Winter storm Izzy has brought havoc to the Carolinas, knocking out power and making travel on the roads treacherous. Duke Energy reported Monday evening it had restored power to 250,000 customers across the Carolinas. They say they still had 24,000 customers without power in the Carolinas as of Monday evening. Blue Ridge Electric also had thousands of customers without power on Monday. I lived in Des Moines, Iowa for 2 and 1/2 years, spending two winters there. It was brutally cold and snowed at least once per week. The two winters I was there, the power never went out. From what I gathered there, the power companies infrastructure was in place to keep the power on through brutal winter conditions. I spoke to a friend who works for one of the power companies here in South Carolina about that very issue. His answer to me was "we could do those type of infrastructure upgrades, but it's not cost effective". So, now we have had a major winter storm and power outages all over the Carolinas and there is more winter weather in the forecast for this coming weekend. Given that, should the power companies upgrade their infrastructure to combat winter storms here in the Carolinas? Let us know below.
