The Power Outage

[nccanes]

So, ya think that's why the last 3 websites I tried to reach this afternoon (before going out for a few hours) were unreachable and still are?

Guess everyone is dusting off those disaster recovery plans, huh?

In all seriousness, I hope all those in hospitals, etc. get their services restored soon. :eek:

Meanwhile, nhl.com and nhlpa.com seem to be down. ;) :evil:

[moonstomper]

people are goin nuts up there, I like how the news reported people flooded the streets when traffic lights went out, its like their natural reaction is chaos.....Well I can recall wandering around aimlessely, gnawing on beef jerky and drinking water from a gallon jug, when we had the ice storm in Dec and lost power, so I guess chaos is a reasonable reaction......

I do hope everything gets back up soon, and everyone can get back to their families, watch some T.V, and go to bed.....and then get up and go to work cuz its FRIDAY! :spin:

[talkingcanes]

Well I was supposed to be there now, but after I got to the airport, parked, and checked baggage, I find out there is no power! I had to hang around awhile before the airline finally told us that we may want to make alternate arrangements! So, I will try to get out tomorrow morning.
At least some of the power is starting to come back on.

[Shell]

21 power plants down in 3 minutes is unfathomable!! That Homeland Security department muct be kicking ass! :roll:

[talkingcanes]

21 power plants down in 3 minutes is unfathomable!! That Homeland Security department muct be kicking ass! :roll:

did they ever decide what the cause was? I heard fire, lightning, and overuse due to the heat.

I can't believe all those major cities are on one grid. Sounds like the power companies need to make some changes.

it's only been about 5 hours since the power went out and since my power has been out for 10 days to 2 weeks on more than one occasion, I think they need to suck it up and be thankful the power is already started coming back on.

[tommy]

1st of all, yeah, Bush said today that the national power system needs some bigtime modifications and updates.

2nd of all, what the hell does the Homeland Security have to do with it?

[Shell]

To me, homeland security should have something to do with it because of the absolute vulnerability in our power system. I would have never believed something like this could happen.. even if this wasn't a terrorist attack, can you imagine if it was? I don't understand how Microsoft is tried for monopoly when the whole northeast relies on one company for power. I wonder how many people have been stuck in an elevator for hours wondering what the hell is going on right now? Can you imagine what those people in NYC and other places felt when they saw the power of their entire city just shut off? They had to think they were under attack.

sorry, off on a tangent there.. basically I think Homeland Security would be much better served to be fixing vulnerabilities like this instead of spending all their time in court trampling the constitution.. but I am really not opinated on this at all ;) (and of course this is all just my opinion which everyone is obviously free to dispute)

[nccanes]

1st of all, yeah, Bush said today that the national power system needs some bigtime modifications and updates.

Ya think? Or did he say this before the blackout?


2nd of all, what the hell does the Homeland Security have to do with it?

Lots of reasons. But here's one from the Homeland Security's own "Securing the Homeland - Strengthening the Nation"

After September 11, the Administration took a wide range of urgent steps to protect the Nation’s highest risk targets and critical infrastructure systems – such as nuclear power plans, ports, hydroelectric dams, telecommunications nodes, border crossings, and chemical facilities. This effort proceeded in cooperation with many different State and local agencies and private companies. Over the longer term, however, the Administration recognizes the need to address the security of America’s highest risk targets and critical infrastructure systems in a comprehensive fashion. Accordingly, the Administration has begun a systematic effort to define, prioritize, and develop effective strategies for protecting the Nation’s critical infrastructure. This framework will produce the country's first unified critical infrastructure protection plan, with full involvement by all relevant Federal agencies as well as State and local governments and private industry.

Okay, maybe it was a potshot, but if what they are suspecting caused this havoc, I'd hate to think about something that was actually supposed to do something would cause.

[Jeff O Rocks]

It gave me the creeps to see Dan Rather and see people in NYC walking across the bridges...too many familiar images from 9/11. :cry:

One of the scariest things I heard was the power is out in Sandusky, Ohio and people were stuck on the rides at Cedar Point. If you have ever seen the height of some of those coasters, that would NOT be a good thing!! :eek2:

Hope power is restored to all by AM!!

[Shell]

*treading thin ice*

1st of all, yeah, Bush said today that the national power system needs some bigtime modifications and updates.

If he truly believed this, he would take things like ANWR out of the basic bill to get it passed. I KNOW he wants to change the energy world as we know it, but i don't agree with him in How to do it. I'd like to see Cheney's real motives clearly.

[Romney]

As power begins to come on up here (although many in our community are without power, once again I was lucky to not lose it) a few thoughts ran through my head.

Jeff O Rocks said:
It gave me the creeps to see Dan Rather and see people in NYC walking across the bridges...too many familiar images from 9/11.
I was at my brother's house near Syracuse when it hit. The only source of info was the radio and I got goosebumps listening. The same voices and tone of voice as 9/11. Creepy. Especially since we noted, prior to learning of the outage, about two F16s flying overhead headed towards home (Oswego, NY - home of 3 nuclear power plants).

One of the scariest things I heard was the power is out in Sandusky, Ohio and people were stuck on the rides at Cedar Point. If you have ever seen the height of some of those coasters, that would NOT be a good thing!!

I thought of this a few minutes after the power went out since we were at a 6 Flags near Buffalo the day before yesterday (with a screaming 6 year old at the top of the Giant Wheel). Not a good place to be.

