Free Republic

Violent evening storms following a day of triple-digit temperatures wiped out power to more than 2 million people across the eastern United States and caused two fatalities in Virginia — including a 90-year-old woman asleep in bed when a tree slammed into her home, a police spokeswoman said Saturday. Widespread power outages were reported from Indiana to New Jersey, with the bulk of the service interruptions concentrated on Washington, D.C., and the surrounding areas. Earlier Friday, the nation’s capital reached 104 degrees — topping a record of 101 set in 1934.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The governors of Massachusetts and New Hampshire declared states of emergency Friday after high winds, rain and snow swept through the Northeast, leaving at least a million homes and businesses without power. In Massachusetts, work crews struggled to clear the debris, left roads and bridges covered in ice. Gov. Deval Patrick told WCVB-TV in Boston it would be optimistic to think power would be restored by Monday. "This is not going to be a couple of hours," Patrick said. "It's likely to be several days." Patrick mobilized 500 National Guardsmen to help clear roads, WCVB-TV reported....

Following the wrath of Katrina, many area businesses are contemplating the hurricane's effect on the local economy. While some businesses, such as hardware stores and gas stations, saw an increase in business, others saw fewer customers in the days following the hurricane. Local hardware store had a run on batteries and generators following last Monday's power outages. Builder's Hardware reportedly went through 75 generators in the days following Katrina and could not keep up with demand. Deckie Arinder, owner of Builder's Hardware, said he received 500-600 calls from people requesting generators last week. "People were unreal wanting generators," Arinder said....

Louisiana engineers were on Wednesday on the brink of turning the lights back on in New Orleans in an imaginative plan to use the emergency generator of an air conditioning plant. Operation Jump Start New Orleans entails jerry-rigging the air-conditioning plant’s huge diesel-powered backup generator to provide enough power to light and air condition several large hospital, administrative and dormitory buildings. Some of the generator’s power will be rerouted to buildings that will be used to house emergency workers, National Guard troops, the US Army Corps of Engineers and federal agencies. A triage medical centre and temporary shelter could also...

Other Comments: CISO reported shedding approximately 325 MW’s of Interruptible Load in the PGAE area for the disturbance reported on Tuesday, October 8 th . PPOA reported shedding 125 MW’s of contracted underfrequency load for the same disturbance. Tuesday’s Notable Events: At 1531 the Midpoint-Summer Lake, Grizzly-Summer Lake and Malin-Summer Lake 500-kV lines tripped by an inadvertent operation of the Breaker Failure Relay at Summer Lake. The Grizzly-Captain Jack 500-kV line was already out of service as scheduled. This initiated RAS, inserting the Chief Joseph Dynamic Braking Resistor and dropped 3030 MW of generation in the Pacific Northwest. Frequency declined...