Longtime lurker, finally making an account to raise awareness of some serious issues that are about to become a real situation. All of this an a violation of my NDA, but here goes.
I’m a project manager for a subsidiary of Midamerican Energy, and things are pretty bad. The supply chain has completely broken down for most essential things we need. The things we are out of have months worth of backorders. Transmission line has a 6 month leadtime, pole mounted transformers have a 6 month leadtime, and household electric meters have a 1 year leadtime. Transmission wire and pole transformers are the two most likely things to fail during a storm. What this means for you is that we are on the brink of a complete electrical grid collapse in the Midwest.
We are one major winter strom away from a repeat of Texas, but for the Midwest. And there are no plans in place to solve it at the systemic level. I can tell you for a fact that my upper management has no answers for these problems, and they are just as concerned.
I don’t know if things are bad at other companies, since I only know what’s happening here, but I can’t imagine things are better anywhere else.
So, if you have the ability, make preparations for extended periods without power. Have plans in place for the possibility of weeks without power. Setup contacts in your community if you can.