It's definitely been a memorable day. I can't tell you how relieved I was when they said it was probably a problem with a grid, not terrorism. However, being 45 minutes from home and with only a 1/4 tank of gas (I was just going to get it on the way home) I was a bit nervous. I finally reached a gas station with power as I was about to run out of gas. I was never so happy to get gas.

I am very interested to see what triggered the whole situation. That seems to be the big mystery.

[tommy]

As to Homeland security, I'm no electrician, but updating an entire power grid of that size has got to take months, if not years. And I doubt a total haulover would be in the works either... that would be insanely expensive, and probably be way more of a hassle than necessary. I dunno, I just don't think that blame should be passed around quite yet when we really don't know what happened at all.

[nccanes]

I dunno, I just don't think that blame should be passed around quite yet when we really don't know what happened at all.

Tommy, I don't think we were "assigning blame". Just pointing out just how vulnerable we are.

I hope we never ever find out, but I'm pretty certain that it there was a sustained outage of this magnitute, no one would ever consider the effort to prevent it "a hassle". JMO.

[Jeff O Rocks]

It is just scary to see how quickly one of our largest cities, (is it the largest?) could be rendered helpless like this again. If terrorists are watching, they are probably running with ideas. Yesterday could have been the opportunity that some of those little scumbags have been waiting for!! For now, I am thankful that it was not terrorism! :roll:

[Turbulence]

(is it the largest?)

8 Million or so strong in the metro area. Yes.

This really does point out our vulnerability...no matter if it was lightning or sabatage, which it appears that it wasn't. I guess I don't completely understand how this power grid system works, but there has to be some way that a power plant can shut down without disturbing the grid...

[Jeff O Rocks]

Thanks Turby!! And I agree about the vulnerability and the fact that one shutdown shouldn't be able to do that kind of damage!! Someone's head will roll for that...probably several! :eek2:

[talkingcanes]

(is it the largest?)

8 Million or so strong in the metro area. Yes.

This really does point out our vulnerability...no matter if it was lightning or sabatage, which it appears that it wasn't. I guess I don't completely understand how this power grid system works, but there has to be some way that a power plant can shut down without disturbing the grid...

I think it's supposed to shut down without disturbing the grid. I believe that is the biggest question they are trying to answer. Apparently the grid in PA did what it was supposed to do so they only lost power in a very small area and I think the PA governor said last night that most of that power had been restored. If PA had gone dark, many more people in the southeast would have been affected.

Speaking as someone with a moderate case of claustrophobia, I feel so bad for those caught in subway cars under the Hudson River. I can not even think about it without shivering :eek2:

[Jeff O Rocks]

Speaking as someone with a moderate case of claustrophobia, I feel so bad for those caught in subway cars under the Hudson River. I can not even think about it without shivering :eek2:

I am claustrophobic too tc...I saw some people being interviewed that were on the subway and they said they stopped, it went completely black and they couldn't breathe! :eek:

[Shell]

As to Homeland security, I'm no electrician, but updating an entire power grid of that size has got to take months, if not years. And I doubt a total haulover would be in the works either... that would be insanely expensive, and probably be way more of a hassle than necessary. I dunno, I just don't think that blame should be passed around quite yet when we really don't know what happened at all.

OK, well, dept of homeland security has been around for 2 years come October. To me, it is things like this that they should be focusing on. We can agree to disagree ;)

[lvscolencanes]

hey all my buddies in NC, I am stuck up north at such a wonderful time...LOL.

We just got power back at 4 this morning. i am in Cleveland visiting my mom. So poor me had to rough it for a whole 12 hours...

[Romney]

Glad to hear you made it through safe, lvscolencanes. You'll certainly remember this trip. Hope you have time to rest up before your trip home. You may need it.

[lvscolencanes]

I have most def. got rest -- all I did was sleep, I am ready for us to drop the puck and kick some butt now!! :D

[opuntia]

Well, I couldn't figure out how to post this picture except as my avatar - the NYC skyline at dusk - dark.

My brother-in-law made it out on the ferry before things got too crazy; he moved out of the city after 9/11 but still works about a block away from the WTC site. I am hoping to convince him to move to NC where the worst he has to deal with are hurricanes and ice storms!

[Guyute]

if you have the full picture up online somewhere...

all you do is type the address... ie- http://www.domain.com/mypicture.jpg , then highlight the url, and click the "Img" button above the text box you're typing in.

if it's not online already, you'll need to find a place to upload it.

[tommy]

Glad to hear everything's good with you, lvscolencanes.

anywho, dont wanna argue with anyone, as im probably much less informed, lol.

[Jeff O Rocks]

Glad everyone's relatives made it out ok....and good luck luvscole..you gotta get back here...we saw Colesy everyday this week at practice and he looks great!! ;) They all do!!

[AbNormal27]

I didn't have to go without power quite as long as lvscolencanes, but from my side of Lake Erie, we got some power back at about 11:45 PM last night. From all reports that we have heard, this was the Worst Blackout in North America, ever (Do I sound like Comic Book Guy or what?). Conflicting reports have been thrown about, but from what I can gather is that a power plant went down somewhere on the Eastern seaboard of the US (where, I'm not sure) and the grid across North America could not support the influx. Either way, it just goes to show that even in the year 2003 we have to go back to some old ways. Last night I spent most of the evening talking on the front proch with some neighbours. It felt like camping or cottaging up at the Lake because it was so quiet. I was glad to have the power come back on. Sleeping would have been impossible withthe humidity we are enduring right now.

