This is supposed to be the affected area. (from NBC10 News)
I'll bet that Gray Davis is giving a huge sigh of relief at this reprieve. At least all HE did was screw up the electricity for one state, not the entire eastern coast of two countries!
I just heard about this on NPR. Weird that it entirely missed Boston (crossing my fingers and knocking on wood).
For anyone on-line in affected areas, you might want to unplug sensitive electronic devices such as VCRs, TVs, and computers for when the power does come back on. There are likely to be some rather large power surges and spikes while it stabilizes.
lightning strike caused power failure
CNN just broadcast that it's been confirmed that a lightning strike in Canada cause the power failure.
---BumbleBeeBoogie
For anyone who likes to know the nitty gritty details of how things work...
Quote:How Power Grids Work
By Paul Recer Associated Press Writer
Published: Aug 14, 2003
WASHINGTON (AP) - Electricity generation stations throughout the United States are interconnected in a system called power grids.
This allows electricity generated in one state to be sent to users in another state. It also allows distant power generation stations to provide electricity for cities and towns whose power generators may have failed or been destroyed by some accident or sabotage.
In the U.S. electrical system, there are more than 6,000 power generating units energized with coal, oil, gas, falling water, wind or nuclear fission.
Power from these stations is moved around the country on almost a half-million miles of bulk transmission lines that carry high voltage charges of electricity.
The power transmission is directed by more than 100 control centers. Experts there can monitor the distribution of power and reroute electricity from areas of low demand to areas of high demand. Often there are automatic switches that direct the routing of power to where it is needed.
From the high voltage transmission lines, power goes to regional and neighborhood substations. There, the electricity is stepped down from high voltage to a current that be used in homes and offices.
High or unbalanced demands for power that develop suddenly can upset the smooth distribution of electricity in a grid. In some cases, this can cause a blackout in one section of a grid, or even ripple throughout the whole grid, sequentially shutting down one section after another.
Once large sections of a grid are shut down, it may be difficult or impossible to restore power from neighboring grids. In periods of high demand, such as summer, often those nearby grids also are under stress and may not have spare power.
When power is restored, it can cause a sudden surge in demand that the system may not be able to accommodate. When electric motors, transformers and other electrical devices are all energized at once, it can draw many times the normal load and can trip a secondary shutdown.
For this reason, engineers restore power after a massive blackout in stages, one section after another, so there is no sudden, overwhelming demand.
---
On the Net:
Power grid:
www.howstuffworks.com/power.htm
AP-ES-08-14-03 1842EDT
Power Outages Hit N.E. United States, Canada
Reuters
Thursday, August 14, 2003; 7:35 PM
By Ellen Wulfhorst
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A lightning strike caused massive power outages in New York and other cities across the northeastern United States and Canada on Thursday, trapping thousands in crowded subways and forcing millions of evacuated office workers onto the streets.
Amid initial fears that New York could once more be the target of a terror attack, officials said a power grid failure caused by lightning was the cause of outages that spread as far as Detroit, Cleveland, Toronto and Ottawa.
"Initial reports indicate that this is a power system failure not related to terrorism," said Homeland Security spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.
"We have no indication that there is any terrorism involved," said Bryan Lee, a spokesman for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Washington.
First investigations of the outage pointed to a failure somewhere on the high voltage transmission lines connecting the United States and Canada, power grid operators said.
The Canadian prime minister's office said lightning at a power plant at Niagara, New York state, had caused the blackout.
In Canada, as many as 10 million people were affected by the cuts, which brought most of southern Ontario to a halt, officials said.
Air traffic into New York's three major airports was affected, and thousands of office workers crowded onto the streets in heat of more than 90 F (33 C), facing a long walk home as buses and trains came to a halt and the streets became gridlocked as traffic signals failed to function.
Thousands more were trapped underground in the dark when rush hour subway trains stopped in their tunnels after the power went out shortly after 4 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT).
Cellular phone services were disrupted as anxious New Yorkers clogged the network with calls.
"Right now the power outage is affecting all of our operations, We have no buses, no trains, no subways running. The airports have their perimeters secured ...," a spokesman for the New York Port Authority said.
Nine nuclear reactors in four U.S. states were shut down following the outage, officials said.
POWER STARTS TO RESUME
New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, later told a news conference that power was starting to be restored. He appealed to people to turn off electrical appliances to ease the load on the grid.
"Power is starting to come back from the various facilities," Bloomberg said.
"And with a lot of luck, later on this evening we will look back on this and say, "Where were you when the lights went out?" but nobody will have gotten hurt."
He added: "I would expect everything to be back to business tomorrow."
Late trading on U.S. financial markets was hit by the outages, with dealing rooms shut down across the region.
In New York, Citibank and J.P Morgan Chase and Co said their automatic teller machine networks had been shut down in areas affected by the blackout.
