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BushMogulMaster
02-17-2007, 04:12 PM
Yikes... what a wild day!

Skied ME until around 12:45 when the power went out to the entire valley :shock: . Guess it was the substation. Power was out until around 3:00. I stuck around to help out wherever I could... it was pretty crazy. No food service, no flushing toilets, no lifts (duh!), no running water, no anything! Well, there was beer and soda upstairs in the Green Mt. Lounge, so that was a plus for all of the guests!

The guests were all properly compensated for their loss and frustration... today's day tickets can be brought to the ticket window any single day for up to a year, and they will receive another ticket. Definitely kept people happy.

Lifts clearing on diesel aux seemed to go pretty well. It took a little while to get some of them moving, since a lift mechanic has to be there to fire up the motor. But, everyone got down safely, and only one person jumped that I know of!

I feel compelled to say it again... what a wild day!

castlerock
02-17-2007, 04:31 PM
If it weren't for bad luck, Summit Ventures wouldn't have any.

ski_resort_observer
02-17-2007, 04:48 PM
I left around 12:15 and actually there was no power outage in the valley...or at least at my place, the Warren Store and Waitsfield village. Pretty weird indeed.

Strat
02-17-2007, 05:04 PM
Definitely not power out in the entire valley, haha... well does Moretown count as the Valley? I think that debate's been going on for a while...

TimKeogh
02-17-2007, 06:22 PM
I went to Smuggs today because of $29 lift tickets thru Connecticut Ski Council :oops:

While I was waiting in excrutiatingly long lines (15-20 min avg), I was missing the Quads and short lift lines - looks like I made the right decision though!


My neighbor went to SB today, left around 2PM w/o getting a voucher - also mentioned something about a kitchen fire ????

beelze
02-17-2007, 07:42 PM
Yikes... what a wild day!

Skied ME until around 12:45 when the power went out to the entire valley :shock: . Guess it was the substation. Power was out until around 3:00.

Having skipped the day because of the expected crowds I can say for certain it was not the
entire valley as I live off the Access road and didn't have even a hint of power out. What ever it
was was isolated to the mountain ops and nearyby.

BushMogulMaster
02-17-2007, 07:59 PM
Having skipped the day because of the expected crowds I can say for certain it was not the
entire valley as I live off the Access road and didn't have even a hint of power out. What ever it
was was isolated to the mountain ops and nearyby.

Interesting. The word they were given said it was a regional outage. MRG was out as well.




My neighbor went to SB today, left around 2PM w/o getting a voucher - also mentioned something about a kitchen fire ????

They didn't give out vouchers. Guest were instructed to bring back today's tickets to the ticket windows for up to a year and they would receive another ticket. It would have been a bit wasteful to print several thousand vouchers, you know :wink:

If the kitchen fire talk was about ME, no... there wasn't. What happened was........ when the power went out, the kitchen exhaust fan went off, and all of the smoke from cooking burgers, etc. was flooding into the lodge. Wasn't a problem... just opened a few doors!

sugarboarder
02-17-2007, 09:04 PM
Wow - the biggest storm in years followed by three days of howling winds and then a power outage. Guess there is a price for that much snow all at once. My road and driveway up here on the Warren side of Roxbury Gap actually just got cleared today by the bucket loader.

BTW - no power out here today at all...and I would have known since I'm house bound with the flu since Wednesday. :cry:

noski
02-18-2007, 08:38 AM
Interesting. The word they were given said it was a regional outage. MRG was out as well.

I'd say Saturday of Presidents' weekend, sunny, warm, 40" new snow, the only region that matters is LP/ME/MRG.... It was the German Flats Rd substation that feeds the immediate on mountain locations that had a "short".

othripper
02-18-2007, 07:07 PM
Gee, do you think this is what happens when every light in the Clay Brook and (new) Gate House Lodges is left on??

Mike

Lostone
02-18-2007, 08:42 PM
No... I don't think that. :roll:

TimKeogh
02-18-2007, 09:14 PM
Can noski (Susan) get GMP to admit what really happened ?
Maybe they have some fiscal responsibility in this situation.

