Milton: Worst Hurricane in 100 Years
CBS News reported that, according to President Biden, Hurricane Milton “could be one of the worst storms in 100 years to hit Florida.”[1] Fox News reported that North Carolina suffered 123 fatalities attributed to Hurricane Helene, and that number is expected to grow.[2] CBS News reported that around 1.5 million North Carolinians lost power due to Hurricane Helene.[3] Duke Energy reported that its storm-related outages from Hurricane Milton decreased from over 1 million to approximately 105,000.[4]
Every adult American citizen intuitively understands that hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, and other natural disasters will cause death, destruction, financial loss, pain, and suffering in their wake, including President Biden, who speculated that Milton is the worst hurricane in 100 years.
If there was a “worst” hurricane 100 years ago that was finally eclipsed this month by Milton, in addition to all the hurricanes in between that didn’t become the worst, why do the power companies ignore the obvious and race to restore power in a fashion that will only be an expensive bandaid until the next severe weather event?
The stock answer is that they try to relieve the misery of being without power, which results in linemen mobilizing to assist each time a natural disaster creates another power outage. The irony of this month’s foolishness was that before all of the outages from Helene could be restored, Milton placed an accent on the futility of the exercise. Moreover, our federal and state governments are hopelessly incapable of solving real problems other than selecting congressional committees, blue-ribbon panels, and experts with no actual expertise in the issues they are chosen to investigate— producing a report with no real solutions and no one reads.
Left-leaning politicians began warning us about “global warming” in 1938.[5] When random reported weather conditions contradicted the notion of the Earth getting warmer (e.g., blizzards and colossal snow storms), the mantra changed to simply “climate change” — a phrase covering both a warmer and colder climate. The purpose was to advance legislation that would justify regulations, taxes, and penalties imposed by the federal government.
Right-leaning politicians, responding to some alleged expert studies that skewed data toward climate change, were quick to point out that climate change had been going on since the Big Bang and would continue indefinitely. In doing so, the right declared the left’s climate change predictions a hoax to increase government revenues. Both of these positions are technically true.
With eight billion people, however, and countless machines spewing toxins into the atmosphere, rivers, and oceans, it is reasonable to conclude that we do have some effect on the Earth’s climate system. At this point, however, considering the nature of weather systems and nonlinear atmospheric conditions, we do not sufficiently understand the nature of climate change. Since we do not understand the nature of our effect on climate, we cannot find a solution if it is in fact, in danger. That doesn’t mean we should ignore it. It does mean that we need to put our most brilliant minds to work on getting more intelligent.
But what do we do each year when people die from severe weather, power outages continually occur, and the destruction costs our people and country trillions of dollars in devastation?
Simply put, with better engineering, we can change the things we can change. For example, most power lines in the United States are strung along a series of wooden or steel poles, typically placed adjacent to city or rural roads. It is no great surprise that even moderate thunderstorms cause power outages, and there is no reason to believe that any violent storms in the future will not cause power outages if we leave our power lines above ground.
Power utility companies have a unique benefit: their investors are given tax benefits when investing in utility companies. If they fail to be sufficiently profitable, the utilities request a rate increase from their State Public Utility Commission (PUC). Utilities must request rate changes to create a “natural monopoly.” Its purpose is to prevent utilities from changing their rates whenever they want or unreasonably increasing them (one can drive a truck through that subjective, unreasonable standard). Supposedly, when a utility requests a rate change, the request needs to meet several goals. These goals include:
· Incentive to be efficient: if this is a goal, it is entirely toothless. The ’carrot’ is not balanced by a ‘stick.’ The ‘stick’ is termination for management not improving productivity and profitability.
· Capital attraction: by guaranteeing tax benefits to utility investors, there is already an attraction for capital.
· Demand control or consumer rationing: this disincentive should be weighed against management’s policies regarding customer satisfaction.
· Income transfer: income transfer is always only in one direction ➔ the government.
· Reasonable energy pricing: does anyone remember a rate decrease in the past? [6]
Notice the use of the word ‘goal.’ It is used because there is no consequence if the goal is unmet. These goals reward poor judgment on the part of the management and a disservice to the utility customers.
What if a fixed percentage of revenues were allocated to be set aside by the utility in a fund to begin burying “downed” power lines?
Once a section of power lines is buried, linemen will not need to restore that section since the “downed” power lines no longer need to be “upped.” When streets are being repaired or upgraded, since crews are working to build the roadways, fractional savings are associated with burying the lines while the roadway is being built. Granted, there will continue to be power outages until all the power lines are buried, but eventually, the outages will be eliminated. Had we started to bury them 100 years ago, when the first, worst hurricane hit, we would already be there.
To guarantee the popularity of burying power lines, the method merely increases the tax benefits for investment in utility companies specifically allocated to them. The increase in tax benefits will make those investments all the more attractive.
[1] CBS News, Original audio, on Instagram, OCTOBER 10, 2024.
[2] Byrne, Katie, ‘Recovery efforts underway in North Carolina as Helene death toll tops 250 across 7 states,’ Fox Weather, Updated October 14, 2024.
[3] CBS/AP, ‘Volunteers bring solar power to North Carolina communities still lacking electricity after Hurricane Helene., October 13, 2024.
[4] Gibbs, Ana, ‘Duke Energy Florida restores power for several counties impacted by Hurricane Milton; outages decrease from 1 million to approximately 105,000. October 14, 2024.
[5] Using records from 147 weather stations around the world British engineer Guy Callendar showed that temperatures had risen over the previous century, with CO2 concentrations increasing over the same period.
[6] https://www.electricchoice.com/blog/utilities-requesting-rate-hikes/#:~:text=The%20good%20news %20for%20consumers
.
