Power company employees deserve credit
Dear editor:
Christmas Eve, 10 p.m. -- the wind was howling and the freezing snow was sticking to the windows on the west side of my house.
Then the power went out.
I dug out the battery lanterns, got the wood stove ready to go, and called Idaho Power to see if the outage had been reported. They told me it was fairly widespread over the Mountain Home area, extending up to Prairie, and that crews had been dispatched to find the problem. So I fired up the wood stove and went to bed.
My power came back on around 4 a.m. and my electric stove was working for breakfast on Christmas Day.
While I was enjoying the heat and the hot food, I started thinking about the folks at Idaho Power who spent their Christmas Eve outside in freezing blizzard conditions, climbing 30 to 100 feet up a power pole or transmission tower, after driving through the snow to find the problem area.
And then I thought about the Idaho Power employees who spent their Christmas on the job at the power plants, keeping the turbines spinning, the folks at the control centers making sure that the electric load and the generation capability is balanced, and the repair crews on standby on holidays and weekends when the rest of us get to stay home with our families.
Thinking about this outage prompted me to write this letter, thanking everyone at Idaho Power who keeps the electrical grid up and running.
People talk about the police and fire departments as being "essential services," but I would rather do without them than without electrical power. It is not an exaggeration to say that the continuation of civilized society in America is dependent on the efficient operation of the nation's power grid, and Idaho Power's employees should be proud of their role in keeping electrical power flowing to this part of the country.
Without their efforts, we could not heat and light our homes, cook our food, pump water to our homes, pump and deliver fuel for farming and the trains and trucks that deliver all of our food and essential products, or enable the police, hospitals, and fire departments to provide their services.
I am sure Idaho Power's folks quickly hear complaints from people when the power goes out, so I want to express my personal thanks to everyone at Idaho Power. We take their continuous delivery of electrical power too much for granted (which is actually a real compliment to the power industry).
Next time anyone feels like complaining about their power bill, ask yourself what you would do if the power grid went down for a month, or a year. Then say a quiet thanks to the next Idaho Power crew you see, who are keeping the lights and heat on, your TV and computer working and our incredibly complex electrified society from collapsing.
-- Peter Humm