Inside America

I admire people who bear their small daily hassles with fatalism. It is a first step towards optimism. I’d rather be upset, which is a first step towards activism.

When the light went out Sunday evening, I thought it would be a temporary power outage, as we know very often. But the tail of the hurricane Ike neared Pittsburgh that evening, and high wind speeds put several trees down, just on power lines. While all my neighborhood was in the dark,  I was going to learn the next morning that more than 100,000 homes have spent the night without electricity also.

It was not until tonight, 48 hours after the gale, that I finally recovered some power to blog this story.

During these two days, I have not heard a single complain about the poor quality of power distribution and the slow repairs. “This is normal” I’m told. “People at Dusquesne Light are overwhelmed”. Poor guys. “It takes time to reconnect all these homes”. Sure it does.

And when I would issue a doubt about the quality of the infrastructure (no power line underground in a heavily wooded area subjected to harsh weather, connections in bad shape, rotting poles, and so on…), I’m kindly told that this is good local government, and that I would certainly protest if I had to pay more taxes for a better infrastructure. I did not poll the local business owners – some of which are still closed after 2 days without revenue – but I bet the mere mention of the word “tax” would also convince them that it is better to remain in the dark from time to time.

Other country, other priorities. I can not help but think back to the famous “1999 Storm” that devastated half of France without leaving the largest cities out of power more than a few hours despite the extent of damage.

Houston – the 4th largest US city – is in the dark for over three days after Ike hit the area, without hope of getting some power back before the end of the week. Nothing to compare with the mini-storm we had in Pittsburgh of course. However, by candlelight, I can not help feeling that we cannot blame it all on fate, fatality, misfortune… and I withdraw everything bad I used to say about Electricité de France – the French major power supplier – as I can’t remember any power outage in Paris, since 1999. Although I’m a tax-hater too, I must say that they are sometimes well employed.