No Such Thing as a Power Outage

I love it when the universe delivers an engraved, personal invitation to me to rant about a pet peeve.

There is no such thing as a power "outage." It's a power failure. When the power fails, that's a power failure.

Decades ago, power company public relations hacks fooled, lied, pressured and threatened newspapers into calling power failures "outages." Power "failure" sounded way too much like the truth: the power failed. The power company is not omnipotent; it can fail, and does fail - far too frequently. Can't have people thinking that. They might start wondering why they're paying way too much money for something that often fails.

The power didn't "out," like a gay teenager. It failed. Fail, failed, failure. Failure, Failure, FAILURE.

It's especially a power failure when the power fails more than 607,000 people in Kentucky - an all-time record for the state.

The failure is not just of the utility companies, but also of the Public Service Commission, the General Assembly and the Governor, who all FAILED to prevent this catastrophe by forcing the utility companies to bury the power lines.

Although many individuals and entitites share this failure, it remains a failure. A power failure.

Do NOT let anyone get away with using the out-word.

It's a power FAILURE.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.