Posted on 08/15/2016 9:04:51 AM PDT by bananaman22
Delta Airlines recently experienced what it called a power outage in its home base of Atlanta, Georgia, causing all the company’s computers to go offline—all of them. This seemingly minor hiccup managed to singlehandedly ground all Delta planes for six hours, stranding passengers for even longer, as Delta scrambled to reshuffle passengers after the Monday debacle.
Where Delta blamed its catastrophic systems-wide computer failure vaguely on a loss of power, Georgia Power, their power provider, placed the ball squarely in Delta’s court, saying that “other Georgia Power customers were not affected”, and that they had staff on site to assist Delta.
Whether it was a true power outage, or an outage unique to Delta is fairly insignificant. The incident was a single company without power for six measly hours, yet it wreaked much havoc. Which brings to mind (or at least it should) what happens when the lights really go out—everywhere? And just how dependent is the U.S. on single-source power?
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The word I heard locally is that they had a ton of servers plugged into normal power, not UPS backed by a generator power, and had a power outage that took all those servers down.
This is what happens when you let computer techie types run the old-school basic infrastructure, is my take. Stick to your OS updates, guys, and hire someone who understand electrical and mechanical systems.
Watch TV in the dark.
I won’t do anything. Our generators come on when the power goes out.
bump for later
During the warmer months it will be tough. Back in the days before electricity, houses were built with large screened windows. High ceilings and often with at least two feet under the house for breezes to move.
Eventually people will adapt but in the house I live in now, brick with double pane windows, the Summers will be awful. I could get by just fine in the Winter tho.
Inside sources (anonymous of course) told me that they had a fire start in the UPS batteries, leading to an EPO - emergency power off situation.
The power failure was not from Ga Power, and not really from internal switch gear, but rather following fire procedures.
the problem of course is they didn’t have a hot fail over ready for that contingency.
Right. That Delta outage caused me to ponder the worst - which is some kind of EMP attack to shut us down for months, if not years. Precautions should be taken.
Reliance on FEMA is not a strategy.
How much fuel have you on hand?
We’re talking long term wide spread outage on this thread.
what about when the gas supply goes out too?
‘...what it called a power outage...’
Hard to believe. Companies like Delta have backup power and detailed disaster recovery procedures. For my $ I think they got hacked and dont want to admit it.
As you all know, it only takes a momentary interruption of power to dump your computer or TV. Happens here in Tucson all the time during our Monsoon, usually at a critical moment in a sporting event that I’m watching on TV.
I’ve been in IT since I started coding in COBOL in 1983. I can not imagine a “serious” company operating with power backup. Heck, way back in the late 80’s I worked for a bank. Every month there would be a strong diesel smell because they were firing up the emergency backup generators outside our office windows.
Delta’s Disaster Recovery management should be terminated. Seriously.
Gosh if only we had a fre %trillion dollars socked away for “shovel ready” projects to fix things like our aging roads and bridges and electrical grid...
My father used to work on AWACS electronics. On a tour of a plane he showed me the EMP hardening and the potential paths it could take and how they were fixed. It’s pretty fascinating stuff.
I have a 1960 tractor. If we ever get an EMP, at least that will still work...
Actually, this is more likely to be the result of a non-techie doing the racking-and-stacking. We techie folks generally understand the necessity of redundant power supplies plugged into independent circuit legs, because we’re the ones who get called if the server goes down. It’s the non-computer folks who don’t usually realize that the wall sockets aren’t necessarily part of the UPS circuits.
Interesting. Most IT people I know are always pushing to get the latest in power source, generator, etc.
We used to have hardly any floods here because we had humans on the spot watching the water. These days, there’s always the fear of flooding because the watchers are sitting behind a computer screen two hours away. Last time I called to complain about them opening up too many gates at the dam causing it to flood us, I was told in no uncertain terms that I was lying because their computers showed normal water levels.
What will I do when the grid gets hit? I’ll immediately go into FR withdrawal. Then cuss because the freezer is out. Then jump for joy because the phone won’t ring with annoying telescammers and no more noisy weekenders. After the first 5 minutes, it’ll be just fine. After a couple months I’ll be cussing again because the repairs won’t be anywhere near us.
“This is what happens when you let computer techie types run the old-school basic infrastructure, is my take. Stick to your OS updates, guys, and hire someone who understand electrical and mechanical systems.”
Many of the people who designed this are probably gone. Also, they probably never tested this outside of an annual table top exercise. Finally, their risk analysis probably said the chance of this happening compared with the costs of running true tests probably didn’t warrant a live test.
FAIL!!!
OMG, all those urban dwellers will go nuts. Stores will be looted, buildings will burn, gasoline pumps won’t work, water pressure will be lost, no commo, its going to be a real mess. Law and order, forgetaboutit, it will become the law of the jungle. I’m talking about one week, not one day.
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