Aaryn

PS: Welcome back Allie! :D

[Shell]

Cleveland last night:

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20030815/capt.1060911937.blackout_ohio_ohmd105.jpg

Stopped roller coaster at cedar point
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20030815/capt.1060910932.blackout_ohio_ohtf101.jpg

The exit from NYC
http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20030815/i/1060923670.3422715968.jpg

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20030815/capt.1060924312.blackout_new_york_ny110.jpg

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20030814/capt.sge.qoy79.140803215831.photo00.default-389x260.jpg

NYC skyline
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20030815/capt.1060910506.blackout_xnyr507.jpg

Times Square
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20030815/mdf337522.jpg

Stranded commuters sleeping on steps
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20030815/capt.1060963973.topix_blackout_new_york_xma107.jpg

[Jeff O Rocks]

Thanks for the pics Shell...to be on that coaster and have to get out and walk down those little bitty steps!! :crazy: :eek:

That picture of the people sleeping on the steps made me want to cry! :cry:

[tommy]

That last picture shows how desperate this whole thing was... wow. Can't imagine being up there during this time, how weird it would be in NYC, Detroit, etc., with no power because of something like this.

[tommy]

This picture is the most dramatic and telling that I've yet seen.

http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20030815/s/1060972452.2751479848.jpg

caption: Images taken by a NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) satellite showing light coverage in the northeastern United States on a normal night (L), at 9:21 PM Eastern time on August 13, 2003, and after a massive blackout affected much of the area (R), shown at 9:03 PM Eastern time on August 14, showing the relative lack of lights due to the power outage. Millions of Americans and Canadians slowly recovered from the largest power outage in North American history Friday, as President George W. Bush (news - web sites) called the blackout a 'wake up call' and urged the modernization of antiquated electricity infrastructure. Officials were trying to pinpoint the cause of the breakdown and to discover how it cascaded so quickly through much of the northeastern United States and the Canadian province of Ontario, knocking New York City, Detroit, Cleveland, Ottawa, Toronto and a host of smaller cities back into the pre-electric age.

Also kinda interesting that New Yorkers cooled off in open fire-hydrants:

http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20030815/s/1060969735.4026859634.jpg

While Cleveland suffered from a water crisis.

[Shell]

http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20030815/i/1060954709.3623968836.jpg

People lay stranded outside the Times Square Marriot around 3 a.m. in the morning as a power outage shut down the Eastern Seaboard August 15, 2003. More than 12 hours after the biggest North American power outage in history left huge swaths of the Northeast in sweltering darkness, much of New York and its suburbs were still without electricity. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

[Shell]

The Warnings
System's Crash Was Predicted
By Peter Behr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 15, 2003; Page A01

The warning from David Cook, general counsel for the nation's electric reliability organization, was stark: "The question is not whether, but when, the next major failure of the grid will occur."

Cook was speaking to Congress two years ago, and yesterday his prediction came crashingly true in what may have been the largest power blackout in history, a catastrophe for the industry that experts said has exposed the steadily growing vulnerability of the nation's nearly 200,000-mile network of high-voltage transmission lines.

The country's halting moves toward electricity deregulation over the past decade have dramatically increased the volume of power flowing on the grids.

But the transmission towers themselves remain the stepchildren of the nation's energy infrastructure. People don't want them in their back yards or on their farms. Energy companies aren't interested in building them. And while the system is linked together with advanced computer systems, much of the equipment that opens and closes connections around the nation's three major grids is 1950s vintage, officials said.

"We're a superpower with a Third World grid," New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former energy secretary, said yesterday.

Cook's organization, the North American Electric Reliability Council warned last year, "The nation is at . . . a crisis stage with respect to reliability of transmission grids." It calculated that $56 billion was needed to upgrade the nation's grids, but only $35 billion was likely to be invested.

For two years, the Bush administration and leaders of congressional energy committee have called for new legislation to help expand the transmission system, but a major energy bill has yet to get through Congress.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency that oversees transmission, has been trying for years to prod power companies into forming new, multi-state regional grids with authority over planning and system reliability measures. But utilities in the Southeast and Northwest fear that a more wide-open system would allow their cheaper power to be siphoned away from their customers. They have made war on FERC's plans and some members of Congress are trying to block the commission's transmission initiative from going forward until 2005 or 2007.

The Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., estimated that while power demand has shot up 30 percent in the past 10 years, transmission capacity has increased by just 15 percent. That wouldn't have mattered much as recently as the 1970s, when most electricity was distributed within states or small regions. Today, when heat waves strike New York, power often courses southward from Canada, or eastward from the Dakotas. When weather is cool in Chicago and hot in New Orleans, electricity from the Windy City may help feed the Big Easy.

But throughout the country, bottlenecks in transmission line capacity often overload the system, forcing power in different and unplanned directions and compelling operators to increase output from some generators while ordering others to power down.

The most famous of the bottlenecks, called Path 15 in central California, prevented surplus electricity in the southern part of the state from reaching San Francisco and northern cities early in 2001, aggravating blackouts that on the worst day cut off power to 1 million people.

Robert Mitchell, who heads a Reston company, Trans-Elect Inc., that has raised $250 million for a joint venture with federal and California partners to expand Path 15's capacity, said, "Transmission deserves to be treated as an enormous infrastructure problem, but it gets little attention." If the interstate highway system were as jammed as the grid often is now, "we would have a parking lot from coast to coast," he said.

The nation's major utility companies, which own the bulk of the transmission lines, often balk are sharing them with competing independent merchant power providers that have been building generating stations along the lines, hoping to take customers away.

