Hurricane Ike

A fallen transmission line pole. This photo tells more than just a fallen pole. The debris on the line is carried by the storm surge. This means that the tower fell before the storm surge reached the area. Thus, this line failed before Hurricane Ike made landfall and likely due to high winds. Outage records support this conclusion and place the failure time roughly one day (yes, one day) before Hurricane Ike made landfall. This was a significant failure as lack of power likely affected the evacuation of that area, specially because the road where the line is located is a hurricane evacuation road.


Two different failure modes. Left: broken pole due to high winds. Right: Fallen pole due to weakened soils.


Some more damaged transmission lines.


Another fallen pole.


Another broken pole.
 
 
A telecom service area interface and a damaged power line.


Some damage to a pole and a farm. A damaged cell site is on the background on the left.


A damaged transmission line along the coast.


A downed transmission line structure.


Some tilted lines with a damaged cell site in the background


More broken poles


A damaged power line but an undamaged cell site.


Two destroyed distribution transformers structures.


A severely damaged substation


Another severely damaged substation


An interesting thing: this is likely an emergency transformer on wheels installed after the hurricane to replace a damaged transformer.


Some utility repairs work.


A new line is being installed to replace the damaged one across the street.

Falling billboards, like falling trees, caused many outages. The difference between tress and billboards is that the last ones could all be placed in places where they do not pose a risk for outages.

© 2008 Alexis Kwasinski

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