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... and what's with all the power failures?!

EUREKA, Calif. - An equipment failure is being blamed for a power outage that swept through most of downtown Eureka overnight.
The blackout happened around 12:40 a.m. Wednesday, leaving some 10,500 Pacific Gas and Electric customers in the city without power for most of the night. The outage area stretched from Pierson's in south Eureka to Myrtletown and west to Humboldt Bay. Power was restored shortly after 6 a.m.
PHOENIX - Phoenix was again faced with the threat of rolling blackouts on Thursday with a key substation out of service and a forest fire blazing close to a major power line.
"There are a lot of things at play here. Today and tomorrow are going to be critical. In the summer Thursday is a big day for us in terms of load," Sheri Foote, spokeswoman for the state's largest utility, Arizona Public Service, said. Foote said the utility should know by mid-afternoon whether rolling blackouts may be needed.
VISALIA, Calif. - Hundreds arriving for medical appointments at one of Visalia's largest clinics were turned away Wed-nesday after a transformer failed and caused a power outage that covered several blocks.
The outage took out power for 1,800 customers on both sides of Akers Street north and south of Highway 198, said Glen Cardaronella, spokesman for Southern California Edison. The problem was a bad transformer and underground connections.
GONZALES, Calif. - More than 600 Gonzales households went without electricity most of Wednesday morning before Pacific Gas and Electric Co. restored service at 2 p.m.
The outage, which began at 7:45 a.m., was the latest in a series of blackouts that have affected Gonzales in the past few days.
To restore power Wednesday, crews fixed an insulator on Highway 101 in Soledad, said PG&E spokesman Brian Swanson. An insulator connects high voltage wires to the wire pole.
CRANBURY, N.J. - The Associated Press suffered a 59-minute power outage at a key data center Wednesday morning, affecting services to members and subscribers.
The agency said it’s investigating the cause of the disruption at its Cranbury data center. Power was restored at 10:53 a.m. EDT, according to a spokesman, who told Newspapers & Technology that systems were switched to AP’s backup data center in Kansas City, Mo.
The outage is the first since the Cranbury data center went into operation in 1993, AP said. It occurred during a routine test of generator and UPS backup systems, said John Reid, AP’s senior vice president for services and technology.
LAKESIDE, Calif. – Crews from San Diego Gas & Electric worked this morning (July 7) to restore power to 2,800 residences in Lakeside, officials said.
The power went out just before 8 a.m. in an area bordered by Valle Vista Road and state Route 67 to the northwest down to Rockcrest Road to the south and El Monte Road to the east, SDG&E spokeswoman Stephanie Donovan said.
The cause of the outage is under investigation and it was not determined when power would be restored, Donovan said.
"There is a lot of underground circuitry in that area, so this might take a while," Donovan said. "But we are working our hardest to find the problem."