Major power surge in NY? (Blackout is in NYC, Detroit, Ottawa and Toronto, per Fox News)

8-14-03 | Joe Hadenuf

[Joe Hadenuf]

Hannity station went dead for about 20 seconds. Said he had never seen anything like it.

[Peach]

ABC: federal government and electric regulatory commission very worried about cyber security and we will need computer forensic experts to determine why the three software packages failed. Expert feels it's ridiculous to say it's definitely not terrorism.

[Petronski]

Corning-Elmira? You're local utility is probably pulling power from the Williamsport area, they never went down.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Very interesting....Thanks.

[MrConfettiMan]

Thank you, IT. *sigh*

We get your point, Huck. No need to repeat yourself (every 20 replies or so :).

[null and void]

Remember, this is a discussion board. No discussion allowed.

No fighting in the war room!!!

[Fledermaus]

Not a single luxury? Not the Howells, they had plenty of luxury! There suitcase must have been designed by Gallifraians. lol

And I find being stranded on an island with Ginger and Mary Ann quite a luxury!

[CarmelValleyite]

re: "it must be cooler stuck in the subway."

No way! Last August ('02) I was in NYC and rode the revolting subways several times. If there are more than a few people in the cars themselves, it's very warm and sticky despite the a/c. The absolute worst is getting to and from the cars and waiting for the trains. Every minute seems like an hour.

There is NO A/C in those underground tunnels, which are like furnaces with fumes. I recall thinking those subway platforms must be what Hell is truly like because despite very high temps here in SO CAL, like well over 100 degrees, NOTHING could compare to the heat of the subways. In my 54 years I have never been so miserable because of weather. Never......

[Benrand]

Rex Kramer: [talking to Steve McKrosky] The plan is to build him up. Give him all the confidence we can.

Rex Kramer: Stryker, have you ever flown a multi-engine plane before?

Ted Striker: No, never.

Rex Kramer: Sh*t! It's a G**damn waste of time! There's no way he can this plane!

[meyer]

I'm in Northern Kentucky and my Cincinnati tv stations are still working.

I suspect that every small, localized power outage will be reported. Pretty much anything that happens now is probably unrelated, given that the grid re-acheived equallibrium shortly after the cascading event.

[Peach]

Don't generally listen to ABC but Jennings is off somewhere (hopefully stuck in an elevator in NYC) and FNC is unbearable with their volume control problems right now.

Don't know who this expert is/was but he seemed to know what he was talking about and knew about the cyber warnings we had 3 weeks ago and specifics about the 3 software problems that failed.

[Diddle E. Squat]

I hope that report is either wrong, or he changes his mind. Rightly or wrongly, if he continues with the fundraiser but doesn't speak, at least briefly, on the blackout, he'll be skewered by the media. Doesn't have to have a big news conference, but should at least release a statement.

[Petronski]

Is it politically incorrect to talk about LOOTING and how scared sh*tless a lot of people are right now?

There was about an hour or so when CNN ran a banner on the bottom third: "Sunset in NYC is at 7:58 pm."

Kinda like a scheduling system for looters....nap now, loot later.

[FairOpinion]

"A senior U.S. law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the FBI had determined the blackout was a "natural occurrence" and there was no evidence of terrorism, and that the Homeland Security Department agreed. "

http://www.canada.com/news/world/story.asp?id=09E00409-BC1C-42E9-AFCE-5B68A26BC04A

[mewzilla]

We've been seeing a lot of attempts for the last couple of days.

[null and void]

WOW-IS THIS A RECORD NUMBER OF POSTS !!!!!!!!!!!!!! ?

Nope! The Hobbit Hole is pushing 60K posts very hard.

[worrywart]

Is Ted Koppell getting pranked? thankyoufortakingmycall.com?

I was wondering if anyone else heard that call. It was supposedly "Bob Hobbs" in some official capacity for New York. Did you hear him say to tell the people to stay in the subway cars -- otherwise they might open up and find Beauty and the Beast? It was really funny and Ted never caught on.

[BohDaThone]

Here's my understanding:

There are contingency plans to keep a simple accident from taking down the whole system, and virutally all the time they work. Sometimes they don't. After the 1965 and 1977 massive East Coast blackouts, there were extensive investigations, just like after a plane crash, (And, yes, there are voice recordings of the various control rooms -- the tapes of the 1977 blackout, largely caused by an operator not following the plan, are hilarious, if not somewhat tragic). Electrical grids are very complex systems, and, in a sense, it is a "miracle" -- caused by human ingenuity every day, that it hangs together 99.99% of the time. We'll see what the after action investigation shows this time. SAMPLE CONVERSATION from 1977: Operator 1: (Not in NYC) -- Yep, he's down the dumper. Operator 2: I told him to shed load -- my needles are all flat (no power going in to NYC). Operator 3: I agree -- he's down the dumper. [The operators were people on the grid operating team, in Maryland, Canada, or whereever, who were trying to feed more power to make up for the loss when lighting took out a connection point north of NYC. The plan called for NYC to blackout some parts of the city, to help out -- However, the big boss was home in Queens, and the on the spot operator was too timid to either take action or call the boss at home -- result -- no load was cut, and NYC dragged the whole system down, as the lost power couldn't be replaced fast enough -- the other suppliers finally had to cut off NYC to keep their own systems from going down, too.] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Joe Hadenuf]

Saying the truth of the matter is that Homeland Security is saying this didn't happen because of traditional terrorist measures, but it doesn't mean they didn't commit an act of cyber terror. On ABC NOW

Dang, can you imagine.......

[OXENinFLA]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/vp20010613.html

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY:

U.S. Energy Association Efficiency Forum Washington, D.C. June 13, 2001

"The report we issued last month presented more than 100 recommendations covering virtually the entire range of concerns that face the American people. One of the concerns, obviously, is the aging power grid and the growing problem that we have in getting electricity from the power plant to the light switch. It's clear that we must upgrade and expand the power grid. If we put more connections in place, we'll go a long way towards avoiding future blackouts. Another broad aim is to increase energy supplies from diverse sources; from oil and gas, renewables, coal, hydro and nuclear. This is the kind of balanced approach we think is essential if we're going to meet the country's energy needs down the road and take care of many of our other concerns, especially with respect to the environment."

[MrConfettiMan]

Hmmm, no volume control problems with FNC here (in the Baltimore-Annapolis corridor).