Massive Power Outage

Suicide Junkie · #1 August 15th, 2003, 02:48 AM

Hey! I'm finally back!
How did you guys all fare?

Atrocities · #2 August 15th, 2003, 03:12 AM

Got to love New York!

parabolize · #3 August 15th, 2003, 03:45 AM

what caused it?

Baron Munchausen · #4 August 15th, 2003, 04:13 AM

The word on CNN and Foxnews (yes, I follow both because even the one that has trademarked 'Fair & Balanced' -- isn't...

) is that a power station in the Niagara Falls area was hit by lightning. This naturally caused a few circuit-breakers to trip, and then the inevitable cascade occurred where the increased demand from the suddenly dark power grid caused an adjacent power system to also trip its breakers, and then even more demand from the larger dark grid caused another adjacent grid to trip its breakers, and... you know how it goes.

This propogated all the way to the coast blacking out at least 80 percent of New York State and NYC itself, and all the way to the end of Lake Erie and blacked out Detroit (taking Cleveland and Toledo out also), and crossed the Niagara River and blacked out large areas of Ontario, including Toronto. Large chunks of adjacent New England states are down, such as Connecticut. Several nuclear power plants were sent into emergency shutdown, and it is going to take a while to restart those. This is apparently the largest power failure ever to occur in North America.

Michigan Public Radio is reporting that the local power people claim it will take ALL WEEKEND to completely restore power in Detroit and surrounds. Wow... Apparently they have to start with lower loads (rural stuff) and build up. So why is NYC on track to be back up in 'hours' not days? Hmm...

[ August 15, 2003, 04:04: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Katchoo · #5 August 15th, 2003, 04:41 AM

Power in my corner of Ottawa came back Online around 10pm EST.

Television service is still down right now and probably won't be up till morning.

I'd like to think I made the best of the situation. I went out and tossed a football around with some of the neighboors until it got too dark, and then took a walk around the surrounding blocks to see what was happening (or not happening).

Dang.. Apparently the people living across from our townhouse left food on the stove when the power went off and left the house. When the power came back on, so did the stove. The Fire Department is outside now. Damn, whatever was burning sure smells horrible

The fire is out now though. That'll be a nice surprise for those people when they get home

Arkcon · #6 August 15th, 2003, 04:43 AM

hmmmmmmmmmm

HMMMMMMMMMM

MMMMMMM

Ah. Powered up again. Hmm, feels good.

Oh, I just had to post, we have power again. I'm not gonna abuse this, so I just logged on it see what caused it. Google News and Reuters are still down. But I knew our groop would have a "fair and balanced" answer. Thanks, Baron

Narrew · #7 August 15th, 2003, 05:32 AM

your funny Baron, I know your dissing Fox because of their "Fair and Balanced" comment, but GOD if your watching CNN (whos slogan should be the Communist News Network for their one sided view).

I guess after all these years in the US, the liberal media has had a strangle hold on its viewers, I guess I can (kind of) see where a company like Fox trying to be fair and balanced will seem to be extreme in liberals eyes.

Me, I just say its about damn time some company went against the norm and do what FOX News is doing.

Now saying that, I can't believe that the black out is getting this much damn air time. Do they think the world revolves around N.Y.? AND FOX News pre-empted Brit Hume, thats the show I like to watch, they had Gibson balbbing on and on (ohh he is a dip by the way).

oh, hope I didn't derail this thread AND finally I just went over 200 Posts weee

General Woundwort · #8 August 15th, 2003, 10:45 AM

Same down here in Babylon-on-the-Potomac, Narrew. The local news radio station was broadcasting the national news' every-10-minute update on the power outage (yep, it's still out...) and every half hour it was "how the outage is affecting DC" (unless you wanted to travel to the blacked-out areas by plane or train, not at all).

Makes you wonder, though, at the fragility of this technological support net we've built for ourselves...

Thermodyne · #9 August 15th, 2003, 03:58 PM

Looks like the lightning strike was ***-covering, there is news about a transmission failure in Canada starting to see the light of day. The sudden voltage drop causes a cascading disconnect-shutdown event that was designed to protect the generators from burnout like occurred in the 60�s. But it also requires a manual reset that requires trained man power on site. These men have been, for the most part, victims of deregulation and profit maximizing. There is a message in all of this. The system put in place decades ago to protect the generating plants from suffering burnouts during a sudden voltage drop are no longer usable. Deregulation of the power industry has allowed them to lay off the people needed to service this system in an event like this. They simply do not have the manpower to go out and reconfigure the switches. Storm damage during the Last few years has uncovered the shortcomings of pooled-contract line crews, perhaps now the government will decide that the power industry is not capable of policing itself, and guaranteeing an up-to-date, reliable power system.

Baron Munchausen · #10 August 15th, 2003, 04:14 PM

There are multiple explanations surfacing now, which is no surprise. Everyone will try to blame everyone else until the proof can be found to nail down the cause.

Narrew:

You're pretty funny too, thinking that any of the news channels are any more or less unreliable than any of the others. But to trademark the phrase 'Fair & Balanced' is a whole new level of sleaziness.

[ August 15, 2003, 15:15: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]