My power didn't go out in the storm earlier this week, but, being a bit of a Twitter stormwatcher, I did occasionally look at Toronto Hydro's Twitter feed to watch the show. However, as many people have noted, using the internet for primary method of communication during a power outage is problematic. People's personal internet access is going to be out, so only those whose cellphones have internet (and haven't run out of battery yet) and those who aren't currently in the power outage area can access the information. This means that the information is going to be less available to more vulnerable people (elderly, poorer, etc.) who are also likely to be less resilient to difficulties of a power outage.
Here's a simple solution: if there's a power outage, Hydro automatically robocalls affected customers telling them the status, the size of the area affected, and the ETA for power restoration. When the status has changed significantly (ETA has changed, or area affected is significantly smaller), they send out another robocall.
People could opt in or out of emergency robocalls, so those who do have smartphones without landlines wouldn't have to use up valuable battery life fielding phone calls that give them no new information.
Perhaps they could also have mass text messaging (for people who don't have data plans - or if data isn't working due to the outage) since that's less of a drain on the battery than a ringing phone.
In any case, methods of immediate and automatic information distribution that aren't dependent upon electricity do exist. They should make use of these during power outages.
6 comments:
Do you follow @OutageTracker on Twitter?
I second your comments on the digital divide, which is very real. I was on the outside looking in through 2003-2010. I'm still in the slow lane.
Don't most people's phone service go out during a power outage? I thought that was pretty standard by now.
^^ Bad grammar from sloppy editing.
My corded phone (which doesn't require being plugged into an electrical outlet, only a phone jack) has always worked during power outages. The longest was about 12 hours in the 2003 power outages, and the most recent was a brief in-building outage during the past year.
That's great. I thought those had gone the way of rotary phones.
I never have phone service during an outage. And this time I didn't even have cell service! Not because the battery ran out, I had no signal.
Update in case anyone googles upon this: it turns out Rogers Home Phone does in fact have a modem-like thing in the wall that can run out of power. It has a battery that lasts six hours, and I didn't even realize this because there hasn't been a six-hour power outage during the time I've been with Rogers Home Phone.
Apparently the flip side of this is that if you have Rogers Home Phone, your internet service will also continue operating during this six-hour window if you have your cable modem on a UPS. I haven't tested this theory yet.
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