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.

[ChadGore]

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY June 13, 2001:"One of the concerns, obviously, is the aging power grid and the growing problem that we have in getting electricity from the power plant to the light switch. It's clear that we must upgrade and expand the power grid. If we put more connections in place, we'll go a long way towards avoiding future blackouts."

[ThirdMate]

Do you think Detroit is just..gone?

[Monty22]

Cavuto just kinda compared this to SARS.. Odd.

[Im Your Huckleberry]

Now saying on PMSNBC that 20,000 people are waiting for ferries...and we've heard from Homeland Security that our swarthy enemies were checking out ferries and we were warned about attacks on ferries.

I will make no inferences from this...I will make no inferences from this...(Seargent Schulz Voice->)I SEE NUSSING! I KNOW NUSSING!

[CONSERVE]

Six flags in Ohio is in between Cleveland and Akron so they would be without power also.

[OXENinFLA]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/vp20010525.html

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Rally
Washington, D.C.
May 25, 2001

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY




"Infrastructure plays a very important part here, too. And we've spent a lot of time not only on gas pipelines, but we clearly need to modernize and update and make more efficient our electric power grid.

One of the problems we're faced with various places in the country today is -- it's regional in nature, but there are many places where the problem isn't so much our lack of capacity to generate power as our lack of facilities to be able to move it from where it's produced to where it needs to be. That's part of the problem in California today. So we spent a lot of time on that infrastructure as well too. "

---

I'll see you and raise you 2 months.......

[FITZ]

I was fine until I saw your map --- El Paso Texas in August is the coldest place in the USA????

[Timesink]

NORTH AMERICAN ELECTRIC RELIABILITY COUNCIL
Princeton Forrestal Village
116-390 Village Boulevard
Princeton, New Jersey 08540-5731

August 14, 2003 Power Outages – Announcement

Starting at about 4:15 PM EDT, major losses of electric load occurred in the northeastern U.S. and Canada in the Eastern Interconnection.

No cause is known at present, but the outages do not appear to be the result of a terrorist attack.

The areas most affected center around the Great Lakes plus New York City, northern New Jersey and parts of New England. We do not know if these blackouts are related for sure, but it is likely.

Con Edison in New York lost its entire system, it is not known when service will be restored.

Immediate outages totaled about 28,000 MW, at this time 5-10,000 MW remain out of service.

The power in Ontario is being brought back on line through connections with Manitoba.

In Ohio, Perry Nuclear plant went off-line. Major transmission lines were out of service at the time of the disruption. It appears that ten nuclear plants went offline, probably as a result of fluctuations in frequency.

Preliminary indications are that the problems may have started in either Ohio or the Niagara Falls area.

Although the event was felt throughout the entire Eastern Interconnection, the south and midwest were unaffected.

NERC is having regular conference calls among the NERC reliability coordinators and will provide additional information as we know more.

We do not know the cause of the disturbances at present but will continue to evaluate the situation throughout the rest of the day and evening.

8/14/2003 6:13 PM

Phone 609-452-8060
Fax 609-452-9550
URL www.nerc.com

[null and void]

It would have been much worse if several brave civilians hadn't been directing traffic.

Same here after the Loma Preita 'quake in '79. God bless these people!

[Kieri]

I'm in Jackson. Our power went out for just a moment, but HOW it went out was strange. It faded away rather than just shut off. We're fine, but I hear that portions of Lansing (where my husband is for a meeting) are out.

[Im Your Huckleberry]

They didn't say anything about Six Flags, they only reported Cedar Point in Sandusky was without power.

[P.O.E.]

LOL! No, I was just wondering - Detroit's a pretty big tinderbox anyway during the summer.

[Henk]

Looks like all nuke plants started their diesels where needed. From NRC web site:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been informed that the following nuclear power plants shut down today due to grid instabilities:

Indian Point 2 and 3 (in New York)
Perry (in Ohio)
Fermi (in Michigan)
Ginna (in New York)
FitzPatrick (in New York)
Oyster Creek (in N.J.)
Nine Mile Point 1 and 2 (in New York)

All plants are in a safe condition, using their emergency diesel generators where appropriate. NRC resident inspectors will continue to monitor the situation at the affected plants.

The NRC is monitoring the situation from its Regional and Headquarters Operations Center. Acting Chairman Merrifield is in contact with other federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Didn't hear that.

Watching a video shot of NYC right now from a distance, and it's getting dark, don't see any lights on in the city.....

[WorkingClassFilth]

"Any idea if their walkie talkies or cell phones are even working?"

I don't know jack about any of this new-tech stuff. I would suppose the cell phones might be screwed up but walkie talkies (at least the real kind) use a radio crystal and set frequencies. The walkie-talkies are also battery powered so the grid and all of the other junk needed to run this new-wave crap has nothing to do with their operation.

[null and void]

Who has said authoritatively that "it's definitely not terrorism?"

Bloomberg. Idiot. (him, not you, arrow)

[Dan from Michigan]

Hillsdale County MI also a state of emergency.

Hillsdale is just west of Lenawee

[swarthyguy]

TV just reported lightning caused the chain reaction.