Power cuts and disability

[sammason]

There was a storm here in Britain recently, leaving many homes without power. I wasn't affected this time but it led me to follow up a rumour that disabled people can register for priority reconnection. It's not clear to me what this could mean in practice - if a power line's down, it's down until mended - but perhaps individual households get

Comments

[lilacsigil]

It's definitely the case here, for both power and phonelines. If you register as a customer with life-threatening health issues (e.g. you have severe asthma and might need to call an ambulance, you have a lymph pump that you need to use several hours a day, you have seizures in high temperatures etc.) You are reconnected first (which can mean your whole street or just your house, depending!), and may be eligible for free mobile phone service if your phone line is unreliable. Of course, the areas with the most unreliable phone lines (out here in the country!) tend to have the worst mobile reception too!

Mod speaks

[sammason]

In case anybody in this comm doesn't know, lilacsigil is in Australia.

[eqfe]

We have power outages regularly, and the priority is usually emergency services, and then the priority is the number of households\businesses that can be restored in light of the amount of time it will take.
I'm not sure how they would add individual situations. Normally the repair work does not relates to an individual house\families power supply, but rather to a transformer (which might not be the right word) or what ever needs repair to restore power to (in my case 27 homes) a street, neighborhood etc. We are normally low in priority because of the relatively small number of houses served by our transformer that normally blows.

Mod speaks

[sammason]

In case anybody in this comm doesn't know, eqfe is in the United States.

[howlin_wolf_66]

It would definitely be useful for me, because if the power's down here then even the door goes (unless someone has a key) so I'm not able to grant someone access to help me with my needs... My area of the country does not appear to be covered, however, but it gives me hope that they may extend the facility, in the future. Until then I'll have to rely upon the kindness of friends and neighbours, which has served me well so far, but can't always be relied upon.

Mod speaks

[sammason]

In case anybody in this comm doesn't know, howlin_wolf_66 is in the United Kingdom.

[nightshade1972]

I'm in the US. I think the "priority" aspect would have to apply to street/neighborhood, I just don't see how they could reconnect only my house as a "priority" without also fixing power/phone for everyone else on that grid.

[fallconsmate]

i know in florida we landed under priority because we had a household member who was nearly bedbound in a hospital bed. (he could get up for very brief periods of time) this helped in hurricane season!

there was also a nursing home and a fire station very near to our house, so the *neighborhood* got priority as far as electricity went.

i'm sure there may be something like here in houston (tx) but i have not needed it, so we haven't looked into it.