"Workers had not determined the cause of the problem, but damp conditions caused by melting snow could have played a part, Schnure said.":oops: :oops: :oops:

This Free Press article explanation sounds quite dubious to me. Doesn't snow melt every year, and um. yeah. wasn't it in the mid '20s that day ?

They owe Win a much better explanation and assurances for the future...

bill-now
02-18-2007, 09:21 PM
Gee, do you think this is what happens when every light in the Clay Brook and (new) Gate House Lodges is left on??

Let's do the math.

A fully illuminated Clay Brook has 61 units times 18 light bulbs (on average) at 60 watt each = 29,280 Watts

1 Hp =746 watts

Therefore it requires 39.24 Hp to power all the lights in Clay Brook.

A typical SUV (sadly, what most all Clay Brook owners need to drive) generates about 210 Hp. Therefore the total power brought to the MRV by Clay Brook owners is 210 times 60 = 12,600 Hp.

Subtracting all the power required to light all the lights in Clay Brook from the power imported by Clay Brook owners gives us a surplus of 12,600-39.24 =12,560.76 Hp. or 9.37 megawatt.

This should be more than enough power to light up all the light bulbs in the Gate House.

Conclusion: Clay Brook is self sufficient and also has nearly enough power to supply the entire valley and therefore cannot be blamed for any power outages!

(Note: I am an engineer, but I don't play one on the television.)

TimKeogh
02-18-2007, 09:25 PM
Subtracting all the power required to light all the lights in Clay Brook from the power imported by Clay Brook owners gives us a surplus of 12,600-39.24 =12,560.76 Hp. or 9.37 megawatt.

Yeah ! Let's get nightskiing going on Organgrinder with all the excess wattage.

bill-now
02-18-2007, 09:40 PM
Yeah ! Let's get nightskiing going on Organgrinder with all the excess wattage.

Have you no soul? I came to the MRV to escape that sort of thinking.

However, night skiing on Middle Earth, Hmmmm, now that would be the ticket.

Lostone
02-18-2007, 09:54 PM
You're... You're importing that horsepower? :shock:

:lol:

random_ski_guy
02-18-2007, 10:04 PM
Subtracting all the power required to light all the lights in Clay Brook from the power imported by Clay Brook owners gives us a surplus of 12,600-39.24 =12,560.76 Hp. or 9.37 megawatt.

Yeah ! Let's get nightskiing going on Organgrinder with all the excess wattage.

Night skiing is fun, but it doesn't belong in VT. IMHO. Leave that to the urban/metro skiers of Albany NY, Mass and CT.

And Tim, don't you think night skiing is flatlander talk? I'm surprised of your thinking. :)

random_ski_guy
02-18-2007, 10:10 PM
Gee, do you think this is what happens when every light in the Clay Brook and (new) Gate House Lodges is left on??

Let's do the math.

A fully illuminated Clay Brook has 61 units times 18 light bulbs (on average) at 60 watt each = 29,280 Watts

1 Hp =746 watts

Therefore it requires 39.24 Hp to power all the lights in Clay Brook.

A typical SUV (sadly, what most all Clay Brook owners need to drive) generates about 210 Hp. Therefore the total power brought to the MRV by Clay Brook owners is 210 times 60 = 12,600 Hp.

Subtracting all the power required to light all the lights in Clay Brook from the power imported by Clay Brook owners gives us a surplus of 12,600-39.24 =12,560.76 Hp. or 9.37 megawatt.

This should be more than enough power to light up all the light bulbs in the Gate House.

Conclusion: Clay Brook is self sufficient and also has nearly enough power to supply the entire valley and therefore cannot be blamed for any power outages!

(Note: I am an engineer, but I don't play one on the television.)

Bill-now, Cool stuff. I was thinking about Clay Brook's impact on the grid when I stayed there. Taking this in a different direction, I wonder if the unit owners, in time, will want to ratchet down the utilities costs by dimming all those lights. The place (common area) is very well lit all hrs of the day. Seemed like a lot of juice, but maybe it isn't. Any thoughts on that?

BushMogulMaster
02-18-2007, 10:27 PM
Subtracting all the power required to light all the lights in Clay Brook from the power imported by Clay Brook owners gives us a surplus of 12,600-39.24 =12,560.76 Hp. or 9.37 megawatt.

