Posted on 09/09/2011 4:25:04 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
A major power outage, which left more than six million people in California and Arizona in darkness, was caused by a single maintenance worker, it has been revealed.
The power cut took two nuclear reactors offline, grounded flights, caused major traffic jams and trapped people in elevators and on fairground rides in both states.
San Diego bore the brunt of the blackout and most of the nation's eighth-largest city was darkened. The city trolley system that shuttles thousands of commuters every day was shut down and rush hour traffic hit gridlock.
APS, Arizona's largest electricity provider, said a utility worker doing maintenance near Yuma triggered the blackout.
The error, on a high-voltage power line linking Arizona and San Diego, causing a cascading series of electrical grid failures stretching into Southern California.
An APS statement said: 'The outage appears to be related to a procedure an APS employee was carrying out in the North Gila substation. Operating and protection protocols typically would have isolated the resulting outage to the Yuma area. The reason that did not occur in this case will be the focal point of the investigation into the event, which already is underway.' For obvious reasons, APS did not name the employee. Many offices closed during the outage but workers were caught in gridlock conditions because traffic lights were out.
People were trapped in elevators and on rides at Sea World in San Diego and Legoland in Carlsbad. Hospital emergency rooms switched to backup generators, while police stations also had to rely on generators to accept emergency calls across the area and officers struggled to direct traffic at intersections where signals were out.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Good grief...a procedural error caused this? Single-point failure?
Yipes, I just read a book similar to this theme——and it was terrorist related!
No no no.
Perish the thought.
he may not be a terrorist but the terrorists are certainly watching
Guess where terrorist sleeper cells will be applying for jobs now!
Obama gives his big speech. A credible terror alert is issued. The lights go out on the west coast. Quite a trifecta.
I hate it when someone kicks the plug out of the wall...
Homer Simpson?
I guess they didn't use the right processor after all...
It's obvious that the Amish shouldn't be working for a power company.
Did an illegal alien throw the switch?
or imply design a moronic system which lets
a single maintenance worker
unpower six million people in California and Arizona
to help Obama and the DNC with a timed “attack”.
Bill his sorry a$$.
LLS
If he worked for ATF, they would promote him. (Fast and Furious reference.)
Electric power appreciation day.
That's funny because that was my first thought too....
Last fall I was doing my neighbor a favor by clearing all the dead flowers from a corner of her house behind her garage and laundry room, with an electric hedge trimmer.
In doing do, I accidently severed the copper gas line which came out of the ground and into the back wall of the laundry room. Fortunately I have a friend who does home maintenace and he came over and repaired it for me........
Wasn't that how the banking crisis started in 2008? All those lone officers making lones to people who couldn't pay them back?
Lone workers are DANGEROUS.
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