Brownout: The Strangest Power Outage I Have Ever Dealt With + LIRR Work Convoy

PinePowerLI
PinePowerLI
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Published 2022-06-14
I was recording my video on the Democratic debate tonight, and right toward the end, the power went off & on twice, but when it came back, the voltage was low. My microphone didn't have enough power, and the UPS went on battery. The high setting on the fan was like the low setting. The lights were dimmer as well, and the a/c would not turn on. All my GFI outlets tripped as well. It took about an hour for the situation to straighten out.
PSEG-LI had an outage in Mineola involving over 700 customers. Not sure what was the cause of this outage, whether it was a dropped phase, or neutral, or maybe a transformer. But it's yet another example of how the power infrastructure in Mineola hasn't been improved. We're still over a mile away from the nearest substation and all the lines that feed Mineola are 13kv or less, clearly not enough, especially when you consider that the Village of Rockville Centre has Three 33kv overhead transmission lines PLUS a backup Generator (because their Village owns the power grid).
PSEG-LI has failed to improve the power infrastructure in this village using the same design for years, not built to handle the added demand of the new apt bldgs in addition to all the illegal apts in single family homes.
Most downtowns on Long Island that have dense development have their own substations, Lynbrook also comes to mind. Yet there's no substation in Mineola itself.
In addition to this you'll also see a convoy of trucks with huge cement walls, probably for the LIRR Main Line expansion.
All Comments (21)
  • @mattcatalano7215
    Best thing to do in that situation is that just turned the circuit breakers off to everything to avoid damage from the low voltage
  • @amalbanik2675
    I live in Hollis. Fire alarm went off, my house blacked out, but I still had electricity?? How?! 95% of my power was working?! It wasn’t funny! Hollis and Mineola are a DISGRACE!
  • @Random_Emergency_Light
    My power constant lighty flickering! Always at 7pm or 7am! I notice the whole town is doing it! Some lights flicker lighty! Some barely noticeable! The basement you can really tell and it's the 1st breaker! I had a power outage on July 18th and before it did it and still doing! It was a equipment failure! I guess it was never fixed!
  • @5Dale65
    In Europe where we only use three phase medium-to-low voltage transformers that feed entire villages, if a phase drops out in the distribution medium voltage line, a phase drops out on the low voltage side as well. So if you have three phase power supply you just lose one phase. However if your house is supplied with only one phase (which is more common) and that one phase drops out then you're blacked out while some of your neighbours still have power ☺ In US as I learned you have those little round transformers on the poles and those are two phase transformers (only two high voltage wires feed them) unlike ours. In this case, if one high voltage phase drops out, such madness like in the video can supposedly happen. If a tra-fo is normally fed with two wires with like 14kV phase to phase voltage, and suddenly one phase drops out and go to the potential of the ground basically, then the tra-fo now sees just a phase to ground voltage (which can be 7kV or less). This gets transformed to the low voltage side of course, and instead of 120V AC you get half of that or less. I suppose this is what was happening on the video.
  • @VEGTheAgingHippie
    Oh man, you have my sympathy. This heat is brutal. Seems like American infrastructure is falling apart.
  • @nukepuke932
    Drinking game: Take a drink every time he says "partial power, but not full power".
  • @chronically.advocating
    As tempting as it is on a hot night don't run your AC on such low voltage you'll end up burning up the compressor. When voltage drops that low the grid unit tries to make up for it by boosting the amperage. This overheats and burns out the compressor. GFCI outlets are meant to trip at low voltage like that as it sees it the same as a short or even a loose neutral. Unplug all unnecessary items to protect them from over amperage during voltage sags like that.
  • @dekelly7726
    We had one of the weirdest power outages today where Irvington flea market lost power and then we had emergency lights but lost them and then it took a while for generator to reboot but then we only had enough power to power the lights and sounds but AC and some outlets didn’t work because a enough electricity was not generated to power those
  • @thiscorrosion900
    My rental house dates 1927, ancient outlets and one is dead, still I haven’t had any power issues yet. I’m astonished but Syosset near LIRR seems solid for power somehow.
  • @thiscorrosion900
    What the hell? Tell them to Asplundh my b-tt!! So aggravating. Convoy also creating tons of noise at 1am etc.
  • @drivecfl
    May be a building issue. Look for Lilco trucks. I mean PSEG.
  • @kevintheenthusiast6095
    That is strange and rare. What I would do If the voltage is very low turn off refrigerator, air conditioner and electronics to avoid damage until voltage is good enough to run them. These brownouts is a prime example of why fully electric cars is a terrible idea! The grid won’t be able to handle electric cars being charged especially when there is a heat wave! Charging EVs take more power than a 5 ton (60,000btu) central air conditioner.
  • @num1hendrickfan
    Rockville Center has its own power plant, not backup power.