Yeah ! Let's get nightskiing going on Organgrinder with all the excess wattage.

Night skiing is fun, but it doesn't belong in VT. IMHO. Leave that to the urban/metro skiers of Albany NY, Mass and CT.

And Tim, don't you think night skiing is flatlander talk? I'm surprised of your thinking. :)

I agree 100%. Night skiing is for local and regional ski areas. Sugarbush is a destination ski area. Night skiing and destination ski areas do not go well together. It simply wouldn't make any money for the area. If you want night skiing, go to Bolton. :wink:

bill-now
02-19-2007, 07:57 AM
Alas, alak, and even whoops!

In my calculations I neglected to mention the hall lighting at Clay Brook; those lights are bright enough to give you a suntan.

However the real test will come in the Summer when a big wedding is hosted; each unit has a clothes iron that draws about 1,300 Watts. 1,300 Watts times 200 irons = 260,000 Watts! Where, oh where are we gonna find a QUARTER MEGAWATT of power???? If all guests turn on their irons at the same time a brownout in the MRV is inevitable. The management better make sure that the wedding band doesn't turn their amps up to 11.

Perhaps a small nuclear power plant located nearby is needed. (I hear that the Bluetooth lot may still be available.)

Maybe the solution is to draw power from all the Verizon cell phones that are valiantly, but in vain, trying to acquire a signal.

I'll leave that calculation as an exercise for the student.

noski
02-19-2007, 09:51 AM
Can noski (Susan) get GMP to admit what really happened ?
Maybe they have some fiscal responsibility in this situation.

"Workers had not determined the cause of the problem, but damp conditions caused by melting snow could have played a part, Schnure said.":oops: :oops: :oops:

This Free Press article explanation sounds quite dubious to me. Doesn't snow melt every year, and um. yeah. wasn't it in the mid '20s that day ?

They owe Win a much better explanation and assurances for the future...

I'm on it. Email went to Ms. Schnure this morning with cc: to Sugarbush and MRG. I asked for a formal apology to the community and businesses, as well as a formal statement on what happened and what is being done to prevent a recurrance. I'll let Win and Eric F. deal with financial recourse.....I'll let you know when she responds.

Lostone
02-19-2007, 10:11 AM
Doesn't snow melt every year, and um. yeah. wasn't it in the mid '20s that day ?

1) We had a lot more snow in a short time than almost every year.

B) Snow does melt with sun, and temps in the 20s, and did melt on Saturday.

III) What Sugarbush did, allowing anyone who was there to use their ticket from Saturday to be traded for another ticket for a full year was not a good thing. It was a great thing! I was happily done with my skiing for the day, and were I to have been on a day pass, I'd have gotten another day for free.

Nobody was complaining about the conditions on Saturday. 8)

BushMogulMaster
02-19-2007, 10:28 AM
Can noski (Susan) get GMP to admit what really happened ?
Maybe they have some fiscal responsibility in this situation.

"Workers had not determined the cause of the problem, but damp conditions caused by melting snow could have played a part, Schnure said.":oops: :oops: :oops:

This Free Press article explanation sounds quite dubious to me. Doesn't snow melt every year, and um. yeah. wasn't it in the mid '20s that day ?

They owe Win a much better explanation and assurances for the future...

I'm on it. Email went to Ms. Schnure this morning with cc: to Sugarbush and MRG. I asked for a formal apology to the community and businesses, as well as a formal statement on what happened and what is being done to prevent a recurrance. I'll let Win and Eric F. deal with financial recourse.....I'll let you know when she responds.

Thanks, Susan. I'm glad someone's on this. It will be interesting to see the response.

As far as financial recourse... let's see, probably will end up giving out 3500 to 4000 day tickets @ holiday rates from Saturday. That translates to $245,000 to $280,000 in lift tickets. I somehow doubt they'll be able to foot that bill! Of course, any amount of financial reimbursement would at least be a good gesture.

Mike_451
02-19-2007, 01:19 PM
How about a week of free power for snowmaking.......

