Back in May of this year, Joe Biden’s ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink was positively jumping for joy on social media. The CIA had taken America’s emergency stockpile of electrical transformers and other repair equipment and delivered them to Ukraine. Thank goodness! The Ukrainians would be able to temporarily restore power for a short time before Vladimir Putin knocked it out again. Fortunately for America, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were smart enough to replenish that stockpile of supplies before hurricane season, right? Right?
Actually, no. The total amount of damage to the power grid in Western North Carolina from Hurricane Helene is staggering at this point. Power outages are still widespread and the roads are still blocked by debris or destroyed entirely by the torrential rains. As of Thursday morning, nearly one million Americans are still without power in North and South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and Florida.
According to Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC), the repairs to power lines can’t even begin to take place until the roads are cleared and crews can gain access to the various areas. Rep. Edwards says that more than 360 power substations, which provide power across Western North Carolina, were submerged in the flooding. Duke Energy hasn’t even been able to get in and assess the damage to the substations because the water hasn’t fully receded yet and the roads are blocked or destroyed.
Edwards says the belief is that all the substations will have to be completely replaced. They cannot be repaired after being submerged under so much water and covered in mud. Replacing them will require spare parts like voltage transformers, current transformers, and isolators. Which are in Ukraine right now:
Last week we provided through @USAID 50 voltage transformers, 9 current transformers, & 80 isolators to Kharkiv’s energy distribution system operator to help energy workers undertake urgent repairs to Kharkiv’s electrical grid damaged by Russia’s missile and drone attacks. pic.twitter.com/C8VmGLuliD
— Ambassador Bridget A. Brink (@USAmbKyiv) May 21, 2024
Jesse D. Jenkins is an assistant professor and macro-energy systems engineering and policy expert at Princeton University. He notes that America doesn’t have 360 substations worth of replacement equipment sitting around to begin with. The country is also going through supply chain shortages and electric companies are facing long wait times and high prices to get replacement equipment. Another part of the problem is that tech companies have been gobbling up electrical equipment to power their AI systems, which further exacerbates things.
The example from June isn’t the only time this year that the Biden-Harris regime shipped electrical equipment to Ukraine. They delivered a shipment of transformers to Ukrzaliznytsia back in February. They sent another 42 voltage transformers to Mykolayiv in August. We keep restoring the power grid in Ukraine just so Putin’s troops can knock it out again with a $30 drone from Best Buy.
It’s infuriating. Even if we had the replacement supplies on hand, crews may not have been able to restore power in affected areas for another month or two. Since Ukraine is reaping the benefits of all our emergency electrical supplies, it will now take many months for the grid to be repaired. The power will be out until sometime next year in the affected communities.
Meanwhile, the 82nd Airborne is sitting around in Fort Bragg. The troops are waiting to be deployed to help Israel fight Iran, instead of being sent in to help Americans. The American people deserve better treatment from our government than this. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris care more about foreign countries than they do about our own nation. If you want four more years of this, you know exactly who to vote for in November.
If you want competent leadership that can get the power back on and take care of our people, we need a change in the White House (and we don’t mean Kamala).
