- Thread starter DonDR
- Start date
What happened to electricity on NC?
I had heard at least one transformer blew up, might have been rumor. But seeing as electricity isn't on 24/7 in perfect conditions, are you surprised its out when its crap?
I think that the real issue is not the weather (although they will have us think that). *It's much easier to blame the weather rather than be accountable for lack of forward thinking, preventative maintenance, and doing botched temporary repairs rather than permanent repairs. *Some have said that it was a transformer that blew up. *A transformer doesn't just blow up because it's windy. *The usual cause of them exploding is overheating. *These transformers are oil cooled, but if you don't regularly check oil levels and top them up, they eventually corrode and more oil leaks out and they eventually overheat and blow up!
Maintenance - Mantenimiento = A word not associated in the Dominican psyche. *Means to care for something to prevent it from breaking.
Repair - Arreglar = Dominicans are very good at repairing. *For two reasons. *Their repairs are only temporary, so the repair will soon fail and they will have to repair it again. *And secondly, lack of maintenance.
This can be applied to all industries in the DR. *Electricity, roads, communications, water supply........etc
This is a banana republic. *But now they're even blaming the weather for lack of bananas!!!!!!!!
*Remember last year, when three guys were severely electrocuted when they whizzed on a transformer. It's stupid but should not have happened if the transformer was properly maintained.*
The fact that they would even do that in the first place speaks volumes as to "rational thinking"
We lived in Playa Chiquita for a while on Calle Boliva, power went out a lot. The transformer was on a pole at the end of the driveway. One night (11pm ish) we were just shutting off the TV and could see a glow of blue then red coming from the transformer...Our neighbor came out to see also....He called Ednorte and about Midnight they came out! Well just prior to them arriving it exploded, now dark in the area as no one had generator and empty field across the street. They arrived 5 of them in one truck with a cherry picker basket. They discussed a few things .....with the truck pointing in the direction away from the pole with its lights on and then they put an extension METAL ladder up against the pole while two men were on the ground and one was climbing, other two guys were on phone at the truck. One was holding the ladder and the other was holding a flashlight like you see in CSI (the little mini ones) The guy climbing the ladder must have lost the bet or been the new guy!...He went up half way and signaled he couldn't see...NO MIRRA....now back on the ground the 5 put their heads together (brain trust) and called someone. Now it is 12:30 and the gentleman next door (Italian) and my husband had decided to open a bottle of president and watch. Same scenario up the metal ladder he went, this time one followed him half way up with the stupid little flashlight and no one holding the ladder! That was all my husband could take....speaking no Spanish or Italian and having been in the country only 4 weeks it was difficult but he finally got the guys to turn the truck around. move back down the street so the lights shined on the pole...dah...what was worse is they had a cherry picker basket but no one to operate it! My husband knew how but they would not let him. The guy finally reached the top, we prayed, he removed the transformer and before replacing it did the let's take these several wires and touch them together...got a little jolt as he screamed but stayed on the ladder...installed the transformer and climbed down for a round of applause by his coworkers. The electric wire was also broken and lying in the driveway....again with Dominican ingenuity they stood there holding the two ends together, giving it a twist and some black tape and used the metal ladder to hoist it back up......I am not sure how they all stayed alive...it was 1"15 is before they were ready to leave and ask for their complimentary presidentes's...which we did give them since we were in shock that they were alive The cherry picker sat empty and useless the whole time....must be why it looked brand new!
Myself and neighbors also experienced this last event with several other smaller ones. Beeza makes a very true point.
Some of use that have been here for awhile understood that we can have long power interruptions and some of use prepared. The last 10 years we found that we had elec. most of the time but we had our inverters/batteries that kept us going for a few hours. We have also noted that we are getting more black outs and even worse, brownouts in the last couple of years so back to beeza for the real reason.
