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Power failure in NYC, Toronto, Ottawa, Cleveland, Detroit, Syracuse other cities apaprently connected to cascade failure in area served by the Canadian American power grid. NYC no elevators, subways dark and stopped. Heat is high. Apparently not, repeat not, terrorist related.
Pictures on Boston TV - just now at 5:38 pm - show jammed streets in NYC, people trying to walk home. Officials say working to get electricity back before sunset in about two hours.
Helen ; Are you OK?
5:45 p,m, TV reporter says NYC restaurants and ice cream shops giving away food before it goes bad or melts. No reports of vandalism. Citizens using makeshift signs and directing traffic as all lights are out.
I imagine it's pretty much the same in other cities.
New Hampshire or Connecticut OK so far.
I remember the 1965 blackout lasted at least 24 hours!
USns turn on your TV!
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Well, another expert heard from on Ted Koppel special show.
He tells us (6:50 pm EDT)that although FBI and Homeland Security have said the blackout is not a terrorist attack, apparently they mean there has been no (are you ready for this? )traditional terrorist activity i.e. a bomb.
However ...... it appears the worst security on the Net belongs to electric companies. And. He mentioned something about a lot of work being done "in the clear" and anybody who is cyber literate can pick up.
Now ain't that comforting!
The upshot is there is some suspicions that a Hacker got into the system. Specifically the software that controls the "nervous system" of the electric grid that serves Northeast.
Apaprently the electric executives voted just three weeks ago to change the security on all electric company computers. But it hasn't been implemented yet.
Complicating things is that most North East US electric companies are privately owned and independent companies.
As with all situations like that, getting them all to agree isn't the easiest of tasks. This should give 'em a dose of reality!
Evidently electric companies labored for years under the assumption they were not hooked up to the Internat and - guess what - they are!
Where this is all leading is anybody's guess.
I can't help but wonder - if it was a Hacker-instigated incident, will the Powers That Be tell us?
How are all our Canadian friends doing?
Where were you when the lights went out?
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Of troy? Where are you? Are you ok?
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I expect Helen would be unable to get to any internet access for quite a while. probably true of Anna and Faldage, too. (this is the first thread I've read this evening, so if theyre here, ignore that)
the report I read mentioned something about a fire at a power station, ah, here it is:
from CNN:
A spokeswoman for Canada's Ministry of National Defense Thursday blamed the outages on a lightning strike in the Niagara region on the U.S. side of the border. "It caused a cascading power failure affecting 9,300 square miles," said navy Lt. Diane Grover.
The Niagara-Mohawk power grid supplies power to New York and stretches into Canada.
pretty crazy how dependent we are... good luck to anyone directly affected.
formerly known as etaoin...
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veteran
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I'm not too worried about Helen. If she could get home on 9/11 OK after being only blocks from the WTC, I reckon she'll be OK with a power outage.
I guess she's safe from the most likely consequence of the outage. If you remember, last time there was a big outage like this, there was a bumper crop of babies 9 months later.
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Blackout didn't reach us here in extreme Southern, NJ...but Michigan and Upstate New York's been hit...so consuelo, nancyk, sparteye, AnnaS & Faldage (and, of course, Helen) please check in when you can. And if you're there, insel, thinking of you, too. You okay there in Cincy, Jazzo?...I know northern Ohio and Cleveland are out.
There's been some mention of a fire at a Pennsylvania Nuclear Plant as a trigger, but it seems this is just one of many speculative stories at the moment.
>In Michigan, water supplies were affected because water is distributed through electric pumps, a governor's spokeswoman said.<
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Me n the lovely AnnaS are back in service. We got out power back about 1:45 this morning.
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Kalamazoo only got caught up in about a 5 minute brownout. I suspect NancyK is having a worse time of it. Not sure about Sparteye.
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Ithaca, interestingly, had but a glitch that crashed some computers.
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>Michigan<
>>Detroit may be without power until Sunday
The situation looked grim in Detroit -- it might be late Sunday before power is restored to all of Detroit Edison's 2.1 million customers, said Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
She said workers were trying to restore power to residents in Detroit, Lansing and Ann Arbor.
Granholm said Detroit Edison told her they can't say when all power will be fully restored but that it might take until Sunday. (Residents near oil refinery evacuated)
Early Friday, Detroit Metropolitan Airport reopened, the governor's office said. <<
Hope NancyK and Sparteye are doing okay.
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power came back for me some time this am at 5AM, (bathroom run) still no lights, but when i woke again at 8:30 my fan was on. i slept well those last few hours, so i suspect sometime earlier rather than later.
