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.

[FairOpinion]

Niagara-Mohawk powergrid overloaded is what they just said, as the cause.

But earlier they said fire at a power stateion in NY.

I hope it's all just caused by the heat and is not a terrorist act.

[Joe Hadenuf]

In a major event, cell phones are rendered useless almost immediately.........

[Vinnie]

Let's see.. August 15 plus 9 months.

Next May is going to be big in the obstetrics industry.

[Willie Green]

Other U. S. cities are experiencing blackouts Detroit, Cleveland and Toronto

If Enron was still in business, these cities could buy electricity from Kalifornia and help them with their budget crisis.

</sarcasm>

[Domestic Church]

"Great NYC Blackout of 1965"

I recall hearing stories of the ladies in Waldbaums supermarket just storming out with unpaid groceries (days of the non electric push doors.) As a kid I enjoyed the candlelight and make do supper that evening and the spooky unlit neighborhood.

[mombonn]

I'm in mid-michigan, we went down and right back up.

[Joe Hadenuf]

We too heard conflicting reports of cause.

[eddie willers]

I have a funeral (viewing) to go to tonight.
Let's hope Ga. stays lit.

[af_vet_rr]

Last Tuesday, operators of SMUD (Sacramento) were practicing their rapid load shedding procedures when one operator inadvertently activated the code. SMUD says they will not punish him for cutting off power to over 70k before they could deactivate the load shedding code.

News is now saying it maybe related to an overload of some sorts, so I'm curious - how fast they can shed a heavy load? I know they have to have something in place to do so, but just wondering how fast it can do so.

[r9etb]

NERC policy is designed to prevent just this scenario - a scenario where the loss of any single component (be it a plant, power line, or whatever) can take large parts of the grid down.

Well, I suppose. People say that multiple failures are unlikely, but I've seen plenty of times where you get a whole bunch of anomalies all at once, throughout the system, that combine to bollux things up. Granted, I'm in the space business, but the network aspects are essentially the same.

And, given that there's probably a higher-than-normal load in the system right now, I'm betting it wouldn't take much to cause a cascade of problems throughout the grid.

If, OTOH, MrClark's correct about MSNBC reporting oil explosions in NJ.... Well, that's a different thing entirely.

[aristeides]

But power is reportedly still on in Philadelphia.

[mikegi]

Figure Georgia's safe?

No problems up here north of Atlanta. I guess our grid is completely separate fro ... wait one ... there was just a flicker....ytsvds.r.r.ty.hn.tynty...[insert "shhhhhhhhhhhh"]

[sinkspur]

There are major oil explosions breaking out in Northern New Jersey, per WNBC, who has a chopper over the area

Nope. That's flame-off from refineries, which is normal.

[b4its2late]

I'm in Upstate NY. We've got power and lost it for only about 4 minutes.

Must've been one big squirrel!

[FairOpinion]

HomeDepot should be safe enough, even if you get stuck with it for a while.

[Snowy]

What did she do, blow a fuse?

LOL!

[Timesink]

CNN: The Niagara Mohawk Power Grid has failed, and is the source of the problem. No terrorism involved.

[NYer]

NIMO is up here in Albany - midway between New York City and Montreal! Probably looking to increase their rates.

[ItsBacon]

Central IN (Terre Haute), no problems here.

[Peach]

Affected areas: NYC, Detroit, Cleveland, Hartford, Ottowa, and a few others.