I woke up on the morning in question at 4:30AM and noted that my street was dark beyond myself. I had not realized that I was on battery for over 12 hours I learned later. I'm solar but with the bad weather I have not had a lot of sun so was very surprised until I went to take a shower and found that my batteries had shut down and for some reason my gen. did not start. Sun not going to help for a few more hours. DARN! Started gen. and all was good.
As dv8 has labeled; ladronorte came on after over 14 hours. Several other minor outs but I really don't notice unless I access my system computer.
Point? Lot's of way to live comfortably when the juice stops flowing. Just a little planning and doing. Lot's of info here that can be found.
Darn.... I had to go do something so was a whole 5 minutes without elec.
Some of use that have been here for awhile understood that we can have long power interruptions and some of use prepared. The last 10 years we found that we had elec. most of the time but we had our inverters/batteries that kept us going for a few hours. We have also noted that we are getting more black outs and even worse, brownouts in the last couple of years so back to beeza for the real reason.
I woke up on the morning in question at 4:30AM and noted that my street was dark beyond myself. I had not realized that I was on battery for over 12 hours I learned later. I'm solar but with the bad weather I have not had a lot of sun so was very surprised until I went to take a shower and found that my batteries had shut down and for some reason my gen. did not start. Sun not going to help for a few more hours. DARN! Started gen. and all was good.
As dv8 has labeled; ladronorte came on after over 14 hours. Several other minor outs but I really don't notice unless I access my system computer.
Point? Lot's of way to live comfortably when the juice stops flowing. Just a little planning and doing. Lot's of info here that can be found.
Darn.... I had to go do something so was a whole 5 minutes without elec.
I rest my case and your story just reinforces beeza's and others that have back-up and talked about different system's and cost effective management. Why don't you and your neighbor (s) have a back up system. (Ok. I know that that could be more problems with joint ownership so think a little 5K gen. for yourself.) I would not think that the owner of an empty lot will do anything. lol.
Electrical tape "band aid" approach does not last very long.
How did they get a several hundred lb transformer off the pole and replace it without using the equipment?
Enjoying the work and then sharing a beer is good.
ladronorte folks have some sort of workers comp program, as far as i know, which covers incidents and accidents. of which they have a lot, as i have been told by guys working a while ago on our 42/7 power (by name only, of course). all things considered not that many of them die on the job but they do suffer electrical burns and other issues. there are far more deaths among regular folks touching exposed cables or plugging household appliances.
So true DV8 - you see all the crappy connection to meters some with out even tape, some performed by Eden Norte, or meters pulled and no cap put on leaving an exposed socket, rusted out live ground transformers, jury-rigged inverters, live cable which is buried very shallow, people power climbing poles with no safety equipment or insulated tools and doing make shift splices (theft). I could go on but the sad part many children can and do reach these dangerous elements. But of course the cheap Chinese appliances with fake UL tags may be the most common danger most children face.
There are dozens of videos on You Tube of Dominicans being electrocuted - like young Yesenia Rodriguez being electrocuted in 2014 in Santo Domingo by a live ground cable and some idiot filming her for 3 minutes before any of the neighborhood morons tried to help her. (Which seems to be the first thing people do here around accidents, reach for their cell phones).
The single biggest problem with the electricity in the DR is that the distributor of the power in most locations is a government agency. One of the EDE's. Edenorte is the government distributor in our area. Edenorte does not stop people from stealing electricity by using the power of the laws. Therefor, without full payment for services rendered, the money does not exist to successfully maintain and upgrade the power grid as necessary. It is an example of what happens when you run out of other peoples money and the free cheese is gone. The government agencies that the EDE's are do not have the balls to enforce the laws against theft. That is large part of the reason for a lack of proper maintenance and is certainly the main cause for those areas that have frequent blackouts as "punishment" for stealing power.
I read the theft is from 35% to 50%. Is that possible it's that high ? I think in La Union I see about half the places connected illegally but don't think it is near that high in Sosua or P.P. So they soak the rest of us who pay for the freeloaders luz - Approaching Venezuela Norte ?
Yes, theft is indeed that high. So many are allowed to steal power. That is one reason why it is hard to stop.