As deregulation flourished, investment dwindled in transmission lines, whose profits are limited by regulation.

The 1965 Northeast power blackout led to the creation of the reliability council, an advisory and watchdog group over the transmission system, said Peter Fox-Penner, a principal with the Brattle Group, a consulting firm advising utilities.

But the move toward deregulation has also exposed NERC's limitations, particularly its lack of enforcement powers to detect and stop generators from abusing the grid with unscheduled power deliveries. Yesterday's blackout will force attention back to the grid, Fox-Penner predicted.

"This will undoubtedly focus attention on the infrastructure, the need for investment in power grid and the best ways to attract investment in the grid," said Merribel Ayres, president of the Lighthouse Energy Group, a power industry consulting firm.

[Turbulence]

Some of those pics are downright creepy...especially the NOAA sattelite pics.

Makes you think about our dependancy on the stuff...

[Romney]

Thanks for the pics. That's one heck of a walk down those rollercoaster steps.

[Lady J]

Boy, it gave me chills to see all those NYers walking across Brooklyn Bridge on the news yesterday.
http://www.smilies.org/basesmilies3/cepopossible.gif


Several of our friends in Detroit are really having a rough time of it ~ one lady has a sister who was paralyzed in a car accident and lost the ability to sweat too, so the ac not being on is really a life threatening situation for her. Fortunately her husband has been taking her down to their pool every twenty minutes or so and wading in with her. :|

[tommy]

Oh my goodness, lady J! That's terrible. Keep that woman in your prayers. That sounds really rough.

[Jeff O Rocks]

After watching the news, it looks like most everyone has power back and things are back to normal..except in some places in Canada.

[Turbulence]

this was the Worst Blackout in North America, ever (Do I sound like Comic Book Guy or what?).

http://turbulence.20megsfree.com/images/cbg.gif
:D

[AbNormal27]

Turb, thanks, you da man.

Aaryn

[RIO]

...except in some places in Canada...


....where nothing is normal anyway, so no one really notices. :smoke:

[talkingcanes]

NYC had everything including subways and trains on schedule by Saturday morning. You couldn't have gotten me on a subway for anything this weekend. We did take the train and all was well. It's a wonder there is enough power anywhere to generate all the lights in that city. I am stunned by it every time I go.

I met a woman at the airport who was on a subway when the power went out and she made one of the subway conductors carry her out on his back and I mean that literally! She said she climbed on his back and told him she wasn't getting off until he took her to street level! Gotta love that nerve :D

[lvscolencanes]

Glad everyone's relatives made it out ok....and good luck luvscole..you gotta get back here...we saw Colesy everyday this week at practice and he looks great!! ;) They all do!!

Thanks Monie!! I feel so loved. :kiss: I really got to get to a practice now that I am back, I just dont know if I have enough time on my lunch hour to get there and back and see anything..ya know?!? But gohlee, I want to see all them so back, Colesy esp. ;) but I really want to see everyone!!

[Jeff O Rocks]

Thanks Monie!! I feel so loved. :kiss: I really got to get to a practice now that I am back, I just dont know if I have enough time on my lunch hour to get there and back and see anything..ya know?!? But gohlee, I want to see all them so back, Colesy esp. ;) but I really want to see everyone!!

I hope you can make it to at least one this week...they are working hard and are very serious, but it is not as structured as the ones later on...glad you made it back ok.. :spin:

[Shell]

This is very long, but I thought it was really interesting (YMMV)

What Went Wrong
It was a blip on the screen that turned into a monster, leaving 50 million Americans powerless. The inside story of a sleepless night
By Michael Hirsh and Daniel Klaidman
NEWSWEEK Aug. 25 issue;

Thursday, August 14, began as a typical late-summer day: hot, lazy and inconsequential. Up near Albany, Steve Swan was working as shift supervisor at the New York Independent System Operator, the nerve center of the state's power grid. Because of all the air conditioners in use around the region, the grid was carrying a heavy load that day. But it was nothing special for August. In fact, most of the East and Midwest was operating only at about 75 percent of capacity; in past summers, power systems in the region have used more capacity on hotter days without incident. Hunkered down at their terminals, the electrical engineers and other "utility geeks" know that their job of monitoring power flows isn't very glamorous. "A lot of days we sit there --for hours and it doesn't look like we're doing anything," says one dispatcher. Rarely does the guy standing guard at a utility feel a part of history.

BUT AT 4:06 p.m., ET, something caught Swan's eye on the big screen at the front of the room. He noticed a large amount of power flowing from New York toward Ontario through the transmission lines--underground and overhead cables. That wasn't so unusual. A power plant must have gone down. But seconds later, something happened that he'd never seen be-fore. The 800-megawatt surge reversed course and began hurtling back toward New York, like some giant ectoplasmic monster on a rampage. Emergency sirens began to wail through the facility--klaxons not unlike the sirens from "Star Trek." Just outside the control room, the operator's chief executive, William Museler, was finishing up a budget report when his room went dark. He rushed through the secure doors into the control room, where what he saw remind-ed him of a "science-fiction movie," he recalled to NEWSWEEK. People were standing up in stunned silence as they gazed at the power board. Normally, there would be a couple of illuminated red lines represent-ing downed transmission lines. But now most of the board was flashing. "This is the big one," said one dispatcher.

Generators all over had shut down to ward off the surging megawatt monster, which could overload and burn them out. "No one had ever seen this before, and it happened instantaneously," said Museler, who had lived through Hurricane Gloria in 1985, which took down 750,000 customers. His heart sinking, he asked one of his employees, "Find out if New York City has gone dark." It had. Museler says he thought to himself: "This is my worst nightmare."

