Power Outage - Russia

[donsu]

http://webmail.bellsouth.net/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+mobmain?

All lights went out on Tuesday on Russia's Black Sea coast which includes an Olympic contender, the city of Sochi, after strong winds, wet snow and ice damaged electricity lines, officials and media said. Major disruptions hit water supplies and heating as well as rail and air traffic after power was cut off from the region just before 5 p.m. (1400 GMT). Almost four hours later media continued to report massive power cuts. Television showed unlit streets flooded with slowly-moving cars and people seeking shelter from heavy rain. Sochi competes with South Korea's Pyeongchang and the Austrian city of Salzburg in the race to host the 2014 Winter Games. Last week, Sochi authorities closed ski lifts for two days because of safety concerns.
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should start on making bets on whether the 2014 Winter Games will happen

another place in the world where the water supply was cut off because of the weather.

[Divernan]

1. Europe has put most of its power lines underground over the past years.

Because it's the trees falling on power lines which are the major cause of power outages. But our profit-driven electric utility companies in the US do not even maintain their existing systems, i.e, clearing tree growth away from their high power lines, let alone investing in moving the lines underground. I know from a case I worked on that my local utility also keeps overloading the demand on its systems for new customers, rather than increasing their capacity. But, hey, as long as the stockholders keep getting their dividends, and the top management receive obscenely large salaries and bonuses, what does the state utility commission care?