Our younger son, Adam Smith Palmer, lives on the southern edge of Houston, where they have been without water and power since hurricane Ike hit. He just called and let us know that both water and power have been restored. Whew!
Some thoughts (in relief):
- the power company thinks there's a good chance many people will still be without power for another week. Those folks sure have my sympathy.
- a repeat of my earlier question: why would a water company in that area not have its own backup power supply? If that was indeed the situation, could they be liable for their customers' losses under negligence law? I understand they shouldn't be liable for economic losses, but might they be liable for any other category of losses if they behaved negligently by not having their own backup power sources?
- some of the residents in my son's neighbourhood spoke with a state representative during the afternoon, and then power and water were restored within the next few hours. Do you think there might have been a causal relationship???
When the rivers rose beyond their banks in our neck of the woods, it wasn't merely a lack of power which prevented some of our communities from getting fresh water -- the individual pumping stations themselves were put out of commission by flood waters. None were allowed to go back online until cleared as safe and sanitary.
Is it possible that this is one reason for Houston's local problems?
Posted by: Rebekah K | September 18, 2008 at 10:52 AM