He wasn't alone. Faster than most humans could respond, power grids across the region began "islanding" themselves, disconnecting automatically from the overloaded system. Generators clicked off in a cascade of shutdowns that darkened New York, Pennsylvania, the Midwest rust belt and much of Ontario. In seconds, North America had suffered the worst blackout in its history. In about nine seconds, 61,800 megawatts were lost, and as many as 50 million people were abruptly left without power. Fortunately, it was still daylight. In Michigan and Ohio, the governors called out the National Guard to distribute water; the troops rolled out trucks known as water buffaloes to provide fluids at airports and public parks (two gallons per person and you had to bring your own container). Agriculture specialists worked the phones, trying to get generators to farmers to enable them to milk their cows. Other officials called hospitals to see if they needed more diesel fuel to run their emergency power engines. Gas lines spilled out onto highways, snarling traffic. "It's like Mad Max out here," said one Detroit resident.

New York City simply shut down all at once. At 4:09 p.m., three minutes after Swan first noticed something was wrong, a rush-hour-packed subway car carrying Richard Warren, an investment banker hoping for an early weekend, lurched to a stop. The lights soon went out, and the August heat grew overwhelming. Cut off, people talked in frightened tones of terrorism. "This woman kept yelling 'Help! Help! People are dying down here!' It was a little intense," Warren recalls. The police arrived two hours later and escorted the passengers, who wielded their cell phones as flashlights, through the dark, rat-infested tunnel and up to daylight at Union Square. The stranded subway riders joined tens of thousands of other New Yorkers who suddenly turned into refugees, tracking their way home across the Brooklyn Bridge or bivouacking for the night by tunnels and bridges in scenes reminiscent of 9/11.

For many, the first minutes of the Great Blackout of 2003 were haunted by those memories of nearly two years ago. Across the country in San Diego, President George W. Bush was on brief respite from his month-long Crawford, Texas, vacation, lunching with troops at the Marine Air Corps Station in Miramar before heading to a fund-raising dinner. Just as White House chief of staff Andrew Card had leaned over to Bush in the middle of a public event to tell him of the terror attacks on 9/11, Card's deputy, Joe Hagin, now bent over to tell the president about the massive blackout. The traveling White House learned --about the blackout "simultaneously" as the news was breaking on TV because their cell phones began ringing incessantly. Hagin checked in with the White House Situation Room and the Homeland Security operations center, asking if the blackout was the result of terrorism. "I think everyone's first conclusion was this was terrorism," said Homeland Security spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

In fact, federal investigators ruled terrorism out within the first 45 minutes--perhaps prematurely. True, there was no detectable physical intrusion; nor had terrorist hackers left the usual cyber footprints. But despite the initial reassuring signals to the public, during an emergency conference call with senior officials at 5:30 p.m., the CIA "put on the radar" the possibility that there might have been some terrorist tampering. Informants and interrogations of terror suspects have led the CIA to believe that Al Qaeda is seeking to target power grids to produce just the widespread chaos witnessed Thursday afternoon, a senior administration official told NEWSWEEK. Last year the FBI concluded that terrorists are eagerly surveying weaknesses in power grids through Internet connections in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Pakistan. Even if they had no role in this episode, many worry that the Blackout of 2003 provided them with a perfect case study.

Back in Washington, the new multibillion-dollar counterterror machine put in place so painstakingly since 9/11 began dutifully lumbering into action. At the new Department of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge--a cabinet secretary only since March 1--rushed into his office just after 5 p.m. to face his first major test. He called Card and "assured the president we were coordinating communications at all levels," said a Homeland Security official. (The president had been extremely frustrated on 9/11 when he became disconnected, especially from calls with Vice President Dick Cheney at the White House, and ordered a top-to-bottom revamping of secure communications.) Homeland Security mobilized several emergency response teams to assist with telecommunications and other demands. NORAD, the continental air-defense system inside Colorado's Cheyenne Mountain, ordered two more F-16s out of Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida to patrol the East. "Our level of tolerance is so low we're always at the edge of being prepared to launch," NORAD spokesman Doug Barton told NEWSWEEK.

Meanwhile, at the epicenter of the collapse in Albany, New York Gov. George Pataki descended into his hardened command center, an old civil-defense bunker four floors beneath the ground. Behind a blast partition, the governor paced in his wood-paneled office, occasionally stepping out to pepper his aides with questions: "Is Long Island online yet?" "Is Westchester County online yet?" Pataki grew irritated as the minutes and hours passed and power--which energy executives assured him would be back shortly--was still not restored, said an aide who talked to him. In one dicey moment, Pataki recalled to NEWSWEEK, officials had to rush a second backup generator to the neonatal unit at Stony Brook University Hospital after the first backup went down. "We were told after '65 and '77 that this wasn't going to happen again," Pataki said Saturday. "And it did. And that is very upsetting. We still want to know why it happened, why it cascaded. The systems that were supposed to act as firewalls did not, and we need some answers."

Pataki isn't the only one asking these questions. To most Americans, the vast blackout seemed nearly inexplicable: what in the world did power stations in Ottawa have to do with New York or Cleveland? Many Easterners and Midwesterners seem not to have realized that over years of restructuring their regional power, companies had merged generation capacity to become part of the largest infrastructural system on the continent. A power-sharing network stretching from Miami to Manitoba had become, in effect, a single electrical circuit.

