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.

[Howlin]

Quote of the day?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/964250/posts?page=642#642

[utahagen]

While I understand why the Powers That Be have to say, "It's not terrorism", I don't believe that for a minute

[null and void]

Too bad Arianna's microphone doesn't have an outage. She's so much like HRC.

More like HRC than HRC. I bet the Hildabeast envys the Nazi accent...

[Uncle Kermie]

I feel that I've been left in the dark.

[Joe Hadenuf]

They just said it's spread to Vermont now.

Source at pentagon say national guard units may be mobilized. They didn't say the specific source......

[joanil]

Nicola Tesla could fix this mess!

[Poincare]

Yup. Ann Arbor is dowm. But the phone, my iSP, and my Powerbook batteries are up.

[r9etb]

Interesting that it hit precisely at 1600.... Scheduled maintenance gone bad?

[FLAMING DEATH]

If the power did go down here now, it'd just be a little warmer. After this winter, a lot of us West Virginians got used to sitting in the dark. Granted, it was inconvenient, but when it happened, I was prepared and could still watch TV (local broadcast stations only, of course...the sattelite wouldn't work), cook, heat my home, listen to the radio (I got one of those solar/dynamo crank jobbies...very handy), run 12v electric lights for reading, etc. About the only thing I missed was the Internet, and of course, FreeRepublic in particular. It pays to be prepared.

On the antiquated circuit that runs my home, I'm used to having the power at least flicker daily. That's just life out here in the sticks. The little alarm beeping on the UPS on my computer has become a regular occurance, so much so that it doesn't even wake the dog anymore.

I can figure on a total power failure at least once every two months here, even if only for a few minutes. No biggie for me, because I'm used to camping anyway, and am equipped to handle such a situation. It's a nice little drill that keeps me prepared for what could happen in a worst case scenario. This winter, I lived comfortably for 3 days in freezing weather and deep snow. Granted, it was boring, but I got caught up on a lot of reading. The worst problem that I had was my vehicle was out of gas, and I had to drive to the other end of the county to fill up (electric gas pumps forced a lot of stations to close). Now, I try to keep at least half a tank at all times, so I can get around in an emergency if necessary.

I guess that those who live in a city, where EVERYTHING is dependent upon power, are going to have major problems from this. Nice to live in a place where the higher ups encourage people to use public transportation (powered by electricity) and don't set up infrastructure to accomodate alternate soruces of heat (how is an apartment dweller supposed to heat with wood?). My primary heat source is propane, which is kept on my property and refilled once a year, so I have several months to figure out how to heat my house should the supply be interrupted (and considering that my property is covered with trees, I could heat my place indefinitely, most likely, should I need to). The stove I use doesn't require electricity to work correctly, unlike most gas furnaces.

My water comes from a well, and my reserve water supply is about 250 gallons, which can be tapped directly from the tank without electricity if necessary.

And, if it got really bad and I couldn't get food, I'd take out the trusty old Mauser and pop one of those deer that keeps showing up in the front yard.

If this had happened during the winter, it would be a MAJOR problem for the cities, probably more so than it is now. Not a good idea to live where you're forced to put all your eggs in one basket.

[poindexter]

I _told_ you all that Y2K would cause blackouts! Who's laughing now?

/humor

[Dan from Michigan]

According to WWJ - LANSING is hit, OKEMOS is ALRIGHT.

[Timesink]

HAHAHA!

[olorin]

I concur.

[agrace]

LOL!

[Wordsmith]

I'm still at work, so we're on UPS's. When it blinks they kick in, and it's back on before they kick out. I'm heading home now to New Hampshire, hopefully the lights will be on when I get there! :-)

[FairOpinion]

I hope it's not a terror attack, but it is not out of the realms of possibility.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50765-2002Jun26

Most significantly, perhaps, U.S. investigators have found evidence in the logs that mark a browser's path through the Internet that al Qaeda operators spent time on sites that offer software and programming instructions for the digital switches that run power, water, transport and communications grids. In some interrogations, the most recent of which was reported to policymakers last week, al Qaeda prisoners have described intentions, in general terms, to use those tools.

Because the digital controls were not designed with public access in mind, they typically lack even rudimentary security, having fewer safeguards than the purchase of flowers online. Much of the technical information required to penetrate these systems is widely discussed in the public forums of the affected industries, and specialists said the security flaws are well known to potential attackers.

Massoud Amin, a mathematician directing new security efforts in the industry, described the North American power grid as "the most complex machine ever built." At an April 2 conference hosted by the Commerce Department, participants said, government and industry scientists agreed that they have no idea how the grid would respond to a cyber-attack.

What they do know is that "Red Teams" of mock intruders from the Energy Department's four national laboratories have devised what one government document listed as "eight scenarios for SCADA attack on an electrical power grid" -- and all of them work. Eighteen such exercises have been conducted to date against large regional utilities, and Richard A. Clarke, Bush's cyber-security adviser, said the intruders "have always, always succeeded."

[joanil]

Overheated transformers can explode and generate a awesome light show and plenty of smoke.

[Im Your Huckleberry]

At the very least, if this isn't terrorism related, it gives the terrorists a great example of how much havoc a power outage can cause, and now it will fuel this idea for them.

But nothing is going to convince me this isn't fishy as hell.

We were warned the terrorists were planning a "massive attack" this month.

Now we get this massive, unprecedeneted, power outage across the entire northeast, and its spreading, and we're told "nothing to see here, move along"?!

I don't buy any of this for a second.

[Fledermaus]

Finally!!!

Kobe knocked the "WMD Lies" off the news...Total Recall and Ah-nold took Kobe off...and now power outages can knock off the recall effort...

I was tired off all those stories anyway. I'll still bet Rita Cosby is talking about the Laci Peterson case though!

[utahagen]

Oh, I believe taht could happen. However, I think that that is such a direct, obvious reason that I am wondering why it took 45 minutes for the word to spread that that's the reason.