VOA慢速英语:Power Still Out For Many in New York City

Hundreds of thousands of people were without electricity last week in the northeastern United States. They lost power when Superstorm Sandy hit the area in late October. Last week, another storm brought more high winds and dropped snow on the already troubled New York City area.
上周，美国东北部的数万人没有电力供应。十月底飓风桑迪来袭，导致电力中断。上周，另一股风暴风力更大，天降大雪，使饱受打击的纽约地区更加艰难。

Officials are blaming Sandy for more than one hundred deaths and more than fifty billion dollars in property damage. The storm left about eight million people without power for days. This included nearly five million people in New York State and New Jersey.
官方称桑迪导致100多人丧生，并造成500亿美元以上的财产损失。还有800万人几天内没有电力供应，其中包括纽约州和新泽西的近500万居民。

Sandy flooded parts of New York City’s subway system and affected other transportation. It delayed movement of trucks carrying fuel to gasoline stations, resulting in long lines at gas pumps.
桑迪蔓延到纽约市的部分地铁系统，还影响了另一个交通系统。导致向加油站运输燃料的卡车无法行驶，加油泵前排起了长队。

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo spoke about the problems at a press conference last week.
纽约州长安德鲁•库奥默在上周的新闻发布会上谈到这些问题。

“Many of the gas stations, especially in Nassau, there’s gasoline in the tank in the ground but there’s no power to run the pump. And that’s been the problem.”
“很多加油站，尤其在拿索，油箱里有汽油，但没有电力来运转泵，这就是问题。”

Governor Cuomo said Superstorm Sandy has exposed problems with New York’s infrastructure.
州长库奥默说，超级飓风桑迪凸显了纽约基础设施的问题。

“These systems are the circulatory systems of the region. And you stop the circulatory system, and you paralyze the region.”
“这是该地区的循环系统，如果停止了这个系统，整个地区就瘫痪了。”

He said the failure of the city’s public utility system is of real concern.
他说，该市公共设施系统的问题才是最令人担忧的。

“The utility system we have was designed at a different time for a different place. I believe the system is archaic and is obsolete in many ways.”
“设施系统是在过去为别的地方设计的，我认为在很多方面这个系统已经太老过时了。”

The storm has led to calls for power companies to bury more electrical lines underground. But, at least one expert says similar efforts did not help New York. Otto Lynch is vice president of Power Line Systems in Wisconsin.
飓风还让人们呼吁电力公司将更多电线掩埋地下，但至少一位专家称，类似的举措不会对纽约起到作用。Otto Lynch是威斯康星洲电线系统副总裁。

“The reason many people in New York are out of power is because it was underground and when the water came onshore, water and electricity don’t mix. And they’ve got problems and it takes forever to find the problems. And when you do find the problems, it’s not just a quick fix. You have to dig. You have to work. Out of sight, out of mind is great until there’s a problem.”
“纽约很多人用不上电的原因是，电力是在地下的，当水上岸时，水和电是不相干的。现在两者都出了问题，需要进一步找到问题。一旦找到问题，就不是可以快速解决的。必须挖掘，必须做事。眼不见心不烦，但直到问题出现才意识到。”

Otto Lynch says a bigger national problem has to do with electrical distribution poles. He says the current poles do not have to meet industry weather requirements. And he says the ones in New York did not.
Otto Lynch说全国面临的更大问题是电力配线柱，他说，现有的配线柱不符合工业天气的要求，他说纽约的就不符合。

“The structures aren’t designed for the ninety-mile per hour winds that occurred and there were a lot of distribution failures.”
“这些构架不是为应对刚发生的每小时90英里的风力设计的，配送方面存在很多问题。”

Mr. Lynch is a member of the America’s Infrastructure Committee at the American Society of Civil Engineers. The group produced its last report on the nation’s infrastructure in two thousand nine.
Lynch是美国土木工程师学会的美国的基础设施委员会成员，该组织2009年就全国基础设施发表报告。

“The two thousand nine grade for energy was a D+. That’s actually better than most of the rest of the infrastructure. The average grade for all of America’s infrastructure was a D.”
“2009年的能源级别是D+，比大多数其他设施要好。美国基础设施的平均分是D。”