93 Year Old Man Freezes To Death Inside His Home

First off, I am sure many of you know my feelings on decommissioning Vermont Yankee - It would be all well and good to do so, if we had a replacement power of equal cost, but we don't - Wind Power is most likely the way to go that would keep the most people happy, but that will take some time - An increase in Electrical Costs will effect Maryann and I considerably as we do not shut off lights when we leave the room as when we enter and leave, we need to see where we are going, as well as when we get up in the night. Our electricity runs between $150 & $300 a month, depending on the time of year. Increased electrical rates will effect us heavily, expecially on a retirement pension - Anyhow, that is all I am going to say on that topic, as I don't wish to discourage or debate with individuals that have different opinions than my own, but interestingly enough, I ran across the following article and it brought to mind that increased electrical rates brought about by the decommissioning of Vermont Yankee could make similar situations like the one below happen right here in Vermont:

BAY CITY, Mich. - A 93-year-old man froze to death inside his home just days after the municipal power company restricted his use of electricity because of unpaid bills, officials said.

Marvin E. Schur died "a slow, painful death," said Kanu Virani, Oakland County's deputy chief medical examiner, who performed the autopsy.

Neighbors discovered Schur's body on Jan. 17. They said the indoor temperature was below 32 degrees at the time, The Bay City Times reported Monday.

"Hypothermia shuts the whole system down, slowly," Virani said. "It's not easy to die from hypothermia without first realizing your fingers and toes feel like they're burning."

'Limiter' device installed
Schur owed Bay City Electric Light & Power more than $1,000 in unpaid electric bills, Bay City Manager Robert Belleman told The Associated Press on Monday.

A city utility worker had installed a "limiter" device to restrict the use of electricity at Schur's home on Jan. 13, said Belleman. The device limits power reaching a home and blows out like a fuse if consumption rises past a set level. Power is not restored until the device is reset.

The limiter was tripped sometime between the time of installation and the discovery of Schur's body, Belleman said. He didn't know if anyone had made personal contact with Schur to explain how the device works.

The body was discovered by neighbor George Pauwels Jr.

"His furnace was not running, the insides of his windows were full of ice the morning we found him," Pauwels told the Bay City News.

Power shut off if bills unpaid
Belleman said city workers keep the limiter on houses for 10 days, then shut off power entirely if the homeowner hasn't paid utility bills or arranged to do so.

He said Bay City Electric Light & Power's policies will be reviewed, but he didn't believe the city did anything wrong.

"I've said this before and some of my colleagues have said this: Neighbors need to keep an eye on neighbors," Belleman said. "When they think there's something wrong, they should contact the appropriate agency or city department."

Schur had no children and his wife had died several years ago.

Bay City is on Saginaw Bay, just north of the city of Saginaw in central Michigan.