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.

[GSWarrior]

I just finished reading it. Didn't want it to end.

[rdb3]

Cleveland?

[Dog Gone]

The blackouts could conceivably spread throughout the Eastern Interconnect, but it wouldn't cross into the Western half of the country, or into the Texas Interconnect.

[CarmelValleyite]

Re "let the panic begin"

At least it's not yet 5 p.m., when most Manhattanites who are at work would be leaving the office for the trains, etc. Yikes, what a mess! Lots of folks will be in town a lot longer than usual if this isn't fixed right away.

[Snowy]

Correction - Meadville, PA is out.

What part of the state is that?

[Joe Hadenuf]

Reporting cell phones on the east coast.

ALL NY AIRPORTS SHUT DOWN

[TonyInOhio]

There are major oil explosions breaking out in Northern New Jersey, per WNBC, who has a chopper over the area

How's that again? Could we get a confirmation, please?

Tony

[OrangeDaisy]

felt in Tennessee

I didn't feel it, and I'm in the great state of Tennessee! What did it feel like?

[aristeides]

I thought the subways had their own electrical system, with their own coal-powered power plant further north on Manhattan.

[76834]

No problems in Coleman either.
Of course we have our own power plant and our own gas wells to power it. The only time we connect to the grid is to SELL power.

[PROTESTBYPROXY]

Baby boom in 9!

[Naspino]

The people of Detroit might burn the city down in rioting if its not fixed by night fall.

[conservativefromGa]

Ar15.com is down

[CTGOPPER]

Power off in several towns (Groton, Uncasville) in Southeastern CT.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Most cell phones on east coast useless.....

[NYer]

Nine months after the big blackout, there were many births!!

[Timesink]

I am just reporting what I hear on the radio...it was a transformer fire at Con Ed. Now saying people are panicking in NYC. Also airports and trains are affected. Talking about evacuation of the building the reporter is in.

I think that's a BS report (the panicking part). There's no reason.

NBC News: FAA reports all air traffic control is fine, on backup power.

[agrace]

Ouch, wonder how many trains are stranded, that could get very ugly.

Locally, a couple stations are down - Fox 5 has no picture at all and channel 7 ABC has no sound - and the others, CBS & NBC are reporting on the outage.

CNN says thousands poured into the streets when the lights went out, Fox News showing live shots of the city, traffic lights out, people hanging out in front of their buildings etc. They just showed live shots of the Con Ed plant on MSNBC, seems to show several fires.

Can't raise my husband on his cell anymore, his service must be down or overloaded. Of course his office phones are out too.

Yikes, Sean Hannity just said all the airports are shut down. He's also talking about trains stranded and police on the way.

[meyer]

It's hot out there -- lots of AC running, no doubt. A sudden shutdown of a major power plant would probably upset the grid something awful, especially if they've got transmission line problems, too.

NERC policy is designed to prevent just this scenario - a scenario where the loss of any single component (be it a plant, power line, or whatever) can take large parts of the grid down. Utilities are supposed to be following those rules, but I've seen companies taking chances the last few years (though my present employer doesn't seem to follow that trend yet).