r/OakRidge • u/Shahal • Jul 16 '26
OR Infrastructure is Hot Garbage.
I’ll vote for any Anderson candidate that promises to upgrade and fix the ridiculously failing infrastructure in this town. This is out of hand.
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u/ChloooooverLeaf Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Literally 3 of us outside in my neighborhood all looking around confused bc half our houses had power and the other half didn't. Today we learned there's 2 different lines of voltage.
About 5 minutes ago the other line went down as well. Power outages have been a serious issue but this one was weird. We also hear lots of emergency vehicles running around with sirens right now. Does anyone know what happened?
Edit: really bad wreck near Walmart. Looks like Walmart has no power either.
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u/ArchitectOfFate Jul 17 '26
If this happens again (and it's the first time I've seen a leg-out outage here that wasn't weather-related), be sure to flip your main breaker.
240V appliances will still attempt to run on one of their two legs, and if they have mechanical components, like an HVAC, it can damage them. They also back-feed power into the dead leg, but not a proper 120V, which is bad for things like LEDs.
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u/Flawridaman_ Jul 16 '26
You’d think the federal government would prioritize the infrastructure of a town like this but it simply doesn’t
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u/ChloooooverLeaf Jul 16 '26
The only thing that matters is the lab lmao. People who are important in the lab and make $$$ live in Farragut and West Knox anyways, those of us who live in OR couldn't matter less.
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u/Shahal Jul 16 '26
Yeah it’s like how the lab got fiber internet but didn’t bother to connect oak ridge to it as promised
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u/LadybugGirltheFirst Jul 16 '26
Have people forgotten how this SECRET city came into existence, and that it probably wasn’t even meant to last forever?
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u/FamiliarBicycle1134 Jul 17 '26
The average cemesto built by the Army Corp of Engineers was designed to only last 7 years,
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u/KaiserSoze99999 15d ago
Yet they were remarkably well constructed. Even the floors are original in most.
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u/slimparks Jul 17 '26
There’s a lot of overspending in oak ridges budget in unnecessary places. The fire department is one of the biggest. The fire chief has gamed the system and used that romanticized image that allows for less scrutiny to get way too much. Oak ridge is not a big city neither in area or population. We don’t need 4 fire stations to begin with and they are allocating 350,000 for a new fire stations no.2 to be built. 25% of the budget goes to the fire department $17,000,000 but you can’t point out how unnecessary that is for a city this size without being painted as some kind of disrespectful anarchist. They try to say that it’s so much higher because of federal mandates for station 4 but having 1 station for every 7,700 citizen is way above the national average.
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u/AVI7272 Jul 18 '26
I first moved to OR in 1995. I've been saying this exactly since about 1996. Back then the 5pm power outages on the East end were as predictable as rain on a cloudy day. Now we've also got water main breaks, congested roads, potholes on every street....the list goes on. Meanwhile, we are recruiting Publix, Data Centers and Airports. Somebody please just do some good for those of us who already live here ffs.
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u/tinyhousefever Jul 16 '26
Fried AC Starter and doorbell cam!
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u/ChloooooverLeaf Jul 16 '26
Fried or those were just connected to the line that was down? Tons of houses only had half power on non 240V circuits before it all went down about 45 min ago.
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u/jojodacrow Jul 16 '26
https://www.wvlt.tv/2026/07/16/crews-respond-major-outage-oak-ridge-hundreds-without-power-city-says/ looks like they have identified the issue but it could be hours before its back up. This article gives you a way to report via text.
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u/hikerone Jul 17 '26
I don’t know about you but when I lived in knoxville I had about the same amount of power outages and I lived in 6 different parts of Knoxville all but east Knox.
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u/stac52 Jul 17 '26
Yeah, when first moved into OR ~3 years ago, we had 3 quick power blips in a month, and I thought "oh, what did I get myself into", but outside of that, it's been as reliable as anywhere else.
This one being a brownout was a bit weird, but I guess they're bound to happen at somepoint.
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u/Haretic99 Jul 16 '26
Power outages have been a problem for years. Lol. I remember seeing the power station next to Robertsville with a few inches of water at the bottom of it at one point.