What would happen if there was a long-term blackout in Phoenix in the middle of summer? (mobile home, neighborhoods) - Arizona (AZ) - City-Data Forum

Trimac20 · 03-03-2009, 08:01 AM

Would a lot of old people not be able to cope or even die? Because here in Oz, during heatwaves a lot of elderly people seem to not be able to cope. Now Phoenix in July is basically a month-long heatwave, I could see it causing some major problems.

Foreverking · 03-03-2009, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trimac20

Would a lot of old people not be able to cope or even die? Because here in Oz, during heatwaves a lot of elderly people seem to not be able to cope. Now Phoenix in July is basically a month-long heatwave, I could see it causing some major problems.

well the population would certainly go down

saffordpastor · 03-03-2009, 08:56 AM

Folks would get realll hot....

LocoAZnative · 03-03-2009, 09:42 AM

power outages use to be quite common in Phoenix during monsoon season. Sometimes microbursts would knockdown powerlines and it would take a couple days to get power back. Hate to say this but nobody died from the heat folks.

observer53 · 03-03-2009, 09:52 AM

We did have a stretch of extreme heat a few summers ago when several homeless people died, plus I think a few others, in a home and in a mobile home. There was no power outage, just AC failure. Given that situation, if there was a long term power outage in the summer, then yes, we would see some deaths.

thegirlinaz · 03-03-2009, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AZnative4Life

Hate to say this but nobody died from the heat folks.

That is not true at all. Every summer I hear on the news about elderly or homeless people dying of heat stroke.

Valley Native · 03-03-2009, 12:12 PM

A blackout that affects a few blocks, or a neighborhood or two wouldn't be a huge deal. Well, it IS a big deal, but not on a large scale. It has happened before ... and not just during a monsoon storm. A few summers ago, a transformer fire at an APS substation caused a few neighborhoods in the NW Valley to be without electricity for a while. That was the fault of APS for not maintaining the transformers properly, and for not having backups on hand for such emergencies.

Now, if a long term blackout occurred across the entire metro area, there would be utter chaos. The majority of people who live here wouldn't be able to survive without air conditioning ... which is understandable because the heat can be a killer. One of the reasons Phoenix became so big was due to the easy availability of A/C. Before WWII, Phoenix was more or less a small town. After that, when A/C became mainstream & more affordable, the population mushroomed. I think it's pretty safe to say that very few of us would be able to handle a long term blackout in the middle of summer!

Greatday · 03-03-2009, 01:10 PM

I can't remember the last time we had a widespread blackout here in the Valley. Oh, I know we get power outages during the Monsoon storms once in a while -

JGatti · 03-03-2009, 01:37 PM

If I move out there I'd do the same thing I do here. Hook up my generator.

observer53 · 03-03-2009, 01:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greatday

I can't remember the last time we had a widespread blackout here in the Valley. Oh, I know we get power outages during the Monsoon storms once in a while -

The last time was when they had that power grid failure on the west coast that dominoed into AZ. As I recall, it was not in the peak of summer, it started in the afternoon and was over by later that evening. It was a little spooky to have the power go out in a wide area on a clear sunny day.