For decades this system had worked well. Electricity grids in Canada and the United States, for example, link up at 37 major points so the two countries can trade significant quantities of power. When one utility has a shortage, it simply buys power from a neighboring utility. But this network had also grown a very soft underbelly: an old transmission grid of underground and overhead power lines stuck back in the 1950s and '60s. Experts knew these ancient cables couldn't handle the rapid surges of the new power-trading economy. A federal security official told NEWSWEEK that by 9 p.m. Thursday, 80 percent of the generators that had been knocked out during the blackout were running again at capacity--but transmission lines could handle only 20 percent of the output.

For years experts have warned of too little investment in a transmission grid that had become more complex than anyone knew. One complicating factor was deregulation. In the 1990s, many utilities were broken up, separating transmission businesses from the generators that produce electricity. Today the system is dominated by independent operators in a market-driven system--and "a broken link between generation planning and transmission planning," says Steven Taub of Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

No one stepped in to fix the problem, in part because no one operator was directly responsible and could see benefits to building power lines for other regions. Even the public bears some of the blame: no one wants to pay the higher rates demanded by the old utility monopolies. And citizens' groups have made local approval of new transmission lines very difficult.

It's unclear whether Washington can find the way--or has the will--to overhaul the system; as the lights came up, the Bush administration and leading Democrats were too busy with the city's favorite pastime, the blame game. But they at least achieved consensus in praising the government's response.

Homeland Security's Johndroe called the blackout a "test case" of the system, and the results were in: state and local officials had taken the necessary steps to be prepared for massive emergencies. Department officials gingerly reminded reporters of their widely ridiculed calls for homeowners to stock up on water, duct tape and other provisions. "One of those items was batteries," a DHS official noted Friday. "Yesterday cell phones didn't work. So you could listen to the radio."

Especially in New York, the night of 8/14 marked a striking contrast to previous outages. There were no riots of the kind that crippled the city in the big blackout of 1977. Overall, officials logged 800 elevator rescues, 80,000 calls to 911 and a record 5,000 emergency medical service calls, but almost zero hysteria. A senior New York Police Department official said that between the time the power went out on Thursday afternoon until 6 o'clock Friday morning, New York police recorded only 305 arrests--somewhat lower than the department records on a normal evening.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg--playing a lower-key version of the role his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani, perfected after 9/11--held more news briefings in a day than he has in months. Open-shirted and perspiring, he urged New Yorkers to remember their elderly neighbors and pets. They seemed to. In an interview with NEWSWEEK, Bloomberg contrasted New Yorkers' composure this time with that of 1977. The difference? "Communications worked, coordination worked," he said. "The other thing that is different from the '70s is that people wanted to make the city work. There is a feeling among the people, a temper of the times, if you will, of cooperation and getting along." As of Friday morning, despite constant complaints from localities and states that they get too little aid from the Feds, there was only one request for assistance from Washington, Bush told reporters. Bloomberg had asked for a generator from the Defense Department. Pataki later said he would request disaster aid.

Despite the back-patting, troubling questions hung heavy in the damp August air: how is it that Homeland Security experts, until now, had paid so little attention to the grid's vulnerabilities--despite warnings that went all the way to the president's desk? "This was not supposed to happen," a senior U.S. Security official said to NEWSWEEK. Department officials believed that, since the big blackout of '65, the electricity-transmission system was supposed to have been redesigned with safeguards that would make such disruptive incidents impossible.

Another vexing problem: will there ever be a good way to evacuate New York City? August 14 was also an uncomfortable reminder that whatever threat we're getting ready for, it may have little to do with what actually happens. Consider: most post-9/11 urban-evacuation plans depend on public transportation, but that went out in a blink last week. Though the mass departure from New York City came off smoothly, if sweatily, "this tells you clearly that it's very, very difficult to evacuate millions of people in a short period of time," said James Kallstrom, a former FBI agent in charge of New York who now advises Pataki. "You can't change the laws of physics."

Most important, what really went wrong? On that one, there were plenty of theories to go around. On Friday morning, Mayor Bloomberg asserted, apparently based on information supplied by the power company, that the event had started in Canada. The office of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, in turn, apparently leaked word to media in hard-hit Ottawa that the blackout might have been triggered by a lightning strike on a major transmission line in upstate New York. By Saturday, industry officials were increasingly convinced that the problem that led to the blackout originated somewhere in northeastern Ohio. "We are now trying to determine why this situation was not brought under control after the first three transmission lines relayed out of service," said Michehl Gent, CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), the agency formed after the last great Northeastern blackout, in 1965, to prevent another such breakdown. Industry sources say they believe the lines Gent was referring to are operated by First Energy, a transmission company based in Akron, Ohio, that has recently faced legal and financial problems. A spokesman for First Energy confirmed that company facilities in northern Ohio had suffered several mishaps during the afternoon of the 14th. These included a tree falling on one of the company's heavy-duty 345-kilovolt high-tension lines and "tripping off" a generator at a company plant in Eastlake, Ohio. Industry sources said another 345kv line may have been so overloaded with electricity that it sagged into a lower-voltage cable below it on the pylon, shorting out the circuit. (A company spokesman acknowledged that one of its lines could have sagged.) But First Energy spokesman Ralph DiNicola told NEWSWEEK that the company believed its equipment had coped with all these failures, which were "not unusual on a warm summer day." He said that First Energy "had no indication there was a major problem" until lights began blinking off elsewhere.

