Officials investigating why 187-ton windmill collapsed in Fenner

[thundley4]

Two men look at the damage done to a windmill on Buyea Road in Fenner today, after it had toppled in the middle of the night. No one was injured, and nothing other than the windmill itself was damaged.

Fenner, NY -- Marvin DeKing already was up and awake between 3 and 4 a.m. when he heard a loud bang.
"It sounded like thunder and lightning," said DeKing, of 5206 Buyea Road in this rural town five miles northeast of Cazenovia. But it wasn't until daylight that DeKing learned what had caused the noise: The 187 ton windmill across the road from his house had fallen over and lay sprawled in the cornfield in which it had stood.
The 200-foot-plus structure is one of 20 windmills that generate electricity at the Fenner Wind Farm operated by Enel North America.

*snip*
“I don’t think we have any idea what happened at this point,” company spokesman Hank Sennott said.
*snip*
“The winds certainly are going to be stronger higher up. I don’t know what it takes to knock one of them (windmills) down. Probably not 40 mph winds. That’s not a terribly unusual wind,” Nicosia said.

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These geniuses are putting these things up and they don't know how high of wind speed they will with stand?  WTF??

[LC EFA]

Sounds to me like some construction contractor is for a short drop here.

Those things have auto-feathering blades and are supposed to withstand a fairly high degree of abuse from the elements.

There's a couple of possibilities - one is that the auto feathering system didn't; and resulted in overspeed blades which took the tower out (there's some really cool footage on utube of that ).

The other option - the more likely option IMO is that the tiny little footing you can see wasn't nearly sufficient for the size of the tower and or the soil type where it was built.
 

[thundley4]

I've seen some of the videos of these things flying apart.  There's a windfarm being built not far from here, and I wondering how they fair under tornadic winds.

[longview]

Apparently if the brakes fail, they'll come apart.  Heard of one doing that in Medicine Bow, WY.  Tried to find a picture of it.  Didn't. But, did find this video of one coming apart in Denmark.  The crew knew it was malfunctioning and recorded it. 

http://www.videosift.com/video/Windmill-Destroyed-By-Wind

[Randy]

Sounds to me like some construction contractor is for a short drop here.

Those things have auto-feathering blades and are supposed to withstand a fairly high degree of abuse from the elements.

There's a couple of possibilities - one is that the auto feathering system didn't; and resulted in overspeed blades which took the tower out (there's some really cool footage on utube of that ).

The other option - the more likely option IMO is that the tiny little footing you can see wasn't nearly sufficient for the size of the tower and or the soil type where it was built.
 

I have to agree. If that's all the footing this thing had then it's no wonder it fell. As a matter of fact, I'm wondering how the hell they managed to get the thing built with that small of a pad.

[JohnnyReb]

Let me tell you what happened here....all the DUmmies turned off their electricity at a certain time to protest the evil power companies making money off of "FREE WIND" that belongs to "EVERYONE". Well, there was a reverse surge of electricity on the lines that caused the generator to then act as an electric motor and .......well....it just took off like an airplane and that's where it crashed. Now DUmmies want longer drop cords and electric airplanes so when we fly the wind generated by the airplane can be reconverted into more electricity........sheesh.....see how simple that is. .....and it all could be had for "FREE".....the DUmmies favorite word. 

[NHSparky]

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqEccgR0q-o[/youtube]

Yeah--wonder what the greenies would do if there was that kind of catastrophic failure at a nuke plant....