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Author Topic: Power Failure? Carl Martin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1424 From: Oakland, CA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 08-15-2003 02:33 AM                        funny how quote: The Mets were trickling out for batting practice in New York when the blackout hit and the game was canceled. Hours later, the visiting San Francisco Giants were still waiting in the parking lot for their bus. traveled across the atlantic and resulted in quote: The BBC Radio News broadcast just now ... described as 'breaking news' reports of widespread power cuts in ... San Francisco .... no outages here in cali, far as i know.... carl  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 08-15-2003 02:47 AM                  It's Canada's fault! They forgot to turn off breaker #23. NO wait, lighting struck the Niagra plant on the US side! No Wait, A US power-company employee was on crack and... No wait! It's an act of God... No wait, ...a bird flew into the Eastern 500kV lines and .... etc! What another bunch of horse sh!t from "news" media and the politicians...AGAIN! Bush included! "We must pass laws to regulate the power companies so this doesn't happen again" Yeah, right, you fu*king political idiots! What happened the LAST 2 times when the power grid took a major hit? Those "leaders" haven't a clue as to what's technically involved in power generation and distribution. Let's all jump on the band wagon and save our power (life juices)from the money-grabbing corporations that control & sell all them thar electrical appliance stuff that sucks all of our precious power. This rhetoric will die in a couple of weeks just like the power died out today... >>> Phil  |  IP: Logged William Hooper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1879 From: Mobile, AL USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-15-2003 03:03 AM                        Non-general lighting has made for some excellent pictures coming out of the blackout areas: Yahoo slide show  |  IP: Logged Mike Rendall Film Handler Posts: 78 From: Southampton, Hampshire, UK Registered: Nov 2002 posted 08-15-2003 03:25 AM                     Forgive me if this is a daft question - If one power station goes down does it completely wipe out most of the commercial and industrial centres in the west of the states? In the UK, the national grid allows power to be spread around from the available power stations, if one was to be out of service for one reason or another, the other power stations could take up the load. Is it not the same for the US? or has something major gone wrong with their grid? It seems odd for all of these problems just if one power station in niagra falls goes off-line. (maybe it's the blaster virus!)  |  IP: Logged Bill Mantz Film Handler Posts: 91 From: Plano, TX Registered: Feb 2001 posted 08-15-2003 03:38 AM                     Thank God I live in northwest New Jersey 10 min from the Deleware Water Gap the only thing I noticed was that when checking my email the light in the room I was dimmed and came back on full less than 15 seconds I belive at that time is when the grid went down because 20 minutes later I jumped into my car to go to my cosigns house end when I got there she told me about the power faliers like I said at the begining thank god I have power because today It was hot and VERY humid so I can run my air conditioner and computer to see whats going on here on Film-Tech  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 08-15-2003 03:54 AM                  The problem is when the grid is operating normally, and a generation station drops off-line for whatever reason, the other stations must pick up that load. The system was supposed to work such that ***IF*** there was an overload to the remaining stations, the overload would automatically trip-out/black-out big blocks of local customers to prevent overloading other generator stations connected to the distribution grid. If such an overload condition or fault would exist at a particular station, then that one station will automatically drop-off the grid... thus furthering the overload to the remaining generators unless the customer blocks were cut. Unfortunately, due to reasons yet to be determined, the loads were not dropped in a timely manner and a cascading overload condition dropped many stations off line and thus caused the wide-spread black-out. Hopefully, the techs will learn from this and make provisions to mitigate this in the future. >>> Phil  |  IP: Logged William Hooper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1879 From: Mobile, AL USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-15-2003 06:32 AM                        Mike: Unlike in the UK, cities in the US are hooked up to the power grid in series, not parallel.  |  IP: Logged Kris Brunton Expert Film Handler Posts: 108 From: Napanee, Ontario, Canada Registered: Apr 2000 posted 08-15-2003 08:01 AM                     Our power came back on slowly throughout the city (Belleville, Ontario) at around 10 pm last night. News reports out of Toronto are claiming 50% of Toronto is up but remianing may not be up for another 24-48 hours??? I have heard every explanation there can be, I don't think anyone knows yet as to the cause. I must say that it was a very odd night last night with no lights on at all. Lots of people were ot walking, standing outside there house, etc. I heard that gas stations that were able to operate due to generators were charging about $1.10/litre (as compared to about .75/litre). We closed our shop today and sent everyone home except for a few techs that are taking care of alarm calls and a couple of people in the office to answer calls.  |  IP: Logged Gerard S. Cohen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 975 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: Sep 2001 posted 08-15-2003 08:21 AM                     I'm wondering what transpired in the severely understaffed multiplexes [see other thread] when the power failed. Of course the battery powered floodlights must have kicked in (if they were properly maintained), but what was the reaction of the audiences? I seem to remember a requirement that managers prepare emergency plans in case of blackout, fire or other disruptions, in which each employee had a station and assigned duties, from the senior manager on down. Yet I have never seen such a plan in print, nor observed a drill in a theatre. (In schools I have participated in many mandated monthly drills, with building evacuation timed by the principal with a stopwatch. If time exceeded prescribed maximum, the drill had to be repeated.) Some time during the last year someone posted pictures of a theatre destroyed by a tornado, with three cars deposited in the auditorium, where an assistant manager led the patrons and staff to a structurally sound area, and there were no injuries. I wonder how many theatres are run with consideration of the safety and welfare of their patrons and staffs, to the extent of designing and implementing emergency plans today?  |  IP: Logged Darryl Spicer Film God Posts: 3250 From: Lexington, KY, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 08-15-2003 09:28 AM                    Our company has an emergancy guideline book that all managers are required to read and follow in case of emergancies. What I don't understand is why nuclear powr plants had to shut down. Don't they provide power for cities. I guess they require outside power sources to controle the plants.  |  IP: Logged Rachel Craven Madam Moderator Posts: 2190 From: Pensacola, FL Registered: Dec 2000 posted 08-15-2003 10:12 AM                     The huge blackout in '65 was on my grandmothers birthday and she was a part of it. This blackout yesterday was on my birthday, luckily I had lights! I thought it was odd how on the news here in Wisconsin they specifically said Boston was down and on the map it showed that where I used to live in Mass was also down. When I called home, both Boston and my old City were still up and running. Different news in different areas...  |  IP: Logged Dino Panagiotopoulos Expert Film Handler Posts: 139 From: Windor, Ontario, Canada Registered: Jan 2003 posted 08-15-2003 11:50 AM                     Rachel same thing happened to me last night. The Detroit news station was reporting and said that Windsor was still without power and would not be for at least till the next day. Its funny how I was sitting there watching on my tv with my POWER on. Another thing I find funny is how everytime something like this happens, the first thing politicians point to is terrorism to try and put their citizens on the defensive. Its like theres no room for natural occurences anymore. Just my observation.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-15-2003 12:50 PM                        As far as I saw on the news, the politicians/media were very quick to emphasize that terrorism was NOT suspected.  |  IP: Logged Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 08-15-2003 01:25 PM                     The cause is not certain, but basically what they think happened is at one point, 300 megawatts of power were traveling east on the Lake Erie loop and suddenly reversed direction, resulting in an estimated 500 megawatts suddenly moving west, he said. It was uncertain what caused the sudden shift. That must have been one helluva collision! The electricity capacity was adequate when the blackout hit, and weather was not a factor. Whatever did it, the cascade effect took 9 seconds to complete. There were some indications that the first transmission lines that were tripped were in the Midwest. However, the big boys are not certain that is where it started. But, a private company that monitors the grid said its technology showed the problem started in Michigan. "That was the epicenter," insisted David Trungale, vice president of SoftSwitching Technologies Inc., of Middleton, Wis. One reason it may be so difficult to pinpoint the cause is the speed in which the cascading outages raced across the Northeast and Ohio Valley as well as southeastern Canada. Trungale said his company's monitoring stations recorded a power disruption in Connecticut only 2 seconds after the first problem was recorded in Michigan. He declined to describe the Michigan site further. "It all happened in about 9 seconds," said Michehl Gent, the NERC president. My comment is this: As I look back at this, it is truly amazing how we have our lives revolving around a hunk of steel and copper spinning around in a magnetic field. I'll almost bet that if we suddenly did not have electrical power at all and it was gone to never return, many people would not survive. I wonder how long an average 30-year old would live if he/she was thrust back into the era of 150 or more years ago..... What do you guys think?  |  IP: Logged Gerard S. Cohen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 975 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: Sep 2001 posted 08-15-2003 01:57 PM                     I was reading my email when the power suddenly stopped shortly after 4 PM. All circuit breakers were ON so I knew it was a power failure. Cell phones and cordless phones were useless, though older land line phones worked normally. My wife was concerned that her frozen pediatric vaccines would defrost and suggested we drive in the dark to her office and transport them to a hospital freezer, since the hospitals all had emergency generator power. But I heard Mayor Bloomberg (on one of the Bloomberg pocket radios he distributed free, which receive only the station he owns--Bloomberg Radio 1130 WBBR!) He predicted almost all of Queens County and most of Brooklyn would be back on line within an hour, so I dissuaded my wife from her risky plan. Instead, power was not restored in Queens until late the following morning. I hope her vaccines are still viable! My daughter spent the night in the City, until in the morning she was able to get home via bus, since all the subways will not run for another half day at least. All the tracks and switches, etc. must be checked before a single car can roll. The buses and all toll roads are/were free during the emergency. When the TV came back on, all nearly all the UHF stations were off, probably because the Empire State Building on 34th street is still without power. That's where their broadcasting antennas are located, since 9/11. TV News showed hundreds of office workers, commuters and tourists sleeping on the steps of the huge Greek Revival Central Post Office Building, and on the floors of bus, RR and airport terminals. Yet all maintained a positive outlook, and aside from three incidents of people arrested for looting sneakers, cell phones and rental tools, one fatality and several fires from candles, the city came through the blackout reasonably well. This was my third blackout, my wife's second, and my daughter's first.  |  IP: Logged

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