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For more than a couple of months now,
I've been experiencing an annoying and potentially harmful series of
power events courtesy of the Empire Electric Company out of Joplin
Missouri. And, as it turns out I'm not alone. At least two other
dwellings on my street have experienced the same problem which is a
second or so of lost power that generally occurs in the early
mornings. This has been going on for at least a couple of months and
maybe longer. The problem had been to actually chronicle something
that has been so intermittent and widely spaced.
Enter TED, the Total
Energy Detective. A device that monitors the electricity usage in
a home 24/7. The graph above is of an actual event that lasted
perhaps a second, yet was long enough to force me to reset all my
clocks and reboot my desktop computer. An annoying task and a
potentially harmful electrical event as electronic equipment, like
computers, can be damaged by such abrupt power fluctuations. TED will
help track this problem and I intend to use Empire's outage report
form to help keep them up to date.
If anyone who reads this has
experienced a similar problem with Empire's service, please leave a
comment.
Update: Shortly after I posted this, I noticed an Empire Electric crew that were working with a transformer just down the street. Interestingly, the problems seem to have ceased since that time.
Update 2: Problem resurfaced on November 15th at 8:12 AM - and was reported to an Empire Electric representative at 800-206-2300. Here is the graph of that event. You can just make out the drop off to zero power right above the 'ea' in Real-Time.
Update 3: After numerous assurances that this matter would be looked into and 'people contacted', I experienced another outage on the morning of December 7, 2012. This outage followed the same pattern as all the others and apparently is beyond the power or maybe the expertise of Empire's people to handle. It seems sad for me to say that even as this company is looking for yet another rate increase to take effect this coming summer, their ability to maintain even basic infra-structure seems to be in question. One has to wonder just how much money it will take?
Update: Shortly after I posted this, I noticed an Empire Electric crew that were working with a transformer just down the street. Interestingly, the problems seem to have ceased since that time.
Update 2: Problem resurfaced on November 15th at 8:12 AM - and was reported to an Empire Electric representative at 800-206-2300. Here is the graph of that event. You can just make out the drop off to zero power right above the 'ea' in Real-Time.
Update 3: After numerous assurances that this matter would be looked into and 'people contacted', I experienced another outage on the morning of December 7, 2012. This outage followed the same pattern as all the others and apparently is beyond the power or maybe the expertise of Empire's people to handle. It seems sad for me to say that even as this company is looking for yet another rate increase to take effect this coming summer, their ability to maintain even basic infra-structure seems to be in question. One has to wonder just how much money it will take?
