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 5 Years

People Stories

Itzel Perez Dominguez considered the purchase of a home – her first – carefully. She knew she’d be responsible for mortgage, homeowners insurance and taxes and she reviewed her options thoroughly before committing to buying a home in Minneapolis. Buying a home for her family was the culmination of a dream.

Itzel had been diligent and done everything right – or so she thought. Click to read her 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.

Click here to read what happened.

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  • How outdated is our power grid?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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