MntMan4Bush
02-19-2007, 01:43 PM
I skied Saturday and Sunday and they were the best days I can remember. Arrived at Super Bravo at 8 AM and missed first chair by a handfull. Castlerock run was sweat, but I was a bit disappointed that Heaven's Gate was down. Regardess it led me over to North Lynx with full intenton of doing one run then dipping into the Brook. Sunrise was so nice that I stuck around for about 6-7 runs before dipping into the woods. As we were coming up the Gate House we saw someone S turn first tracks down it. How could it not be great. We were laughing and yelling down every run and so was everyone else. The girls showed up around 9 and got similar runs in. By the time the power went out I felt like I'd had 6 great days in a row. Point being we got our money's worth. I have a pass so it didn't matter to me, but wifey has a Sugarcard and we didn't even attepmt to recoup for the day. Hell you could have charged me full price for 5 runs on Sunrise that day and it would have been worth it. I was glad to hear they made the effort though in allowing people to ski a day free. We had two friends up that we stole from Kilington and I think have successfully converted over. They didn't get there as early as we did so for them it was nice and may have been the icing on the cake to make SB their destination now.

Also saw Win directing traffic on German Flats as they had the earth mover in there trying to get to the substation. That tells you something about character. I'm pretty sure the head of ASC would be locked behind closed doors yelling at people to get things fixed and "well above" helping out and doing whatever can be done to make things better.

Strat
02-19-2007, 05:16 PM
Doesn't snow melt every year, and um. yeah. wasn't it in the mid '20s that day ?

1 We had a lot more snow in a short time than almost every year.

B) Snow does melt with sun, and temps in the 20s, and did melt on Saturday.

III) What Sugarbush did, allowing anyone who was there to use their ticket from Saturday to be traded for another ticket for a full year was not a good thing. It was a great thing! I was happily done with my skiing for the day, and were I to have been on a day pass, I'd have gotten another day for free.

Nobody was complaining about the conditions on Saturday. 8)

Was this intentional? :wink:

TimKeogh
02-19-2007, 05:23 PM
What Sugarbush did, allowing anyone who was there to use their ticket from Saturday to be traded for another ticket for a full year was not a good thing. It was a great thing! I was happily done with my skiing for the day, and were I to have been on a day pass, I'd have gotten another day for free.


Yes, I totally agree..

My neighbor had expired injury vouchers and presented them to guest services, hoping they would honor them.
Guess who greeted them and authorized it ? Yep, Win...

So even though they missed a few runs with the power outage, they are still very happy customers and telling all their friends.


Oh... and last year my son did not secure his ticket properly on a windy day. It blew away the minute he left the lodge.
No problems issuing me another one.

noski
02-20-2007, 09:06 AM
GMP manager will have a formal statement for me by early Weds morning. I will post it here.

BushMogulMaster
02-20-2007, 09:49 AM
GMP manager will have a formal statement for me by early Weds morning. I will post it here.

Great! Thanks for contacting them.

noski
02-21-2007, 10:02 AM
This letter will be printed in the Valley Reporter tomorrow:

"To the Mad River Valley Community:

Last Saturday’s power outage in the Mad River Valley area was difficult for everyone involved. We understand how frustrating it was for the ski areas and other businesses in the area, especially following a much celebrated snowstorm. At Green Mountain Power, our major focus is providing high quality electrical service, and so when we learned of the failure at our substation in the Mad River area at such a critical time, we were also disappointed.

We’d like to take this opportunity to explain exactly what happened, how we responded, and whether we reasonably could have done anything to prevent this outage or others like it in the future.

Outages can be caused by a number of factors – trees on a line, animal contact, equipment failure, weather. Some of these are immediately obvious – you see the tree or wire down, or find remnants of the animal that made contact. Other times discovering the cause takes much longer, particularly in a substation where a failure may leave no signs. Upon arriving at the MadBush substation Saturday, our electricians did not immediately find the cause of the outage. Although they were able to re-energize the substation at 3:00 pm, two and a quarter hours after the outage began, our electricians remained on-site to investigate thoroughly the cause of the outage and we continued to monitor the substation with six on-site inspections throughout the weekend to ensure its reliable operation.

