by Edwin » Thu Jun 10, 2010 4:47 pm
Where we lived and worked in the Stehekin Valley it is at the end of a 55 mile lake. It is so remote with access only by boats and airplanes. There are trails a person can hike in from many miles away. We had to power lines in from outside the valley, so the power plant used creek water and a turbin to make the electricity. It was owned, supported, and maintained by Chelan County P.U.D. It was not extremenly reliable. The creek would get low then the electricity would fail. The creek would get icy and have lots of wet heavy snow at other times and clog the inlet going into the turbin, and then the electriciy would fail again. It is a mountainous forest there, and so trees would fall on the lines and take out the electricty.
Electrical failures were more apt to happen in the winter than in the summer. We were without electricity lots of times for a few hours, and a few times we were without electricity for several days. When the electricty would go do while we lived in the valley in a doublewide we would just simply be without electricity. The last two years we lived at the landing in an A frame building provided by our employer. In all the years we were in the Stehekin Valley it was my job to fire up a huge diesel electric generator when the power went down, so that resort guests would have electricity. When living out in the valley I kept my radio handy, and it would tell me when the electricity went down, and I would drive in to the landing and fire up the diesel generator. During the last two years we were luck because when the electricity failed I was right there to start the generator, and our house was supplied by that electricity, and so we were never without electricity. Because the electrical fluctuation it was really hard on all types of electrical equipment, so everyone there kept battery backups for their computer equipment that would allow them time to shut their computers down and avoid damage. We still use the battery backups here as that helps protect the equipment. It also gives a person time to shut down the computer, having a proper shut down rather than just pulling the plug so to speak.
