Massive power outage hits San Diego

latimes.com/ ^ | 9/8/11 | latimesblogs

[dragnet2]

A large swath of San Diego County was without power Thursday afternoon as officials investigated the cause of the outage.

[cva66snipe]

I see what you were getting at now and you’re right about the load from those cell towers. Most are going to still be active, at least for a little while, and there’s a good chance that a heavy cell usage spike would crash the system. There’s a reason most of us Bell guys have land lines in addition to our cells and it has nothing to do with company loyalty. ;)

My dad put in 45 years with Ma Bell. I've been in the old mechanical switching offices when a major calamity hit and I've seen the power rooms also :>} Ma Bell can run their C.O.'s for weeks. Their power plants were designed to handle the older mechanical systems which was a far greater load.

But you also got to consider outside the main building digital capabilities would be lost including S.L.I.C.K. capabilities. That would somewhat limit available lines per area the SLICK serves.

I use cordless phones but the base is on my computer APU. You could not pay me too have Cable TV phone service. LOL. I even have a couple trusty old Western Electric phones near by if all else fails.

Right now i have two land lines one for me one for puter and 4 cells in my name for family members. The cells are my back up phones if the land line fails and vice versa. When the SLICK dies in my area {at least twice a year now} it's cell phones for a day or so.

If I'm out and see a wreck I don't even attempt to call 911 anymore. So many persons have cells the chances are within a minute of a wreck on an interstate 50 or more persons will call 911 for that one wreck. Pappy used to service 911 also after he went back outside. I was his unofical co-worker on late night call outs to bad parts of town. He mainly worked on data circuits.

[Revel]

“I listen to C2Cam, too.. Very informative on EMP’s.. Steven Quayle is a wealth of information.. http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2011/09/05";

Did you read about the giant aliens too?

Can’t say much...He likes to threaten those that do.

[USMCWife6869]

Thanks for the update. It’s interesting.

[toldyou]

“No sympathy for the state that re-elected Pelosi.”

Thanks! My daughter just moved there...has not voted, and you think you have a right to judge the entire state?

Bad karma...

[Revel]

Hey everyone, the Stock futures are loving this. Many California businesses shut down. We should have these more often.

http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks/futures/

[nutmeg]

I just check the current at 5:45 temp in Indio. 111o you don't have even a little sympathy for them?

Yes, of course I do... I don't want anyone to suffer. A fellow Connecticut FReeper and I were just making a little "joke". Many of us in the northeast had no electricity nor running water for several days... some well over a week recently because of "Hurricane" (actually Tropical Storm) Irene.

I hope the power is restored ASAP to the people of the southwest - including Indio - very soon.

[Califreak]

The Trigger Effect

[Avalon Hussar]

My dad put in 45 years with Ma Bell. I've been in the old mechanical switching offices when a major calamity hit and I've seen the power rooms also :>} Ma Bell can run their C.O.'s for weeks. Their power plants were designed to handle the older mechanical systems which was a far greater load. But you also got to consider outside the main building digital capabilities would be lost including S.L.I.C.K. capabilities. That would somewhat limit available lines per area the SLICK serves. I use cordless phones but the base is on my computer APU. You could not pay me too have Cable TV phone service. LOL. I even have a couple trusty old Western Electric phones near by if all else fails. Right now i have two land lines one for me one for puter and 4 cells in my name for family members. The cells are my back up phones if the land line fails and vice versa. When the SLICK dies in my area {at least twice a year now} it's cell phones for a day or so. If I'm out and see a wreck I don't even attempt to call 911 anymore. So many persons have cells the chances are within a minute of a wreck on an interstate 50 or more persons will call 911 for that one wreck. Pappy used to service 911 also after he went back outside. I was his unofical co-worker on late night call outs to bad parts of town. He mainly worked on data circuits.

The old days of massive battery rooms are gone. I was in the battery room of one of the Richmond, VA Central Offices about 8 or 9 years ago and they've removed about 90% of the batteries. Even with the newer SLC based switches, they only have enough back-up battery power to keep the main lines open and operational for about 7 days. The remote Pair Gain and other types of cross connect boxes usually only have about 24 hours worth of batteries. The reason behind all of this? Before 1984, Ma Bell was considered to be a part of the national defense network and we had requirements for sustaining operations under massive system failure conditions. After divestiture, that all went out the window. If most people knew the truth about how the telecommunications industry is ran now and how it used to be ran, heads would roll and not just at the phone company. Given how long you're dad was with Bell, I'd say that you've heard about the differences almost as much as I have (I'm a second generation phone guy, dad retired with 34 years under Ma Bell). Hang onto those old Western Electric sets, they're worth their weight in gold. I've got one in the attic just in case I lose the slim line to a lightning hit but that's about the only way it will come out of retirement. I don't know if you know about this site or not, but there's some great info on Ma Bell here.

[Brad’s Gramma]

LOL!!!! Awesome!!!

[MestaMachine]

Yes, I know. Funny that.

[Strategerist]

I listen to C2Cam, too.. Very informative on EMP’s.. Steven Quayle is a wealth of information

Wealth of worthless, imbecilic information, that is.

I mean, there's more actual scientific information from actual scientists that isn't nonsense than you could read in 100,000 lifetimes.

You can go to a local college library and read scientific journals (and some free online.) If that's over your head you can read Scientific American, or even go to Wikipedia (which is mostly good and surprising pretty accurate for any non-politicized topic.)

So why do people turn to clueless nitwits like Quayle for scientific information?

[GeronL]

Texas spent billions on wind projects. We were always on the verge of blackouts this summer because of it. Wind didn’t blow when its really hot. Supposedly it makes up 10% of our power capacity but it does squat when its most needed.

We could have spent half as much and gotten reliable power that use natural gas. Think about that when blackouts hit you.

[justa-hairyape]

Union worker ?

[AliVeritas]

As you know, there is a specific, credible but not proven threat in NYC... of course there happens to be an operation going on as well. Truthers, white courtesy phone. /s

Went out around Obie speech time.

[little jeremiah]

From TB2 thread about this;

All scanners down, except for one amateur band and San Bernardino air space:

http://www.radioreference.com/apps/audio/?ctid=219

Hotmail is down. Reports from lots of folks. Doesn’t work for me here in LA.

http://tweetgrid.com/grid?l=1

per live feed Main transmission line that initially went down is back up between AZ and CA

(lj’s note: When I click the link below, I don’t see the above, but the link has links for breaking news)

http://www.cbs8.com/story/12522732/cbs-8-live-stream-player?redirected=true

[hadaclueonce]

If it does I owe you a dollar.

[no-to-illegals]

Observed ... Someone has asked if someone(s) were going to move something across the border tonight, tonight would be opportune time. Should be drones in the air and equipment to measure underground movements ... imho

[handmade]

When it is day 21 and no power then I will get more sympathetic—preferrably in January when where I live it is cold anyway.

[justa-hairyape]

One report stated that most of the 2 million would be without power for the night. Power is being restored, but it will take some time. Gonna be a rocky night in some neighborhoods down there. We are fine a little up north in the IE. At least for now, but I am predicting Mad Max around here by next summer :>

[hadaclueonce]

Texas is paying 5 billion dollars to build transmission lines from T bone pickens promised wind mills to load areas.

T bone lied, people will die.