Happy Infrastructure Week! We will be adding new infrastructure information, statistics, and more every day, so don’t forget to check back.
Over the Last Five Years
People Stories
Charles M. of Asheboro, North Carolina, watched as a young couple he knew built a home across the street from his own.
An older adult, he and his wife were dealing with some health issues and were on fixed incomes, but that was not what kept Charles up at night. It was worry over his aging, badly corroded fuse box. Click to read his story.
The town of Oceanside, New York typically only sees a few severe weather storms every year. So, when local resident and homeowner Tom W. noticed his lights flickering sometimes this past summer during some high winds, he made a mental note to investigate further if it happened again.
A few months later, a gusty fall storm brought the same flickering lights to Tom’s home. Click here to read what happened.
Frances W. of Houston, Texas, is an older adult on a fixed income, so when she learned about HomeServe’s emergency repair plans, she thought it was a good idea. To protect herself from an emergency repair, she’s been enrolled in plans to protect her exterior water and sewer lines, in-home plumbing, water heater and interior electrical wiring systems for over a decade.
Press Release
Fun Facts
- How outdated is our power grid? The U.S. Department of Energy found that 70% of U.S. transmission lines are more than 25 years old in its last network-infrastructure review in 2015. Lines typically have a 50-year lifespan. The average age of large power transformers, which handle 90% of U.S. electricity flow, is more than 40 years.
- The first commercial power grid was first established by Thomas Edison in 1882.
- There are not one but three separate grids that supply power through the country. The three grids work independently from each other with some small links connected in a few places. The three grids include the:
- Texas Interconnected System
- Western Interconnection
- Eastern Interconnection
- There are around 120,376 linemen working the US grid at the moment with the career rate growing 1.94% each year.
- The number one cause of power outages in the US is severe weather. This results in approximately $33 billion dollars of repair each year depending on severity.
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