed death to at least 21 deaths after Hurricane Ida hit coastal Louisiana last year.
In New Orleans alone, heat caused nine deaths and contributed to 10 others, according to coroner’s office records. The majority of those who died were elderly and African-American. Jason Melancon, the spokesperson, couldn’t say which victims didn’t have power. However, 75% of the city was still without electric power at the time most died.
David Sneed, 65, died in his wheelchair on the 12th-floor of the subsidized apartment where he’d been without power for several days after the storm hit Aug. 29.
Rev. Sneed was obese with a cognitive impairment that made it hard for him to walk. So he used a wheelchair almost all the time. Ken Taylor, a professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary where Sneed was a doctoral candidate, is Sneed’s father.
Three days after the storm, Sneed called Taylor in near-panic and said he was unable to leave because the building’s elevator was not working. So the next day, Taylor went to Sneed’s apartment to bring him food and water – and it felt like 100 degrees, with no windows open.
The professor returned the next day to find the elevator working. Sneed said he’d go down to the first floor where it was cooler. But when the reverend came back to check on him again, Sneed didn’t answer.
When an apartment employee opened the door, Sneed’s body was in the bedroom, slumped in his wheelchair.
“I speculate that he had rolled into his bedroom to put on some pants to go downstairs … and the heat or his heart or a combination of the two” killed him, Taylor said. The coroner’s office said Sneed died from the heat.
The financial toll of storms is huge – Louisiana’s largest power company has said it will cost an estimated $4 billion to repair damage from the hurricanes of 2020 and 2021. Entergy Corp. estimates that the average residential bill will increase by $8 per month for 15-years if this amount is approved by state regulators.
U.C. predicts that grid problems and associated costs will grow in the coming decades. Berkeley’s von Meier.
Many of the grid’s components were constructed decades ago. Most power transmission facilities are at most 25 years old. That’s forced utilities to quadruple spending on the U.S. transmission system since 2000 to about $40 billion annually, according to Department of Energy data.
Billions more will be spent, with costs passed on to consumers, but those efforts won’t keep up with problems from climate change, von Meier said. “Rates will go up, reliability will go down,” she said.
California
California’s recent anger eruption was caused by the fact that utilities like Pacific Gas and Electric Co. had to impose power outages in order to prevent wildfires.
Over 200 California wildfires have been caused by downed power lines. This includes a record 41 blazes in 2020. Among them was a 2018 fire that ripped through the Sierra Nevada foothills town of Paradise and killed 85 people, resulting in criminal involuntary manslaughter convictions of PG&E. Another fire blamed on PG&E last year burned almost 1 million acres, 1,300 buildings and much of the Sierra Nevada town of Greenville.
To reduce fire risk, utilities shut off power to customers for hundreds of thousands when wind storms are predicted and the landscape is dry.
Outages can not only cause business closures but also lead to food spoilage in refrigerators.
An AP review of utility filings with California regulators revealed nearly 160,000 instances where power was shut off to customers with medical requirements between 2017 and 2021. PG&E was responsible for more than 80%.
“We know there has been a trade-off between safety and reliability,” said PG&E Vice President Sumeet Singh. Shutoffs were used as a last resort in order to prevent fires. He stated that shutoffs have been reduced by better forecasting hazardous weather and more localized shutoffs.
Richard Skaff is a paraplegic advocate for the disabled of Northern California. He said he’s been through two forced outages that lasted five days each over the past few decades. Although he was able to have his electric wheelchair powered and his home heated thanks to a generator, he said that many people with disabilities are living on very low incomes and struggle to make ends meet during outages.
“If we’re going to allow PG&E and others to de-energize the grid, if we accept that as a concept, you have to look at the implications of that first,” Skaff said. “You have to determine the effects on the most vulnerable people.”
PG&E and other utilities have sought to lessen the impacts by notifying people with needs in advance of shutoffs and setting up response centers where they can charge their phones or other essential devices.
Utilities also have started creating “microgrids” – local electrical networks that can disconnect from the main grid and operate independently to reduce the scope of shutoffs.
“We’re very sensitive to the needs of our customers,” said Southern California Edison Vice President Erik Takayesu. “We run risk calculations to ensure we’re making the right decisions. But it’s really hard … Each individual customer will have their own individual experience. The best we can do is help the customer prepare.”
The state utilities commission and some local officials have said the industry’s efforts are insufficient for outages that can cover large portions of the state and affect numerous towns and cities.
By the end of this year, PG&E and Southern California Edison expect to have spent almost $20 billion since 2020 on wildfire prevention. The companies are reducing vegetation around their equipment and installing stronger power lines. PG&E plans to bury 10,000 miles of lines over 10 years so they won’t be exposed to falling trees.
PG&E’s customers paid on average almost $140 more last year versus the previous year to avert wildfires from their operations.
John Howat, a Senior Energy Analyst at National Consumer Law Center, stated that rising electric bills due to extreme weather have had a significant impact on low-income households and communities of colour. These communities are more likely to spend a higher percentage of their income on energy bills at home, which makes them harder hit than households with higher incomes.
Because it will take utilities many more years to prevent wildfires, companies will continue using forced shutoffs to protect themselves against them.
Intentional outages are used to protect utilities from liability for wildfires that can kill, but they also create recurring crises for customers with special needs, such as those who are elderly, disabled or have special needs, according to Aaron Carruthers (executive director of the California State Council on Developmental Disabilities).
Unless more is done to prepare needy communities, shutoffs will continue to put lives at risk, threaten people’s health and leave vulnerable people scared, Carruthers said.
Gabriela Madrigal, a 34-year-old Santa Barbara resident who needs a powered wheelchair to get around, said she’s endured perhaps a dozen preventive shutoffs by Southern California Edison over the past several years.
Madrigal – who has a debilitating, neurological condition called spina bifida – lives in low-income city housing with her mother, who is her primary caregiver.
Madrigal stated that every time the power goes out, it catches them off-guard. Her wheelchair will stop working if the outages last for hours or days. Madrigal sits in the chair and it weighs several hundred lbs. Her mother has difficulty moving it.
So when the power goes off and no one else is around to help, “we’re pretty much stuck,” Madrigal said. “It takes a toll on someone.”
Caroline Ghisolfi contributed to the article.
