The Green Island power outage

It’s 4:00 a.m., and I’m writing this blog post from a Red Roof in Colonie. Yesterday morning, I planned on taking care of some chores prior to an upcoming surgery scheduled for Thursday.

By the afternoon, I was scrambling for a motel room on the basis of an ongoing and protracted blackout in the Town and Village of Green Island.

And there’s plenty of blame to spread around like dry butter on burnt toast.

At about 10:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, I was in front of my computer, as I sometimes do on a Saturday morning. Then, all of a sudden, power went out. I heard a large boom in the distance. That can’t be good.

With no power to my computer, my lifeline to any news would have to come from the Facebook app on my cell phone. If my information was correct … a power surge at one of National Grid’s lines caused a transformer in nearby Maplewood to break, which knocked out power to Cohoes, to Waterford and to Green Island. 

Now you’re saying to me, “Chuck, wasn’t it you who told me that Green Island generates its own hydroelectric power independent of National Grid?”

Yes, yes it does. But it also sells the excess electricity to National Grid, so there’s a conduit between the two companies. But whatever happened with National Grid … the power surge clobbered the connection between those two entities and the Town and Village was plunged into darkness.

That’s not good.

Okay. It’s just a blackout, it’ll be fixed in a couple of hours. I’ll go get some breakfast at Starbuck Island – there’s this nice little breakfast bistro called Bud’s on the Hudson, and they have a car charging port for my Chevrolet (powered by Livingston Energy, 25c/kH). One bacon and eggs breakfast later, I treated myself to a haircut and beard trim at one of Starbuck Island’s newly-formed establishments, One Oak Atelier (which apparently is a beauty parlor that has its own dedicated barber who is quite talented).

Okay. I’m fed. I’m coiffed. Let’s see what happens next.

I check my phone. Apparently the damage to the power lines was very extensive. A transformer may need replacement. Power may not return until 4:00 p.m.

I can sort of live with that, but the food in my fridge is probably suffering. 

I went out, took care of some errands prior to my Thursday surgery.

Came back. Checked my phone again.

News now says that a contractor has to come in and assess the damage before repair work can commence. And the contractors for National Grid are all in WESTERN New York right now, ahead of that monster storm that’s affecting Buffalo and the surrounding environs. 

I stuck it out for another two hours … then gave up and called Red Roof for a single bed.

Now I’ve been alerted – again, through the dying battery of my cell phone – that power has been restored to the Town and Village as of 3:30 a.m. Sunday morning. I’ll most likely have to toss out any perishables, check to make sure my medicines stayed somewhat cold, and figure out my next moves.

But we have a big problem here. This should not have happened.

I get it. Accidents occur. Blackouts occur. We once had a blackout in the Town and Village because a Mylar balloon floated away from a children’s party and got tangled in the power lines. You can’t predict those things.

And for the longest time, the Village’s Facebook page had plenty of people looking to place blame on this entity or that one. It’s the Green Island Power Authority’s fault, they said – GIPA should update its infrastructure. It’s National Grid’s fault, they said – they broke the transformer and took considerably longer to effectuate service to the area than to the other neighborhoods. It’s the town administration fault, they said – we should have been updated every step of the way and not have to rely on this neighbor telling that neighbor and whatnot.

All I know right now is when I check out of this hotel room in the morning and return home, my understanding is that I will have power again. And on January 16th, there is supposed to be a town board meeting with GIPA at 6:00 p.m. 

I’m clearing my calendar for this one. 

Because someone is going to owe me $100 in replaced food and $70 for a hotel room. 

And I don’t care which power company’s name is on that reimbursement check.