Free Republic

Back in 2001, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney mapped out their vision for America's energy future in the National Energy Policy Report (NEPR). At the time, Vice President Cheney said: Transmission grids stand in need of repair, upgrading, and expansion. If we put these connections in place, we'll go a long way toward avoiding blackouts. We all know what happened last week, so there's no point in rehashing the details. The NEPR is destined to become another "hindsight" publication, like the Hart-Rudman report in early 2001 on the threat of terrorism that said: The combination of unconventional weapons...

For New Yorkers, the Great Blackout of 2003 turned into something resembling a massive and pleasant block party. People dragged couches out onto the streets, cracked a few beers, and generally seem to have had a nice time. Contrary to the expectations of some, there was no looting, no murders, and New Yorkers, a people not generally renowned for the pleasant and laid-back attitude, seem to have come together and made the best of what could have been a nightmare. Sadly, the same cannot be said of the people of Canada's capital city.

<p>In New York -- which has reported about 70,000 violent crimes a year since 1998 -- police reported four burglaries in the entire city overnight, and said they had made arrests in all four.</p> <p>Three deaths overall have been reported that were tied to the outage.</p>

Hannity station went dead for about 20 seconds. Said he had never seen anything like it.

How many FReepers feel they would be ready for a blackout right NOW? What do you do that makes you feel like you are or are not? How about personal safety.

One Reason for the Blackout Maybe . . . Enviro WackosAlan CarubaThursday, Aug 14, 2003There's a very fundamental reason for the latest blackout on the East Coast. The United States of America needs more power facilities. I'm not talking about ten thousand windmills on the coast of Massachusetts or seventy square miles of solar collectors in Vermont. I'm talking about burning coal and using natural gas. I'm talking about hydroelectric plants and, yes, nuclear-based plants. All of them gloriously producing electricity. Reality pulled the plug from Ottawa to Detroit, from Toledo to Hartford, from Cleveland to New York City. Millions...

NEW YORK (AFX) - The world's biggest stock exchange will open for trading Friday even if officials have to crank up back-up emergency power generators, a New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) spokeswoman said. The exchange, which processes more than 1.3 bln share deals on an average day, can fully function on its back-up generators, she said. The exchange oversees some 35 bln dollars worth of transactions each day, and is due to open for business at 9:30 am (1330 GMT). New York city was left without electricity in Thursday's sudden power outage and remained blacked out late into the evening,...

<p>NEW YORK (CNN) -- Power began to flicker on late Thursday evening, hours after a major power outage struck simultaneously across dozens of cities in the eastern United States and Canada.</p> <p>By 11 p.m. in New Jersey, power had been restored to all but 250,000 of the nearly 1 million customers who had been in the dark since just after 4 p.m., a spokeswoman for Public Service Energy and Gas said.</p>

UPDATED: 11:45 p.m. EDT August 14, 2003 Most of southeast Michigan remains in the dark. A spokesperson from Detroit's main supplier of electricity said the city of Detroit will not have power anytime soon and probably not until Friday. Anthony Earley, chairman and CEO of DTE, said underpopulated areas will be the first to have power restored so as not to overload the system and then areas such as Detroit will follow later. Local 4 reported that power came back around 7:45 p.m. in Lake Orion, Oxford Township and Oxford. The majority of areas of southeast Michigan are still without...

Ontario Premier Ernie Eves has declared a state of emergency for the entire province and is telling all non-essential and non-emergency workers to stay home on Friday. The decision was announced just as power was restored to a large part of downtown Toronto, including the banking district and the CBC Broadcast Centre. Eves says he's not sure when power will be restored, but he doesn't appear to be taking any chances. Power is coming back slowly in some parts of the province, but the major centres, Toronto, Ottawa and London, Ont., are still dealing with widespread blackouts. At its height...

Subscript only at Fox. I usually don't post such, but this one was to good to pass up, IMO. Plus Chretien thrice-changed explanation for the blackout.