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.

[JustPiper]

Welcome Joe, you have one helluva thread here, wonder if you broke a record ;)

[JustPiper]

The scary thing is that our enemy sees how vulnerable are right now.

This is the point they were harping on news all day! If they hadn't thought of this before, they sure will now with the lib media giving the terrorists the blueprint. Our reactors are so old, so vulnerable, blah-blah, just peachy!

[JustPiper]

I wonder if anyone has checked DTE engineering ranks for possible Al Qaida affiliation, particularly given the many highly educated Arab immigrants who live in Southeastern Michigan?

Bump!

[hellinahandcart]

Thanks for the screen caps. I was saying to myself all Thursday night "Gee, it would be neat to watch this on television, probably looks rilly kewl..." ;D

[hellinahandcart]

"Where will they all go to the bathroom?"

Let's put it this way-- everything below 59th St. could benefit from a good hard rain today...

[I_dmc]

I'm glad that so many NE FReepers have those new gas powered 'puters.

Aren't those the ones that are ok for the Amish to have....in their barns?

[meyer]

"Atlas Shrugged".

That only applies to California doesn't it?

Understood the sarcasm, but the phrase really does apply here. I used to work for the utility in Cleveland. Most of us transmission operators had kind-of thrown our hands up in disgust as the non-responsible entities (marketers, non-utility generators) seem to have a larger say in grid operations than do those of us that are held accountable. I shrugged 2 1/2 years ago and took a new job in Tennessee, after 20 years in FirstEnergy and its sadly-missed predecessor, Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. Many others left over the last 3 years as well.

[meyer]

I guess that I should add that the latest release from NERC indicates that a series of line trippings in the Cleveland area occurred during the hour before the cascading event. I can see some problems there.

[dixie sass]

Lol, Condi. You must have been in on the east coast when that one slammed us.

We were without electricity for weeks. The upstate this past winter was also without. Other than natural disasters, the south (knock on wood) is pretty stable. We have brown-outs every once in a while, but that is to be expected when everyone is air conditioning everything - including the great outdoors.

[lavrenti]

Like I did when I had to work nights at Chambers and West Broadway. Walk. I can make it in an hour.

[condi2008]

Lol, Condi. You must have been in on the east coast when that one slammed us.

Actually, we were right here in Cajun Country. We recall (among "other things") watching Hugo come ashore on the news off and on all night. ;)

[NYC GOP Chick]

Yikes! Well, the subways seem to be almost 100% back. Now, if RCN can get their crap together -- or at least get their story straight, I might one day have phone service again...

[Chemist_Geek]

I recently lost power in Howell, MI for about 5 minutes and it came on. Thought nothing of it until I turned on the news. My parent's have power in Brighton too. We both have DTE Edison.

We were down for about 24 hours. I was at work when it went down; it took a good long time (3 hrs.) to get home. In Wyandotte, power came back around 3:00 Friday afternoon, went down again, and came back for sure around 4:30.

[solitas]

Huh, now Fox is saying that the NERCS are blaming 3 power lines in northern Ohio that didn't properly disconnect... Unbelieveable. < shaking head > DIS-believeable, actually.

[nonliberal]

Yes. John Galt said that the signal for the industrialists to return to the world was when the lights went out in New York.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Yes, and I was just thinking about you a little while ago! :)

[NativeNewYorker]

My block didn't get power back til 6 pm Friday, 26 hours after the outage started.

Almost ran out of water here.

My ISP, Panix, didn't come up til this morning.

All in all, a modest hassle, but no real harm done.

[lavrenti]

I did the M9, which runs one block from my house to two from my job.

My decision turned out to be very advantagous for my career.

[lavrenti]

We had no water. Nothing for 27 hours.

Water dried up again this morning. I wisely had enough gallon jugs to give myself a rather satisfying "hillbilly shower".

Always wise to leave them in the sun. Avoid that nasty chill.