Gent and others hope reforms to the grid system may come soon--and that new teeth to enforce the performance demands of operators will be pushed through as part of a giant energy bill now stuck in conference on Capitol Hill. But there are other problems. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission wants to give all electricity suppliers equal access to power lines--a plan that's supposed to give consumers the cheapest electricity available, even if it comes from generators in other regions. But power companies and politicians in the South and West have vigorously opposed the plan, contending that it would force prices higher in their usually low-cost regions.

To force the power industry to take responsibility for its own system, even some of those allied with the Bush administration who once championed deregulation now say some rethinking is in order. "In the past, those companies had to invest in transmission because it was part of their business model," says Andrew Lundquist, who served as executive director of Vice President Cheney's energy task force. "Now they're uncertain if they are going to own it at all. I'm not saying the deregulated model is bad, but they need certainty. They need to get through this."

For power-industry workers like Steve Swan, a 17-year veteran, there wasn't much time to consider those larger issues last week. On Friday, Swan and his fellow workers, downing pizza slices and Dunkin' Donuts on the fly, spent all day getting New York's power grid back online. For Swan, it must have been one of the most fulfilling experiences of his life. But now that he's been part of history, he may be happy to be just a utility geek again.

[nccanes]

Thanks Mr. Mayor of Toronto

http://i.timeinc.net/time/verbatim/20030818/photo/verbatim_lastman.jpg

[AbNormal27]

Thanks Mr. Mayor of Toronto

Now, before I say anything, I am not defending what Mayor Mel said, but this was an off the cuff remark he made when initial US reports showed there was a "possibilty" that this mess was started in Canada. There has been no retraction to the initial US reports, and therefore his comment, while naive and uncalled for, does hold some water. Again, I'm not defending him, but the initial reports did point the finger squarely at the system here in Canada, and since it has come to show that the problem originated in Ohio, and a domino effect of strain placed upon an aging system in the Lake Erie region on both sides of the border caused the problem. Besides, Lastman is well-known for having his footed wedged in his mouth most days, I wouldn't let it you get your back up. ;)

Aaryn

[Shell]

yeah, he's nothing like LaPierre ;)
A Liberal senator has been thrown into the firestorm of shaky U.S.-Canada relations after the Senate's Debates quoted him shouting "Screw the Americans" during a Senate sitting this week... ooh, sorry, guess I'm not in the politics forum *eep*

[RIO]

Well, when he was shouting "Screw the Americans" what he really meant was, "I want to DO IT with Americans" and that's really nothing new. Most Canadians are out-of-control sex fiends who find Americans unbearably attractive, and he was simply displaying a passionate fit of hormones in the midst of the Senate. Tsk tsk. How risque. :smoke:

[nccanes]

Now, before I say anything, I am not defending what Mayor Mel said, but this was an off the cuff remark he made when initial US reports showed there was a "possibilty" that this mess was started in Canada. There has been no retraction to the initial US reports, and therefore his comment, while naive and uncalled for, does hold some water.

It's no big deal - it was just one of those "they said it" on the Time website.

But really, I heard CNN announce "breaking news" that Reuters was quoting Chretien saying it was lightning at a US power plant. It was all speculation for the first day or so. And do you need to retract a statement that uses the word "possibility".

It's no big deal, just thought the quote was funny. He's probably right actually. :laugh:

[AbNormal27]

Well, when he was shouting "Screw the Americans" what he really meant was, "I want to DO IT with Americans" and that's really nothing new. Most Canadians are out-of-control sex fiends...... Tsk tsk. How risque. :smoke:

Oh BEHAVE! ;)

Aaryn

[Jeff O Rocks]

Oh BEHAVE! ;)

Aaryn

Hey Aaryn...

Do you know WHO you are talking too?? :laugh: :D ;) Rio and J are "double trouble"...so look out! :spin:

[AbNormal27]

Oh BEHAVE! ;)

Aaryn

Hey Aaryn...

Do you know WHO you are talking too?? :laugh: :D ;) Rio and J are "double trouble"...so look out! :spin:

Yes, yes I do. RIO is the one who slapped me with thetag of "Clone" and is now in correspondence with another of my fellow Clones (Shay Clone). Lady J, well, she seems to be the more quiet of the 2, but yes, I can see how they earned the title of "Double Trouble". :).

Aaryn

[RIO]

LIES!!!! Vicious vicious l..... well, *mostly true* LIES!!! :evil:

[Jeff O Rocks]

LIES!!!! Vicious vicious l..... well, *mostly true* LIES!!! :evil:

**coughalltruecough** :p :kiss: ;)

[RIO]

**coughalltruecough** :p :kiss: ;)


*perloins the pretty pie and peddles padded paws in the peaked puffy pastry*

http://jm.g.free.fr/smileys/catman.sml.gif

[Jeff O Rocks]

**coughalltruecough** :p :kiss: ;)


*perloins the pretty pie and peddles padded paws in the peaked puffy pastry*

http://jm.g.free.fr/smileys/catman.sml.gif

you get those paws out of my pastry!! :D :p ;)

[Shell]

yeah... the power outage.... ;)

[Jeff O Rocks]

yeah... the power outage.... ;)

Sorry Shell!! Rio caused the power outage!! :D ;)

[RIO]

yeah... the power outage.... ;)

*gooses Shell* :evil:

POWER OUTAGE!! righty, back on track. I chatted with a Canadian friend of mine this afternoon and he said they were expecting rolling black-outs there in Ontario.

