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.

[CedarDave]

The problem would likely be that in the city they are electric powered, thus can't move until it comes back on. (I know that some are dual powered (diesel/electric). I suppose they could run a limited number of diesels through the tunnels, but without fans to exhaust, it would get pretty bad in there from the fumes and CO.)

[fatima]

Fellow Traveler,Thank you.

[Alberta's Child]

I've had no outages at all here. I'm on the JCP&L grid, much of which had no problems today. Even my digital clocks are still showing the right time.

[FairOpinion]

And whether it was a cyberterror attack, someone making a mistake, or just overload of one system, it shouldn't be so easy to bring down so much of a huge grid. That is the really worrysome part of it.

Whatever caused the original problem, it should have been a localized problem and there should be safeguards so it doesn't cascade like that.

Someone mentioned that there were supposed to be safeguards in place to prevent this, so what happened to those safeguards?

[Fellow Traveler]

I use to know but it has been seven years since I was in that line of work.

[Dec31,1999]

The trains may have trouble running out of Penn Station because the long tunnels require electric trains and prohibit diesels, but east of Sunnyside and Jaimaca they can use diesels to pull the trains. Setup generators at a few key fueling stations to keep the shuttles running. Don't they have a contingency plan for such an evacuation?

You're not taking into account all the electric trains sitting dead on the tracks they need to pass, like the one I was evacuated from.

[Timeout]

I can top Ashleigh's report:

About 3 hours into this thing I heard a mayor of one of the larger cities tell CNN: "We have no deaths to report up to this time".

Couldn't believe my ears.

[Calpernia]

>>>Keep in mind also that the entire grid crash probably happened in a matter of seconds. The 65 blackout took only 10 seconds to propagate across the northeast and eastern Canada.

Explain this? This means something to you...but I don't have the background knowledge.

[habs4ever]

That's the other side of the family...

[Mo1]

[OrioleFan]

The ole VIC-20 has the 40 column card, too.

I was told there was a use for a VIC-20 - the Dayton Microcomputer Group is using them in a couple of schools to set off the bells between class periods. Cool!

[Chad Fairbanks]

Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition

[ThirdMate]

Thanks for your #3030, very informative.

[Calpernia]

>>>>Even my digital clocks are still showing the right time.

Then how about giving us a wake up call! ;)

/teasing

[Diddle E. Squat]

Right, I should have repeated what I said in my earlier post. The problem with Penn Station is that there are long tunnels on each end that require electrics. So I wondered if(and if not, why not) they were running evacuation bus shuttles between Penn Station and Long Island, where the tunnels end and diesels can take over, and between Penn Station and Newark, where diesels can take over. There is also a brand new station that hasn't opened yet(but is basically completed) in Secaucus, that could also be used to transfer passengers from shuttle buses to the northern NJ lines that don't go through Newark.

[lelio]

Informative post on SCADA

[r9etb]

Someone mentioned that there were supposed to be safeguards in place to prevent this, so what happened to those safeguards?

That was meyer who said that. He also said that it's very likely that a bit of corner-cutting has rendered the safeguards ineffective (or possibly non-existent). And on a hot, high-demand day like today must have been, I think the margins would have been very tight to begin with.

[FairOpinion]

"Yeah, just imagine, all those plate glass windows with no alarms....... "

---

If the owners only had shotguns...

During the LA riot the city burned very "strangely", which was obvious after it was all over. There were entire blocks burned down and looted with a few buildings in the middle of all that, standing in perfect shape. It turned out, the stores that weren't burned and looted were the ones, where the owner(s) went up on the roof with shotguns and shot at anyone trying to break into the place or damage it. I remember seeing those scenes on TV. They should have used those in commercials against gun control.

[slimer]

the thought of people just recently joining this thread and seeing references to the Three Stooges. What must they think?

Isn't this the Niagra Falls thread?

[Chad Fairbanks]

SLowly I turned... step by step.. inch by inch...