BYB, never mention my name in the same post as 'a bumper crop of babies!'-- yes, i spent the night alone, but...
i am slightly paranoid (but none of you guessed that!) so i had 8 working flashlights, and thousands of candles.. for me the issue was water! NYC water system is gravity fed, but it only has enough pressure to supple to the 6 floor or so.. (i am on 14!) so i walked down to the laundry room, and filled two (one) gallon containers, and carried them back up with me... my fridge is new, and well insulated, (top effeciency) and i didn't open the doors (much) so by 10 pm last night, i was getting hard ice from my ice cube bin-- that was the last time i opened it, till this am, and the remaining ice didn't melt, so i don't expect spoilage..
mostly it was boring.. and hot.. i don't use A/C, but i do like my fans, and last night the air was still (candles didn't flicker or blow out!) and candles add heat.. so it was an uncomfortable night... but many has worse nights, so boring is about the most i can complain about!
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old hand
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> mostly it was boring..
That's a shame to hear. I mean I'm glad all is well, but I had the impression that besides from the obvious problems arising, the blackout might bring about some novel communal situations (such as sleeping outside) and some amount of odd peace. I've always liked minimal style camping and love getting away from the hum of cabled electrons once in a while. Maybe I'm romanticising things but it was rather quant to see all streets filled with people walking!. I think such situations really do bring out a lot of latent good will and solidarity.
I found the lightening explanation a bit suspect and did consider the possibility of hackers, but the cascading black out idea does sound very plausible, especially with all that cooling power being drawn - ACs are evil! I heard someone say they were worried about all these people without ACs over-heating. Have they not heard of a place called 'India'!
Anyway, all the best to the electricity-less!
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sleeping outside
Yahoo had a 217 picture slide show. I gave up after about 5 pictures of people sleeping on the Post Office steps. Apparently there were some who ended up sleeping in cardboard boxes in the parks. I conceived a cartoon with a homeless guy nudging a suit awake and saying, "When we get the power back can I sleep in *your house?"
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Well, I knew Helen is fine and was home when the lights failed ... we spoke on the phone.
But ... I couldn't get on the Net until now.
Although New Hampshire did not lose electricity I think the troubles elsewhere had an effect.
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Funny. I never worried about Faldage and AnnaS! I just don't think of Ithaca as being in the real NY! Ha! Ithaca seems more like a little town tucked away in another world altogether--like, was it?, Brigadoon? Sorry, Faldage and AS, for not worrying about you two also! of troy: your tale of a thousand candles made me wonder whether you had one for each of your thousand ships. 
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A spokeswoman for Canada's Ministry of National Defense Thursday blamed the outages on a lightning strike in the Niagara region on the U.S. side of the border.
Reliable sources, and officials of the national electrical board (whatever the real name of it is) have reported that it was not a lightening strike.
After the 1965 blackout the electric companies all interconnected their supplies so that if one was stressed they could call on one another for backup.
Sounds sensible on its face but we have just experienced the flaw in that plan!
Surely they could figure a way to isolate supplies and have specialized routines for getting backup when high demand and low supply situations occur.
My money is still on a flaw in the software that was inadequately backed up and/or protected.
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yes, the US electric companies are saying its a canadian problem, and the canadians are saying its a US problems, upstate NYers are saying it happened in cleveland ohio, in cleveland they are blaming Pennsylvania..
as bloomberg said-- it happened.. we (NYC)can't manage with out electricity generated on canadian side of Niagara, so we need to focus on finding a cure, not on blaming anyone.. (he actually impressed me for a momemt.. he made a nice reasoned responce to panic mongers!)
electricity, like other commodities, is something that crosses international bounderies. we need to improve how we handle things, not go about blaiming people.
NYC, (for lots of stupid reasons) can (and must) recieve power from other suppliers on the 'grid' but our lines don't can't deal with some of the high voltage required for sending power out.. NYC, has some really old wiring and really old water mains.. we got into equiping the city with these services long before most cities.
Who cares if the fault originated in Canada?(if it did) i personal need the power generated on there grid. unless the is proof of malice, i don't care which state or country started the problem --that is for lawyers and courts to deal with-- goodness knows, someone will end up getting screwed-- i mean sued.
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as bloomberg said-- it happened.. we (NYC)can't manage with out electricity generated on canadian side of Niagara, so we need to focus on finding a cure, not on blaming anyone.. (he actually impressed me for a momemt.. he made a nice reasoned responce to panic mongers!)However, he also said that there was absolutely no question about the "fact" that the accident happened in Canada. He specifically stated that all the power companies were agreed on this, which clearly they are not. It did seem kind of odd to talk about the need not to focus on blaming anybody them go to great pains to blame somebody. The NYT also had an article suggesting that lack of sppending on transmission infrastructure was a big part of the problem. There was also a very nice perspective piece on a much longer blackout. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/6543012.htm
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Pooh-Bah
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The US/Canadian grid system appears to be fragile enough without looking to terrorists to have it break down! The terrorists are most likely to turn out to be the people who refuse to fund a better transmission infrastructure ...
