Massive power failure hits Tallahassee
Fifty percent of the city was without power this afternoon, Tallahassee city utility officials said. The outage hit at about 2:15 p.m. today, striking throughout Tallahassee. Shortly before 3 p.m., utility officials said it would take 2-3 hours to restore power to all customers. Power was out for over an hour at the Tallahassee Democrat.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/9144900.htm
By Mark Zeigler UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER July 13, 2004 The biggest issue at this summer's Athens Olympics might not be security breaches or unfinished venues or transportation glitches or doping scandals, but what happened yesterday across central and southern Greece:
A massive power outage.
It struck at 12:39 p.m. Greek time (2:39 a.m. PDT), paralyzing metropolitan Athens and its 5 million residents and locales as far away as 175 miles, plus several entire islands in the Aegean and Ionian seas.
Greek authorities said 70 percent of power was restored in about an hour and Athens was back on line within three hours, which, they noted, marked significant progress over previous outages of this magnitude. Olympic venues were largely unaffected since they have backup generators.
But everything around them was, and the ensuing chaos and inconvenience raised further questions about Greece's readiness to host the world's largest sporting event Aug. 13-29.
Downtown Athens, already clogged with midday traffic, became instant gridlock when stoplights went out. The subway stopped, and thousands of passengers had to walk through tunnels to stations. Hundreds of people were stuck in elevators. Air conditioners shut off across the Attica region, and it was 104 degrees.
Then there was what happened on the new metro link to the airport. The grand opening of the electrically powered line was yesterday, and a collection of government ministers and journalists boarded a train from downtown at 11 a.m. It broke down short of the airport due to an unrelated power problem and had to be towed in by a diesel engine.
A ceremony was held at the airport, and everyone reboarded the train for the maiden voyage back to Athens. Then the power outage hit. This time, according to the Athens News Agency, those aboard had to walk through a sweltering tunnel to a nearby station.
It was unclear what caused the crippling outage. The Public Power Corporation cited the increased use of air conditioners because of the searing July heat wave and the poor condition of the state-run power grid. Government officials blamed "mismanagement" at the power company, which is a major Olympic sponsor.......
An afternoon explosion in an underground tunnel at O'Hare Airport knocked out power to two terminals, causing long lines and sweltering heat and sending two workers to the hospital with burns to their arms, face and hands.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-ohare13.html