I’m happy to believe that the astounding, 89-mph wind that roared through the city last Friday was a once-in-a-lifetime event. National Weather Service meteorologist Clay Anderson told the Journal: “The storm was so anomalous that the chances are that everyone in Albuquerque that’s alive will not see a wind gust like again in their lifetime in Albuquerque associated with thunderstorms.”
Reassured? Don’t be. Notice that Anderson isn’t excluding winds that don’t come with thunderstorms. “I think we need to be prepared for 79-mile-an-hour and 69-mile-an-hour windstorms,” Anderson told me. “They can do damage too.”
Mayor Richard J. Berry may not have done much for the preparedness cause in calling the storm a “category 1 hurricane” – which would be a one-in-a-million event in these parts. The storm, in fact, was not even close to a hurricane, which involves steady streams of high wind, not a single gust. And New Mexico would have to be closer to the coast.
But, yes, the storm was colossally weird. So, now that it’s gone away, we can forget about more blackouts of the kind that cut off power to 30,000 Albuquerque metro households? Think again. Wind bursts aren’t the only kind of disaster that can turn off the lights.
Only a couple of weeks before the storm, as it happens, the Department of Energy had released an unsettling 73-page report on climate change and extreme weather threatening the country’s energy system, including the power grid. I ran across it while reporting a piece on preppers (it’ll be here, but not for free). These people are easily mocked as doomsday prophets, but among them are people with a pretty realistic grasp of disaster possibilities.
Anyone who doubts that should turn to the DOE report. Some of the extreme weather the report discusses will sound familiar: Heatwaves, drought, massive wildfires. For example, the 2011 wildfires scorched more than 1 million acres in New Mexico and Arizona and threatened two high-voltage power lines that served 400,000 electricity customers here and in Texas.
These kinds of events are taking place as average temperature in western states is rising steadily - by as much as 5.2 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050, according to an Argonne National Laboratory study that the DOE report cites. “Combinations of persistent drought, extreme heat events, and wildfire,” the department report concludes, “may create short-term peaks in demand and diminish system flexibilty and supply, which could limit the ability to respond to that demand.” That is, consumers shouldn’t be surprised by more blackouts and brownouts.
Ignore the warning if you like. From my experience, heedlessness doesn’t pay. When we moved to Mexico City from Santa Fe in 1984, Mexico’s capital hadn’t suffered a serious earthquake since 1957. A less damaging one had hit in 1976, but most people had quit worrying. So when a quake of 8.1 on the Richter scale rocked Mexico City on Sept. 19, 1985, thousands of people (maybe tens of thousands, no one knows) died when buildings collapsed. Now, people evacuate whenever buildings start shaking.
A few years later we moved to Miami, untouched by hurricanes since 1960. Homebuilders were putting up houses without the roof reinforcements and other protections once considered standard. In 1992, after Hurricane Andrew swept through, killing 26 people and destroying more than 25,000 homes, Floridians started taking hurricanes more seriously. At least four have hit Florida since then.
More recently, we were living in Washington DC when the capital got buried in the “snowmaggedon” of 2010 – an event unprecedented, according to one weather expert, since 1717. The following year, another big blizzard brought less snow, but more disruption, including electricity blackouts to more than 300,000 households in the DC metro area.
Measured by that scale, the weekend blackout here wasn’t a terrible one. For one thing, it wasn’t winter. Our house lost power for about 36 hours, but because the blackouts were spotty, we were able to recharge our phones at neighbors’ homes. And if any Albuquerque gas stations couldn’t provide fuel because their pumps had no power, plenty of alternatives were available. In Washington, Florida and elsewhere, people have gotten used to filling up when bad weather threatens.
In Albuquerque, PNM restored power to households with the help of crews borrowed from utilities in neighboring states and cities – a first for the company. Elsewhere, calling up reinforcements is common. In August, 2011, with Hurricane Irene bearing down on the capital region, we were driving to Albuquerque - watching a steady stream of power company trucks heading east, filled with personnel coming to lend a hand.
Some day, we may see a convoy like that rolling down I-40 or I-25. Don’t be surprised.
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