The lessons of Florence

During hurricane Florence, Bermuda suffered downed power lines, damage to the Causeway, and looting. So it's perhaps not surprising that some people are calling for power lines to be put underground, a more durable connection to the East End, and a curfew. But do any of these ideas make sense?

The Causeway has been battered by numerous hurricanes since it was built in 1864. It's been rebuilt several times. Do we really need to construct a brand new crossing now? The estimated cost to replace the Causeway is $60 million. On politics.bm yesterday, a reader volunteered a back-of-a-fag-packet calculation that suggested this might be about six times more expensive than simply rebuilding the Causeway on those rare occasions that a hurricane significantly damages it. Could he be right?

Putting all of Bermuda's power lines underground is a popular idea that crops up every time a storm causes widespread outages. However, BELCO has said that it would cost $300 million and take 10 years to do this. Since power outages are generally infrequent, and usually fixed quickly, it's not clear whether the benefits would outweigh the costs. I'm not sure I'd want my electricity bill jacked up any higher than it already is to pay for such a project. Undergrounding the lines would also make them harder to get at to do maintenance work.

The suggestion that a curfew should be imposed during a hurricane to prevent looting is just silly. It's disproportionate to suggest that 65,000 people should have their movement restricted on the chance that a handful of idiots might take the opportunity to steal some shoes. Moreover, who would enforce such a curfew? It would be folly to risk the lives of police officers by having them patrol the streets during a hurricane. I'm surprised that the police said (albeit unofficially) that they back the idea.

It's fine to discuss proposals like this in the immediate aftermath of a hurricane. But let's leave any decisions for a time when we can be more objective.

Comments

[The Right Reverend Uncle Elvis on 13.09.06 at 22:41]

I gotta say, you got some good points there, my man.
I can't disagree.

[Full Fullish on 13.09.06 at 22:58]

Curfew?!? It's our god given write to go out and be pokey during or after a hurricane! ;)

[noVote on 13.09.06 at 23:43]

It would cost approximately $100m (20,000 homes x $5k per generator) to purchase a generator for every home on the Island.

If one assumes that a generator has a life of only 3 years (which is pretty aggressive depreciation if you ask me), then over a nine year period it would cost Bermuda $300m to keep every household in power generators.

Since this sum is similar to the overall estimated construction cost of putting every power line under ground - and assuming that the on-going annual amaintenance cost (excluding the economic cost of inconveniencing road users - because this is likely where the power trenches woudl reside) is at least 10% of the overall construction cost - then it would seem to me that we might as well go the road of power generator in every house: it would be cheaper.

Given that this option is open individually to every household on the Island right now and in fact only a tiny fraction of the population bother, it would seem to me obvious that there is no economic justification for undertaking Bermuda's big dig. People would otherwise adopted the readily available alternative universally.

Let's look at it another way: if on average Bermudian households are without power due to hurricanes 10 days out of every year (which is a massive over estimate), then each day of power from a generator or a 'big dig' would cost approximately $150. In practice I suspect that the per day cost of generator power is nearer $500 to $1000 given the frequency of hurricane induced power outage. Are Bermudians willing to pay that?

Or look at it another way: Is every household on the Island willing to see its electricity bill increase by an average of about $200 per month in perpetuity just to avoid the inconvenience of the occasional power outage?

[Jamaican Q on 14.09.06 at 00:26]

Full Fullish you are too funny! I just want to say this about the underground power lines....FORGET IT! It is an expensive venture and anyone who would embark on it in Bermuda is crazy! Maybe Bermuda could volunteer to be the guinea pig for alternative sources of energy by erecting windmills?

[ben on 14.09.06 at 01:06]

I'm objective!!....not underground foolish!!

The cost of oil is going nowhere but up and the cost of solar is coming down. The hell with trenching. I'm going solar!! All you out of shape overweights will have to keep paying belco for that heavy aircon juice.
I'll just finish my south beach diet, sheda few pounds and get by.

Perhaps belco could move to grid tied home systems. i'd love to sell my excess to belco.

Here's a new word for y'all..."carbon footprint"...

[The Right Reverend Uncle Elvis on 14.09.06 at 01:29]

"Overweights"?

Dude, I'm 6'2", 145 and I can't live without airconditioning. It has nothing to do with being fat, it has to do with living on a tropical island.

Hey, if Belco ever got off their ass and actually DID have a grid you could send power back to, then you'd see people embracing solar (except for that little planning thing), wind (which would be INSANELY cheap to set up), wave and other alternative sources of power.

Until then, these are still WAY too cost prohibitive for the average guy to think about.

[hotspur on 14.09.06 at 09:57]

Re Belco: I was able to post fairly boring updates throughout the storm and was quite astonished that the electricity never went out. I was told last night that the power lines around Market Place Collectors Hill had been put underground earlier this year. So, as a tester of this cutting edge technology I can confirm it works and is highly recommended - 4/4 stars.

Re looting: I did have a larf on Monday. Listening to Mix 106 in the early afternoon and there was Dr. Brown pontificating about how “it’s at times like these we Bermudians really show our true character”. He didn’t actually give any examples or explain why this was and he must have been in a hurry because he didn’t make any reference of the many non-Bermudians that would have been working thru the storm (in my experience it was always the single expats that were left on site to look after the business because Bermudians had family & property to take care of – which is fair enough). Literally the next news story was of the looting in Hamilton and St Georges. I did put my irony hat on.

[Tiger Bay on 14.09.06 at 10:35]

My ironic streak leads me to believe that replacing the Causeway has more to do with the ability to name the new crossing after a PLP stalwart than with need.

[Slowhand on 14.09.06 at 16:35]

Where I am we have had underground cables since Emily I believe, and as we never lost it during Fabian, let alone Florence, I'm all for it.

Unc, thanks for that info.... sheesh.... I have 100LBS on you man!!! Now I do feel like a heavyweight!