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I liked how some of the commentators referred to the entire structure as a 'highway.' One implied that the electrical 'highway' was comparable to a dirt road in many places (parochial handling of electrical 'traffic') due to deregulation problems. A federal government official said that deregulation was NOT to blame. Hahahahaha.
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A federal government official said that deregulation was NOT to blame. Hahahahaha.The official - prob'ly a Regan-ite! I think "deregulation" has caused that trickle down effect President Regan was so fond of talking about... but in ways not forseen at the time.  
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addict
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Thanks, all, for your thoughts. We were without power from 4:15 pm Thursday until about 5:30 pm Friday. I was NOT prepared - had no battery radio, spare batteries for flashlights or bottled water, and of course stores sold out of those things immediately. Thankfully we were never without water; our city has its own pumping station and the water remained safe to drink. Only lost what was in the refrigerator; everything in the big freezer was still solid, except for ice cream. My husband was in Chicago on business, so he missed the excitement. I agree that the biggest problem was boredom - I read by candlelight Thursday night. We don't have AC, so that wasn't an issue, although I did miss the attic fan, which draws in the cooler night air. Very grateful they got the power back well in advance of the predicted Monday restart.
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Good to hear from you, Nancy! Glad to hear you got through it without too much distress (except for ther foodin the fridge).
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re: I think "deregulation" has caused that trickle down effect President Regan was so fond of talking about... but in ways not forseen at the time
actually,a book called 'everything for sale', written in the early 1990's, predicted most of what has happened... (not everything..) but he was right on the money for Power: power shortages (as in CA) and power outages -- one problem turning the power back on is that con ed (a NY example, but the same in most places) own the distributions rights, but not the power plants.. so it take more negociations to turn the power back on.. and because con ed owns the lines (distribution network) but not the power plants, it has very little incentive to put up new lines... and the power plant owners also have no incentive to improve distribution, since it would but them in competetion with con ed, and they would have very few places to 'sell the power' except single distributers... so the network of distribution lines deteriorates, since its in no ones interest to improve it.. and then NIMBY effects make it harder to set up substations, and step up transformers for new hi voltage lines, since everyone is afraid of HV power lines (they cause cancer, or aids or blindness or some such thing!)a real mess! we don't need to worry about AQadia, we are too busy shooting ourselves in the foot!
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Hey, Jazzo!...the leading verdict's in...Ohio did it. (on the Cleveland-area grid, but i'm sure there'll be enough blame to go around for Cincy, too. ) > EVIDENCE POINTS TO OHIOThree high-tension transmission lines in the midwestern state of Ohio apparently triggered a chain reaction that blacked out power to 60 million people in parts of the U.S. and Canada.<
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Here's a suggested list of stuff everyone should have on hand for emergencies. It's a New England (and Northern US) list for storms usully forecast.
If there is someone aBOARD who lives in CAlifornia, perhaps she/he would copy the earthquake list that used to be in the front of all the Cal phone books ?! ?!
This is off the top of my head!
One galllon of water for each person for three days. Rotate water, using what is on hand with new bottles.
Flashlights and batteries.
Battery powered radio and batteries
Pick a reminder date to replace batteries yearly including batteries (9 volt) in fire/smoke detectors. (your birthday?)
Candles and holders. Never leave candles burning unattended.
Matches.
Sufficient canned food to feed all household members for three days. Openedcanned food may be heated over candle flame. MREs (Meals Ready To Eat)- if available- may be substituted - they have a long shelf life.
Fill bathtubs with water which can be used to flush toilets.
In the car, water, radio, batteries, (so as not to run down car battery) blanket, tire chains for snow, and keep gas (petrol)tank filled, do not let fuel go below half full.
<
Ok, now ... what are your good ideas?
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journeyman
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journeyman
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In addition to the extra batteries, flashlight, and water in the car - for winter in those very cold winter areas - an extra coat or blanket, hat, gloves/mittens. Maybe some kitty litter for getting stuck in the snow. I believe we should all carry jumper cables, too. When I was young and lived in Northern Ohio, stuff like this was truly necessary. If I lived in Buffalo, you can bet I'd have it all still!!
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? -Ursula K. Le Guin, author (1929- )
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Don't forget the taco sauce packets <g>
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