*pinches Shell again just because I CAN!* Mwuahahah!! :D

[RIO]

yeah... the power outage.... ;)

Sorry Shell!! Rio caused the power outage!! :D ;)


LIES!!! Vicious.... wait a minute... deja vu! :crazy:

:D

[AbNormal27]

I chatted with a Canadian friend of mine this afternoon and he said they were expecting rolling black-outs there in Ontario.

We haven't had any rolling blackouts in my are..uh...area.......... wait a minute! Rio, who is this "clone" you were speaking with today? I thought I was your favourite. Maybe I know this clone........... hmm........ maybe we could trade RIO stories ;)!.

Aaryn

[RIO]

You wouldn't know him. He works in the Red Wing sector of the Canadian Clones for World Domination. I am "friends" with him in order to gain valuable information. He goes by the ever so secret name of "WingDing" and blatantly brags of the many plots the Canadian government shall be inacting against the unwary populace of North America.

Foul fiends. http://jm.g.free.fr/smileys/k2k_robot.gif

[AbNormal27]

You wouldn't know him. He works in the Red Wing sector of the Canadian Clones for World Domination. I am "friends" with him in order to gain valuable information. He goes by the ever so secret name of "WingDing" and blatantly brags of the many plots the Canadian government shall be inacting against the unwary populace of North America.

Foul fiends. http://jm.g.free.fr/smileys/k2k_robot.gif

LOL, yes, you must all join us on the dark side! :D

Aaryn

[RIO]

You know what? My doctor is a Canadian from Toronto, and I told her about my theories, and she did this evil little chuckling laugh and said, "Ah yes. Canadians are..... special ." I almost jumped out of my chair and ran for it! http://www.smilies.org/basesmilies3/1040775717.gif

LOL!

[AbNormal27]

You know what? My doctor is a Canadian from Toronto, and I told her about my theories, and she did this evil little chuckling laugh and said, "Ah yes. Canadians are..... special ." I almost jumped out of my chair and ran for it! http://www.smilies.org/basesmilies3/1040775717.gif

In my best Ralph Wiggum voice............

"I'm Special!"

I'm also supposed to be doing one of 3 things to help this energy crisis according to those "in the know".... CONSERVE, CONSERVE, CONSERVE. Now either these people go to the same kind of schools as real estate people do or THEY are the ones who are special.

Aaryn

[Jeff O Rocks]

Wll Miss Rio will have to stop blaming the Canadians for this mess...everything points to Ohio!! :D

[Turbulence]

In my best Ralph Wiggum voice............

"I'm Special!"


Don't tell me I have to do another Simpsons photoshop... :roll: :p

The Skydome in Toronto cut out most lighting and turned on the Jumbotron trying to conserve during the Blue Jays game last night...wouldn't want the 'tron to blow the system...

[AbNormal27]

Don't tell me I have to do another Simpsons photoshop... :roll: :p

Hey, if I had a server. I would have done it myself. Remember, I get PAID to play around in Photoshop.

Aaryn

[lvscolencanes]

Wll Miss Rio will have to stop blaming the Canadians for this mess...everything points to Ohio!! :D

My excitement must have put off some type of electric shock - and shook the whole northeastern coast when Erik got signed....didnt know I was so powerful!!


*hids from tomatos thrown for cheesy comment, tryin to be funny :p *

[Jeff O Rocks]

Wll Miss Rio will have to stop blaming the Canadians for this mess...everything points to Ohio!! :D

My excitement must have put off some type of electric shock - and shook the whole northeastern coast when Erik got signed....didnt know I was so powerful!!


*hids from tomatos thrown for cheesy comment, tryin to be funny :p *

That's power! ;)

[Shell]

Power Outage Brings London Trains to Halt
2 minutes ago

LONDON - Power went out in parts of the capital and southeast England Thursday, bringing much of the London Underground and many regional trains to a halt during evening rush hour.

It was not immediately clear how widespread the outages were. London Electricity said power appeared to have gone out in parts of south London and Kent, a county southeast of the city.

A spokesman for the Underground said 60 percent of the subway system had been halted by the outage, including the majority of services in central London.

Workers were evacuating affected trains and stations. The outage came at the height of the evening rush hour, and news reports said many passengers were stuck underground.

London Underground said the problems were caused by a failure on the national power grid.

EDF Energy, which handles some power transmission for London, said it had lost electricity for large parts of south London.

"It's difficult to predict how long this is going to take," a spokesman said on condition of anonymity. "National Grid has got to get the circuit back."

A spokesman for the British Transport Police said the outage had affected all of south London's major overland train stations — Victoria, London Bridge, Waterloo — and halted all the area's main train lines.

"Some stations are in darkness and others have emergency lighting," he said.

[tommy]

oh, i thought i would be the first to post that... gosh...


its weird and amazing, huh?

[Shell]

sorry Tommy, I was quick on the draw on that one lol.

What do you think? Coincidence or not?

[guinevere]

Interesting that it occurred 2 weeks after our black out and two weeks from the Londay blackout will be sept 11. I"m sure thats just a coincidence...

[Shell]

yep, I am sure too Jen

as I stock up on batteries, propane, and water

[Jillsdad]

The only thing I have to add about the whole blackout situation is who wants to bet that in approximately 9 months the northeast and southeast canada will see aglut of new born babies. It will be a little mini baby-boom!!!!!!

[Jeff O Rocks]

The only thing I have to add about the whole blackout situation is who wants to bet that in approximately 9 months the northeast and southeast canada will see aglut of new born babies. It will be a little mini baby-boom!!!!!!

so true jd...that combined with all the military troops coming home in large batches........look out!! :D ;)