Posted on 02/03/2011 8:14:16 AM PST by bestintxas
As brief power outages rolled across the state on Wednesday, certain places were intended to be exempt from a temporary loss of electricity. That included hospitals, nursing homes, fire stations, police stations, other emergency response facilities… and Cowboys Stadium?
When officials with Oncor said that the Arlington site of Sunday’s Super Bowl XLV would not be a part of the rolling outages, many residents became furious. But this was not entirely a choice made by the local utility company.
With thousands of reporters huddled in North Texas hotels and thousands of rabid football fans attending the NFL Experience at the Dallas Convention Center, and two football teams preparing to do battle on the field of Cowboys Stadium this Sunday, the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee had a big request to make. “It is vitally important we don’t have blackouts,” said committee vice president Tony Fay.
Fay asked the City of Dallas, the City of Fort Worth and the City of Arlington to ensure that rolling blackouts did not prevent planned events from happening at Super Bowl venues. That news really steamed up some homeowners who were left without power for hours. “We’re not prioritizing,” said frustrated Plano resident Allen Hooser. “Hospitals and the grocery store, which is out. But for a PR stunt, where you can go throw a football, you have power and heat.”
“Not because of any preferential treatment. Not because we’re trying to protect VIPs or celebrities,” Fay explained. “It is a public safety issue.” According to Fay, if there was to be a blackout at an NFL venue, then there would be no way to screen for security.
(Excerpt) Read more at dfw.cbslocal.com ...
But don’t both means of energy come from the same utility? And if so, why can the utility not compensate in winter months like they produce during summer months?
Yes. And I also realize the amount of money that the NFL is making from the game. It might cost the revenue they are getting from a couple of Luxury suites. They can afford it.
“A hospital is just a concrete box full of sick people waiting to die!”
Most times the people who check in actually make it out.
Only in Obamacare would what you describe happen, as they would be thrown onto the streets as they are either deemed expendable or do not have clout(political connections or $).
Go team!
Let’s all ignore the fact that Oncor said blacking out the hospitals was a mistake and it wouldn’t happen again. Let’s just pretend that never happened. It’s easier to bash the Super Bowl that way. No one died, no one was turned away. They did have to reschedule some elective surgeries. But if anyone thinks the first Super Bowl in North Texas is going to be part of a rolling blackout, they are insane.
“It would be, if that statement were true, except that the statement is a lie, and as such doesn’t epitomize anything but a hysterical rant unsupported by fact.”
You seem to be the one ranting in this with accusations.
The fact does not lie there were blackouts of what most normal people would consider to certainly be within the most critical of places where ordered blackouts should not be made, i.e hospitals.
The other fact is that a game venue, that’s right a GAME venue, did not suffer a blackout.
If those facts don’t cause alarm in the immorality of this situation to you, you deserve to be back on your Gulag job.
That is horrible, what is wrong with a dirt road?
Other than a dust cloud, or a little mud.
It doesn't get cold like this every year. Freak ice storms don't dump inches of solid ice (not snow) that take out power plants every year. This is the equivalent of a hurricane for Texas. This is the kind of weather you can't plan for.
You act like the hospital outages were intentional. If they were, you would have a point.
Since they weren’t, you come across as hysterical.
You stated, in your original comment with thie article: when ailing people in hospitals suffer in order to allow football venues to be unaffected.
The error in your statement was not in the two facts (ailing people in hospitals suffer, football venue unaffected), but in your unsupported linkage of the two: "in order to allow".
It would be as if you claimed that I was not eating a cookie, in order to allow me to post a reply to you.
I'm not eating a cookie because I don't have one. It has nothing to do with my posting to you. Likewise, the hospitals did not have power because the electric company screwed up. It had NOTHING to do with the stadium having power.
You claimed that the electric company cut off the hospitals in order to give power to the stadium. That is false.
The words “in order to allow” could be mistakenly viewed, so if I replace these with the word “while”, this should pacify you.
BTW, by the same token, your last statement stating this a falsehood is not necessarily true either. I believe neither of us have that knowledge.
Oh come on...We know these people are just superbowl bashers.....lol
OK, so how big would the portable generator need to be to run the screening machines? And don't say they're all sold out because those VIPs could have them trucked in from non-storm areas pretty quick.
Why not? California planned for and spent *hundreds of billions* retrofitting freeways, and tens of thousands of buildings in case of a large event.
You liked to twist the tails of puppies and kittens when you were a kid, didn’t you?
Yes, if you replace with “while”, it’s a perfectly fine statement. It also doesn’t imply that there is something horribly wrong in the world though.
Hospitals getting cut off in a rolling blackout is horribly wrong, without regard to whether some other less important customer has continuous power or not.
Few things can be stated with absolute certainty, but I feel confident in my statement that they did not cut off the hospitals in order to keep power to the stadium. I say that because, as I mentioned before, that’s not how power grids work. If you argued that the hospitals were out of power for slightly longer than they otherwise would have been, if they hadn’t still had the load of the stadium, you’d probably be wrong, but it would be harder to show that you were wrong.
i’m not a big fan of conspiracy theories, you just got caught in the crossfire.
Some one made a mistake or mistakes. It really seems to me that the outage plan hadn’t been run through the ringer enough times to get all the bugs out before being implement. jmo.
This from another article:
Oncor admits that a mistake was made. “We are sorry this happened. We are in a process of refining our processes, so in the unlikely event of future mandates for rotating outages, hospitals will be excluded,” said Oncor spokeswoman Catherine Cuellar.
Although Oncor is taking responsibility, the company is asking for some understanding. Oncor said that the state-mandated ERCOT blackouts were outages of historic proportion. “We were following protocols that have never been tested to this degree. This was the widest number of rotating outages for the longest period of time, ever!” said Cuellar.
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/02/02/blackouts-anger-dallas-hospitals/
When rotating outages happens again, hospitals will be excluded?
Hard to believe they didn't think of that in the first place.
Yes. Thank you for the opportunity.
Bear in mind I just got done clearing a Texas sized snowdrift in my driveway; those of us in scenic Wisconsin got nailed two days ago. If I sounded a mite unsympathetic to the plight of cold Texans denied power for a period of time, I apologize.
Jerry Jones, the Dallas Cowboys, Cowboys Stadium, et al, did the good folks in Texas a favor by inadvertently calling attention to the hospitals and health care organizations woefully unprepared to follow through with their charge and the responsibilities therein.
Mission critical computers, systems and controllers should not be exposed to the fickle winds of the power companies, for any reason. UPS systems are absurdly cheap when compared to the consequences. Shame on those organizations who risked the lives of their patients over something so easily dealt with.
I work in the Maintenance department for a circuit board manufacturer. We have many machines and chemical processes that can quickly become dangerous to our neighbors, employees, the environment etc. should we lose power for any period of time. As good stewards to our neighbors we go to great lengths to ensure these processes are NEVER allowed to run out of control no matter what the reason. We DON'T hope for the best; we verify, test, and generally do what must be done to ensure a safe and positive outcome. How much more so should an organization responsible for the very lives of sick and infirm demonstrate this kind of concern?
Good Texans should take note of the hospitals that got caught with their pants down to their knees and avoid them like the plague.
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