After extensive analysis, including infra-red scans of the substation, we determined that the outage was caused by one of two possible factors – the abundant snow and ice build up may have caused a cable failure, which tripped the circuit switcher. We also discovered a broken bracket on an electrical cabinet, which may have pinched a cable and tripped the circuit, although again, there is no direct proof. We have repaired that piece of equipment. We will continue our root cause investigation of the MadBush outage to see if we uncover any ways we could have prevented this from occurring.

Could we have reasonably prevented either of these situations? Although we believe that we maintain our equipment to the highest standards and have procedures in place to respond as quickly as possible when outages do occur, we are researching other utilities across the country to see if we can learn from the top performers in the country. Our goal is to be the best in the country, but even top utilities have some level of non-preventable outages. If we discover a maintenance practice that can improve on our record, we will adopt it.

We deeply regret the timing of this outage, as we know very well the impacts on everyone in the Mad River Valley area. All of us at Green Mountain Power have as our highest priority providing reliable service to all our customers. We will continue to search for ways to refine and improve our performance to ensure that your power is on. Every day.

Mary Powell
Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Green Mountain Power"

Tin Woodsman
02-21-2007, 10:59 AM
Good to see this response, but man I hope they're not telling us that the "abundant snow and ice buildup" caused this. It's winter in the Green Mountains at 1600'. That stuff happens just about every year.

BushMogulMaster
02-21-2007, 12:18 PM
Good to see this response, but man I hope they're not telling us that the "abundant snow and ice buildup" caused this. It's winter in the Green Mountains at 1600'. That stuff happens just about every year.

My sentiments exactly.

saabski
02-21-2007, 12:44 PM
I live about 50 yards from this facility on Two Ponds Rd. Win did a great job directing traffic once trucks were on scene (enabling me to get out of my road w/o being killed). Win probably would have climbed that fence and fixed it himself given the chance! The skiing Sat AM was FANTASTIC; got more than a day's worth of fun in the 4 hrs I was at North....

However, part of the time spent 'repairing' the outage was actually spent moving the snow to access the gate to the substation. It was still piled w/snow at 1:30 when I got off the shuttle there. Seems in future GMP would plow it out as soon as the snow stops to allow access?

Would have saved some time (how much I do not know) in the T/R -troubleshoot and repair-

PS is the Substation really at 1600 ft elevation? I've often wondered what the elevation is at my place!

noski
02-21-2007, 01:31 PM
However, part of the time spent 'repairing' the outage was actually spent moving the snow to access the gate to the substation. It was still piled w/snow at 1:30 when I got off the shuttle there. Seems in future GMP would plow it out as soon as the snow stops to allow access?

Would have saved some time (how much I do not know) in the T/R -troubleshoot and repair-

I actually sent her a reply email to this effect, suggesting that they do like Waitsfield Telecom and pay LOCAL plow people well to make those substations a priority plowing for this very reason.

Edit 2:10pm: GMP lady called me to tell me that she agreed, the plowing was an issue, but fwiw, and frankly of little consolation, time was not lost since their electrician had not arrived on scene yet. They are building a detailed timeline to figure out what/when on details and then evaluate and modify noted deficiencies.

Yard Sale
02-21-2007, 02:08 PM
PS is the Substation really at 1600 ft elevation? I've often wondered what the elevation is at my place!

Google Earth has Two Ponds Road at 1540 to 1510 feet.

Mike_451
02-22-2007, 01:09 AM
I think it might be a bit less than that, by maybe 100' feet or so? 1400' sounds better to me, and 1600' is all wrong for sure.

Tin Woodsman
02-22-2007, 01:00 PM
I think it might be a bit less than that, by maybe 100' feet or so? 1400' sounds better to me, and 1600' is all wrong for sure.

According to Topozone, it's between 1500' and 1600' depending upon where along the road you are. The Google Earth estimate is probably accurate, but it's not 1400' for sure.

sugarboarder
02-22-2007, 03:30 PM
I think it might be a bit less than that, by maybe 100' feet or so? 1400' sounds better to me, and 1600' is all wrong for sure.

According to Topozone, it's between 1500' and 1600' depending upon where along the road you are. The Google Earth estimate is probably accurate, but it's not 1400' for sure.

Three letters... G P S :wink: