Pacing for a marathon

[drcpunk]

We still have at least a month of summer weather left.

After that, it's not as if we will suddenly stop using power or that the problems with various cables and whatnot will spontaneously resolve themselves. It's not like this will not be able to happen again.

That's why I was annoyed to read that NYC Mayor Bloomberg said, assuming he was quoted accurately, that we're almost at the end of the race, where "race" is, I guess, a metaphor for the current heat wave.

Heat wave aside, one of my parents has Alzheimers. The other has various physical issues. The advice I have been given, over and over, for coping with this and with other areas of stress, has been this:

Don't think of this as a sprint. Pace yourself for a marathon.

It's good advice. It is bot, however, comfortable advice.

What it means is that there is no obvious length of time the situation will last. It will be an ongoing factor in my life for years to come.

It is necessary to rearrange the mental landscape to take this into account. Things that one can do in the short term and things that one can do day after day for the forseeable future are different. Do not confuse one with the other.

So, the heat wave that culminated in a temporary loss of most of our power was not, in itself, for mnemex and I, that bad, however much I whined. Our fridge worked. We had a few working outlets. It was cool enough and pleasant enough to sleep with windows open. ebartley let us crash with her over the weekend, and her mother let us take a shower in a feline-free place.

This worked fine for the short term. I doubt hiding out at ebartley's place would have worked as a long term solution. And, if power problems continue, how long would her neighborhood be immune to power outages?

This week, again, for us, not as bad as it might have been. The heat was brutal. Even with air conditioning, I don't think the apartment got below 85 degrees Farenheit. But, we've been surviving. We spent Tuesday evening at a friend's house, watching the dvd of the musical version of The Producers. Good short term answer. Not viable as a long term thing.

Today, I'm hanging out at crash_mccormick's, with lots of people. Lovely short term answer to the heat -- lots of folks in one air conditioned place.

However, the air conditioning is very low, as are the lights. This is still acceptable, but it is not as comfy as it would be with more air conditioning or less heat. Long term problems are affecting everyone.

What I can deal with in the short term is not necessarily what I can maintain in the long term.

And, my mind is still devoting neurons to the post-heat wave situation. Will we keep power? Will our home air conditioner be effective? Will my friends be able to use their air conditioners and other Devices? Will Con Ed continue to say, "Don't set your thermostat lower than 78" while people giving tips on dealing with the heat and avoiding hyperthermia say, "Set your thermostat to 72"?

Even best case scenario, this race will not end when the current heat wave does.

Comments

[avram]

It’s not just a matter of the heat. Jersey City has the same weather that NYC does, and our power’s been fine. (We lost power at some point, briefly, a couple of weeks ago, but it wasn’t on an especially hot day. It might have been the power company working on the lines or something. I only know about it because I came home and the clocks were flashing.)

It may just be that NYC’s power grid isn’t up to the task of supplying NYC’s peak demand.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Which is not an inherent problem with the size of New York, I don't think -- DC has fewer people but almost as many buildings that get air conditioned, and has had no problems with power, nor even any warnings about needing to ration it. Because this area has a longer history of major heat waves from time to time, our power grid was built to be able to cope; New York's has seldom had to before the last few years. It will keep having to, however, so it had better be brought up to speed.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Short term, long term.

Short term, folks who got power back thanks to Con Ed bringing a generator around are delighted. They'll happily deal with the noise and the smell.

Long term, they start getting sick from the fumes. They're not so happy.

Short term, if my neighborhood's power is flakey, I can crash with a friend. I can see a movie.

Long term, not so viable.

Long term -- movie theaters cut or lower air conditioning. Residential areas where my friends with more aggressive air conditioning live get affected. crash_mccormick kept lights and air conditioning very low last night. This was okay short term. Long term, not so much.

One of his guests, Rich, described a series of letters and knocks on the door received over the day, I think from Con Ed, of increasingly strongly worded requests / requirements to lower power consumption. First two letters were to reduce it. First knock on all the apartments in his building, on the Lower East Side, was accompanied by, "Turn off your airconditioner. Now."

Next up was something about the possibility of power going off altogether, so he filled things with water and shut down computers.

I gather Con Ed or parts of Con Ed deny that any instructions came from Con Ed requiring anyone in Manhattan to turn off power.

Now, this heat wave is probably over.

This does not end the issue of power consumption and the state of the power grid. It is not a short term problem. It is a terrible strategy to act as if it is.

Or, to quote a woman who used to work with my father, "It's not the heat. It's the stupidity."

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Shifting your metaphor slightly, the end of the current heat wave constitutes a pit stop.

Once there is not so desperate a need for heavy A/C for almost everyone, there will be a time when people can probably use as much of it as they actually want to use and that won't overload the power system. If the power company uses the opportunity to reinforce its sources and delivery network to be better able to cope with the next wave, they'll be in a much better position to make the longer race easier on everyone. If they shrug and sit on their heels for the interim, the whole thing will happen again. Either way, there'll be a breather but not a permanent respite; the question is how everyone, especially Con Ed, uses their breather.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Yes. And the effects of this heat wave, even if we have no other heat wave this summer, do not end with this one. The power grid is still fragile. Full repairs will take months, I gather.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

*nod* A lot will depend on how they make use of the winter, and a lot of *that* will depend on how seriously they take the warming trend. If they follow the government's lead in writing off this kind of heat wave as a random one-time fluctuation, there will be problems with the power well beyond this year. If they take it seriously, the three remaining seasons may be enough time for them to build something that works for the reality of the summers we're going to be getting.

[jl8e]

One can take some comfort in the fact that corporations really only care about money, and grid failures cost them money. Accounting will hopefully trump any ideology.

Of course, upgrading the grid to handle increased demand is also an excuse to increase rates.