The outage struck nerves among New Yorkers, whose memories of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, still run strong, and people could be seen running through the streets of the city's downtown financial district.
"Scared," said Jeffrey Snop, of Queens, at the Times Square subway station. "It reminded me of 9/11 and stuff like that."
"Everybody just flipped out," said nurse Mary Horan, stranded, with hordes of others, outside Grand Central Station. "Suddenly you start thinking about 9/11."
Jessica Nottes said she was on top of the Empire State Building when the power went out.
"We had to walk down 86 flights of stairs," she said. "I kept thinking about the Twin Towers and how I would get down. but everybody was calm."
Officials said workers should go home if they could or try to stay with friends if they lived too far out of the city.
TORONTO HIT
In Toronto, Canada's largest city, the transit system ground to a halt and thousands were stranded as temperatures hit 86 F (30 C) and transit authorities shut the doors into
subway stations to prevent overcrowding.
"There's no power but they're safe," said a transit official.
Both the Toronto Stock Exchange, the country's main bourse, and Pearson International Airport were operating on back-up power supplies.
Power was still on in Montreal, Quebec City and most of Quebec. A spokesman for Montreal's Dorval airport said all flights to blackout cities have been canceled, including Toronto.
In Detroit, headquarters to the largest U.S. automakers, many workers decided to go home after the lights went out, creating traffic gridlock in the city. General Motors said several of its auto plants were closed by the power outages.
Similar outages have struck the U.S. Northeast in the past.
In 1965, the U.S. Northeast and Canada were plunged into blackness at the peak of evening rush hour, leaving 30 million customers in the dark for over 12 hours. In 1977, a substation serving New York City and Long Island suddenly failed, blacking out millions.
Full Legal Notice
© 2003 Reuters
If this blackout is created by natural causes and California's problems by politics, Davis is left pretty much where he was found.
My son and his friends just drove to Detroit today for a concert. I can't get ahold of them and I'm a little worried.
At least they're together, Swimpy, and not relying on public transportation. Maybe they'll turn around and come home? (she says, hopefully)
Swimpy
Swimpy, this is probably another case of no news is good news. If they were in any kind of trouble, you would hear from the authorities. Let us know when you hear from them so we know they are ok and you are ok.
---BumbleBeeBoogie
He did leave the following message: "We're not dead or anything. We just don't know if the place we are going to has any power."
I just talked to my neice in Columbus, OH. She said they have power but some places around Cincinatti, which is futher south, don't. Weird.
I felt the same way about focusing on NY, very little mention of the other states affected and Canada.
What a horrible thing to happen on a hot summer's day!
And yes, isn't it nice to know we all got cell phones for emergencies? Very few people had service on their cells!
What a cod!
Misti26 wrote:What a cod!
Misti? I get the gist, but I've never heard that before... is that Dublin talk?
This blackout is odd -- no one seems to know what happened. Not lightning, wasn't a fire, wasn't this or that, so (according to talking head former Energy Sec'y Richardson) it can only be too much stress on a failing system. THAT's not very comforting.
Glad your son called ya, Swimpy!
I thought it was lightning...?
Swimpy, glad your son called.
Swimpy, I love your son's message, we're not dead or anything....nice and dry. He'll be fine, your boy.
When I lived in NYC as a child many years ago, air conditioning...I don't remember it. Perhaps in movie theaters. I remember sweating in our apartment when it was 100...(I remember it in CA recently too, we didn't have ac in our house in LA, but then it wasn't humid) .... I do remember having to go to the movies to be cool a few years later, in Chicago.
but I was nine then, and healthy. Now we have all these buildings airconditioned, and many have non opening windows. To some extent I fault architectural design, or the program for it from the owners, for not having windows being openable. Money is the reason, I suppose, but still, it would be nice to have the ability to modulate air (as in shut off AC) via regular means in times of near overload...in my opinion.
Swimpy, so glad you heard from your son, and I hope he turns around and goes home rather than keep moving toward his destination to find there's no power and so many crowds that having a car doesn't do much good.
"what a cod" is Dublin talk, I should have explained that:)
As to what caused the outage, Ted Koppel was speaking to someone today (can't remember his name). Ted asked him if he thought the powers that be think it may be a terrorist attack, he simply responded "they don't know yet"!
I tend to agree with him, they simply don't know, and it wouldn't surprise me at all!
He called again to say that they did indeed arrive at their desitnation only to find the concert cancelled. They took pictures of each other under the marquee that said "Postponed." These guys are easily entertained.
The hotel they palnned to stay at has no power so they may just head to Chicago, where they do have power.
The last I heard, the theory was a lightning strike at a power plant near Niagra Falls. I don't think it's been confirmed.
Sooo, let's see...nine months...that would put it about the time of Mother's Day next year. I predict a rather large population boom of newborns on the East Coast next year. Let's remember that date and see if history repeats itself again.
