Crosshair
Member
I remember the 1997 Flood in the Red River Valley. A region of 100,000+ people and EVERYONE suddenly needed an electrician. Thank God there was no laws or grumbling about "Gouging".
Prices for Electricians and electrical supplies shot up through the roof. Businesses were the first in line who paid those prices. Bawl your eyes out about the poor single mom whose apartment is dark all you want. Her apartment having lights and AC doesn't do her any good if her employer is still dark.
With these sky high prices for electricians, we had people all the way from Idaho to Nebraska packing as many electrical supplies as they could into their vehicles and drove to the region. Suddenly we had 5 times as many electricians as before the flood. Sure, prices were still several times higher than before, but they were MUCH lower than before they all showed up.
On top of this, these high prices encouraged people to conserve electrician labor. Any 12 year old can replace Romex in an existing building that is stripped to the studs. That's exactly what people did. Noted what went where, stripped out the old Romex, ran new stuff, THEN had the electrician come and simply wire it all up. Many people wired up anything outside the breaker box themselves, had it inspected, then let the electrician wire up the breaker box. Instead of the breaker box and basement taking almost a week to get done, a good electrician could get a house or two a day done. (Depending on how much had been done for them beforehand.)
Instead of taking years to get electricity restored with the local supply of electricians, pretty much everyone had electricity back within a couple months. My family was without for about 6 weeks.
Prices for Electricians and electrical supplies shot up through the roof. Businesses were the first in line who paid those prices. Bawl your eyes out about the poor single mom whose apartment is dark all you want. Her apartment having lights and AC doesn't do her any good if her employer is still dark.
With these sky high prices for electricians, we had people all the way from Idaho to Nebraska packing as many electrical supplies as they could into their vehicles and drove to the region. Suddenly we had 5 times as many electricians as before the flood. Sure, prices were still several times higher than before, but they were MUCH lower than before they all showed up.
On top of this, these high prices encouraged people to conserve electrician labor. Any 12 year old can replace Romex in an existing building that is stripped to the studs. That's exactly what people did. Noted what went where, stripped out the old Romex, ran new stuff, THEN had the electrician come and simply wire it all up. Many people wired up anything outside the breaker box themselves, had it inspected, then let the electrician wire up the breaker box. Instead of the breaker box and basement taking almost a week to get done, a good electrician could get a house or two a day done. (Depending on how much had been done for them beforehand.)
Instead of taking years to get electricity restored with the local supply of electricians, pretty much everyone had electricity back within a couple months. My family was without for about 6 weeks.
