Power

Blogging from the lab on a Sunday afternoon because my house has no electricity. Today's freak windstorm has knocked out power lines all over the region. One assumes this is mostly because branches came down on them. That is a bit surprising if you think about it, since we're not far out of winter just now, which means that the trees haven't grown appreciably since last fall when the city crews went around trimming things back. However, the leaves have just come in, which dramatically increases the cross section of a branch to wind and the like.

However, I'm not sure that my house is impacted by a downed line. When the power failed I distinctly heard a transformer faulting out from down the block (sharp bang, followed a few seconds later by a couple of buzzes probably from something arcing as the system tries to recover), and a quick ride through the alleyways near my house didn't reveal any fallen lines. More likely, a branch snagged a couple of lines and shorted them out.

Here's further evidence of an interesting trend. A hospital CEO is writing a blog about running a hospital. Two years ago, would the corporate lawyers have done anything but laugh in his face at the idea?