US Eastern Power Outages Top One Million, Flight Disruptions Persist

US Eastern Power Outages Top One Million, Flight Disruptions Persist

Power Grid Declares Emergency

 

The powerful winter storm that battered a large swath of the eastern half of the US has left behind an Arctic chill Saturday morning. A regional power grid with 65 million customers in 13 states and the District of Columbia has declared a rare emergency, over a million people have no power, air travel remains disrupted, and reports of highway accidents are some of the most trending topics this morning.

Let’s begin with PJM Interconnection, a regional power grid that stretches from Illinois to New Jersey, which declared a Stage 2 emergency late Friday and asked customers to conserve electricity due to the rising risk of grid instability. 

“PJM is asking consumers to reduce their use of electricity, if health permits, between the hours of 4 a.m. on December 24, 2022, and 10 a.m. on December 25, 2022,” PJM wrote in a press release.

PJM asks consumers to conserve electricity in the face of continuing frigid temperatures. https://t.co/ks01AvBr9g

— PJM Interconnection (@pjminterconnect) December 24, 2022

PJM’s request for customers to reduce power comes as the grid manager is trying to prevent a Stage 3 emergency, which would result in rolling blackouts across the 13 states and the District of Columbia.

“Demand soared more than 9 gigawatts above forecasts Friday evening — much faster and higher than anticipated. That’s the equivalent of about 9 million homes just popping up on the grid on a typical day,” Bloomberg said.

PJM spokeswoman Susan Buehler told Bloomberg that Stage 2 emergency would “certainly be enough” to avert blackouts across the regional grid because the Arctic blast is only temporary.

In the Carolinas, Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress, like several other utilities, have asked customers to conserve power due to energy shortfalls.

Duke wrote in a statement Saturday morning it has “implemented load shedding steps that include interruptions in service.” This means power is being curtailed for some customers to protect the grid from collapse.

With power grids in an emergency across the eastern half of the US, there are also a million customers without power — most outages are in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Maine.

Bloomberg said 200 million Americans — around 60% of the country — are under winter weather alerts this morning.

The Ambient Weather network of weather stations across the US shows much of the country is below freezing this morning.

And for the third day, travel remains disrupted. FlightAware showed over 1,600 flights within, into, or out of the US were canceled. Another 1,700 were delayed. Most of the disruptions were at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, O’Hare International Airport, and John F. Kennedy International Airport.

And it wasn’t just air travel that experienced troubles. As millions of Americans hit the highways to see loved ones, there were numerous reports of massive pileup crashes. One of the most spoken about this morning is the 46-car pileup on the Ohio Turnpike

🚨#BREAKING: Mass Casualty Incident’ declared following pileup on Interstate 75 in Ohio

📌#Kirkwood l #OH

Multiple emergency crews are responding too a very serious accident is occurring on I-75N. With Mass Casualty Incident declared reports of over 100+ vehicles are piled up pic.twitter.com/TgfCm852Si

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) December 23, 2022

The good news is the unbearable cold blast will begin to dissipate next week. Average temperatures across the Lower 48 will jump from 24 degrees Fahrenheit to over 50 degrees by January 1.

Hoping for a White Christmas? 

There’s not one peep from climate alarmists about the cold blast after they spewed nonsense this past summer about the world imminently burning. ‘Trust the science,’ they say… 

Plenty of record lows on this Christmas Eve pic.twitter.com/xaa4LJxDnu

— Mike Zaccardi, CFA, CMT (@MikeZaccardi) December 24, 2022

••••

The Liberty Beacon Project is now expanding at a near exponential rate, and for this we are grateful and excited! But we must also be practical. For 7 years we have not asked for any donations, and have built this project with our own funds as we grew. We are now experiencing ever increasing growing pains due to the large number of websites and projects we represent. So we have just installed donation buttons on our websites and ask that you consider this when you visit them. Nothing is too small. We thank you for all your support and your considerations … (TLB)

••••

Comment Policy: As a privately owned web site, we reserve the right to remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, or personal/abusive attacks on other users. This also applies to trolling, the use of more than one alias, or just intentional mischief. Enforcement of this policy is at the discretion of this websites administrators. Repeat offenders may be blocked or permanently banned without prior warning.

••••

Disclaimer: TLB websites contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, health, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.

••••

Disclaimer: The information and opinions shared are for informational purposes only including, but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material are not intended as medical advice or instruction. Nothing mentioned is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.