Massive power outage hits San Diego

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

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Here’s another reason California sucks: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/politics/Bay-Area-to-Host-911-Conspiracy-Movie-Festival-129494038.html

[ponygirl]

LOL... I think that was a SmartPhone post.

[BAW]

I am grateful this morning.

As a resident of San Diego County, the power outage prevented me from watching our president deliver yet another speech. Instead, I was given the gift of sitting outside, watching the stars, and talking with my husband.

[JoyjoyfromNJ]

Followed this for a few hours last night here on FR. To best of my knowledge not one word on the media here, just info on the floods in PA. Appreciated Navy Vet’s comments about leadership & being prepared.

[roaddog727]

Zero’s fault

[Ktulu]

thats right we can play that game too

[roaddog727]

we certainly can. However, in our case, it’s true.

It IS ZERO’s Fault.

[American Quilter]

Thanks for the entertaining and informative post, Navy Vet.

[dragnet2]

Last time I was in Utah, I nearly froze to death, high frigged winds, sleet, brown snow, roads covered in ice... just butt ugly...

And why I live in California.

Enjoy your fast approaching bone chilling winter!

[A Navy Vet]

"It's always useful to have a sacrifice to feed to the predators."

LMAO! The sad thing is that my neighbor-in-arms and I even discussed that if the outage went into North OC (third-world ghetto area) and lasted longer, we would put up a make shift sign pointing out the gun-hating liberal's house and that this house is armed and ready, as we sat there with our bad bad weapons. We were actually looking for white cardboard to make a sign with an arrow pointing to his house.

We were mostly joking. But then, we didn't know how far the outage would reach. Not very nice, but then survival.

The affluent Orange County Housewives (as in stupid TV shows) and their effeminate husbands don't realize how close we are to the bad guys and how quickly they would start looking for new territory to invade once they looted their own. We stood watch until the power came on about 2:00am.

Note to self: Get generator. Gasoline, propane, and diesel powered. Yeah, I'm late on that one.

BTW, the most pathetic example of the neighbors is when they kept coming around the fortified garage to hear our hand-crank radio, even as late as midnight. I simply told them go back to your car and turn the damn key on and dial in AM radio. Other than one I could see across the street, no one even thought of that. Pitiful. These people vote.

Also, before dark, I quickly drove down to the local liquor store to buy ice (got the last bag) and I think they were gouging under the new Indian ownership. I will look into that. If so, I will give them a shit storm they never thought possible. Anyway, "interesting times", old FR activist. Good to see you're still around.

[blkmontecarlo]

Thank you everyone for keeping us in San Diego and other parts informed of the power outage. I only had my phone for info and FR was the only place where I could get the latest news. Again Thanks.

[A Navy Vet]

Thank you. It was a small learning experience. When a large earthquake eventually hits us, I now know who will have my six.

[Interesting Times]

Also, before dark, I quickly drove down to the local liquor store to buy ice (got the last bag) and I think they were gouging under the new Indian ownership. I will look into that. If so, I will give them a shit storm they never thought possible.

Nah... "gouging" is just a leftist term for the normal adjustment of supply and demand that happens during a crisis. In a free market, stuff is worth whatever the buyer and seller agree on.

Anyway, "interesting times", old FR activist. Good to see you're still around.

You too, ANV...

[A Navy Vet]

"Thanks for the entertaining and informative post, Navy Vet."

You're welcome. My prepared neighbor and I were laughing our ass off with all the other neighbors wandering around in circles in the street. No, it wasn't actually funny being in the 100's and possibly reaching towards the North (ghetto) area and those repercussions, but I'm simply astounded that this neighborhood is so unprepared. And get this: There are signs posted every where, "Neighborhood Watch". Pfft!

Last thought, as I walked out of the store with the last bag of ice, I heard a guy whining to the clerk what is he suppose to do without water? Well, first, the water system didn't shut down due to back up generators (dumb shit). But secondly, why do so few people not realize they have about 50 gallons of potable (drinkable) water in their hot water heaters? They have a spigot right there at the bottom.

Last last thought: When night set in, they thought it was the end of the world and the whining continued. Really? I reminded them of the devastating hurricane and tornado seasons so many have to endure, not to mention that some 1400 homes have been lost to the Texas wildfires. And they are trying to find enough candles? No wonder California in is such a mess. Personally, I would have like to seen this hit Los Angeles and watch the welfare class loot and get shot by the Koreans. Bad me.

[hadaclueonce]

T Bone plays both sides. Ask the folks at OSU about his donation. He donated his stock in his company.

OPPS! It went down!

[Brad’s Gramma]

I have a friend in Mission Viejo who lost his electricity THIS MORNING! Any new news?

Dude’s out looking for temporary..cool.

[meyer]

I don’t have complete or exact information so I can only form an opinion here based on the little information that is available. Since NERC and FERC are both looking into this, I don’t expect much information to be made public for a little while.

Yesterday afternoon, APS operators were alerted to troubles with a series line capacitor at North Gila substation. They sent substation personnel to switch the capacitor off line. Normally, this can be done easily through switches and circuit breakers placed in a way that allows them to bypass the bad equipment and isolate it from service without interrupting the power flow.

Something went wrong in this particular switching procedure, though we don’t know if it was human error or an equipment malfunction. At any rate, automatic fault sensing circuits tripped the 500 kV circuit on which this capacitor was connected out of service.

Normally, the power grid offers many parallel paths, and is designed and operated so that the loss of any single piece of equipment will not cause cascading outages on the transmission system. It appears that in this situation, that may not have been the case.

At 3:27 PM, the 500 kV line on which the misoperating capacitor was located tripped off line. Initially, everything seemed to be OK - other parallel power lines picked up the slack and continued to supply power to customers. However, by 3:38 PM, customers in Yuma, Arizona began to lose power. The outage apparently cascaded westward into southern California. Like APS in Arizona, those utilities also relied on a combination of local generation and a number of parallel paths into their respective systems.

Until we get more hard facts, I don’t think it’s possible to determine causation. I’m betting that when a good timeline is developed, we will see a number of contributing factors that played a role from the initial event in Arizona to possibly inadequate reaction to the situation, to a lack of preparedness for contingencies such as this, to competing planned equipment outages on the same day, to such things as improper tree trimming and maintenance.

It will all come out, but for now, it’s good that things are getting back to normal (or as normal as a big city in Southern California can be). I’ll keep my eyes open for more information - I have about 6 or 7 different articles plus some other scant information. It doesn’t seem like a lot of information is getting out yet at this time. With NERC & FERC involved, NOBODY will want to admit fault.