{"id":16512,"date":"2018-01-04T08:18:40","date_gmt":"2018-01-04T13:18:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dougbittinger.com\/thoughts\/?p=16512"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:37","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:37","slug":"the-rolling-browns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/the-rolling-browns\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rolling Browns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/PineyMountainFoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-content\/uploads\/power_outage_granbypdblog_org.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-10768\" src=\"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/the-rolling-browns\/\" alt=\"Power outage\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a>Despite being right next to TVA,\u00a0the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tva.com\/About-TVA\/TVA-at-a-Glance\">nation\u2019s largest government owned supplier of electricity<\/a>, our region has been experiencing rolling brown-outs and even power losses because of the cold in areas where too many people are using too much power all at once.\u00a0 Primarily this effects that &#8220;everyone is getting ready for work&#8221; time slot.\u00a0 The power utilities have asked us (us as in everyone, not just Marie and I) to be mindful of our power consumption between 6:00 am and 9:00 am until we get through this extra-cold spell.<\/p>\n<p>We (Marie and I, this time) are doing our part: <!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Computer running on battery<\/li>\n<li>Lights out except where critical<\/li>\n<li>Heat turned down and wear a sweatshirt<\/li>\n<li>Unnecessary \u201cappliances\u201d unplugged.\u00a0 Many modern electronic items: TV, cable box, DVD player, radio, coffeemaker, microwave, continue to use electricity even when switched off<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The coffeemaker, however, IS a priority and is in use until I finish this carafe.<\/p>\n<h2>Rural Living: Blessing or Bane?<\/h2>\n<p>I live on a mountainside in a rural area.\u00a0 The largest nearby town is Newport, with a population of around 7,000.\u00a0 Small town.\u00a0 So our area is not being effected as harshly as places like Knoxville with its 190,000 people concentrated into a city.\u00a0 Less demand, fewer outages or brown-outs &#8212; as long as were considerate and conserve when when we&#8217;re asked to conserve.<\/p>\n<p>The radio news this morning reported that Newport Utilities announced a 14% reduction in power usage because locals cooperated and conserved.\u00a0 That reduction insured that *we* did not experience power interruptions from high demand like Knoxville has.<\/p>\n<p><em>I recon dem city folks jes ain&#8217;t as cooperative as us rural folk.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When our power does go out, repair times vary depending on how remote our location.\u00a0 Where I live isn&#8217;t too bad.\u00a0 Power is normally restored in around 30 minutes &#8212; unless a pole came down and has to be replaced, that can take a couple of hours.\u00a0 Those folks who live way up in the hills &amp; hollers where miles of wire are strung to service just a handful of homes (or just one) tend to be low on the priority list when repairing storm damaged lines.\u00a0 Power outages due to overuse are often handled remotely, or at worst need a breaker reset.<\/p>\n<p>I have seen some posts on social media from county residents in the more remote areas who lost power, their narrow, winding, mountain roads are iced up so they can&#8217;t go far, but can&#8217;t stay where they are.\u00a0 In each case, I&#8217;ve seen others in the area who still have power saying, &#8220;come on over&#8221;.\u00a0\u00a0 Good folks helping one another.\u00a0 Next to a good generator, a good neighbor is the best thing to have in a power outage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite being right next to TVA,&nbsp;the nation&rsquo;s largest government owned supplier of electricity, our region has been experiencing rolling brown-outs and even power losses because of the cold in areas where too many people are using too much power all at once.&nbsp; Primarily this effects that &ldquo;everyone is getting ready for work&rdquo; time slot.&nbsp; The &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/the-rolling-browns\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Rolling Browns&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-16512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-mountain-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16512"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20976,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16512\/revisions\/20976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}