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+--- Thread: Blackout Victims (/showthread.php?tid=2025)
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Blackout Victims - Darkfox - 08-16-2003
Anyone get hit with that fucking blackout? I did, fucking stupid bullshit, I think my downtown area was looted but I don't know yet cause it's storming and I wanna watch the news.
but yeah, it had some good points, some unity amongst people, alot of flashlights going around like a rave and streets abandoned like resident evil, fun as hell, just the fact that everything in my fridge has spoiled is sort of bad....but powers back so I gotta stop bitching, just wanted to see who else put up with it, adios!
- Waru_the_Magnificent - 08-16-2003
Yeah, I got hit. It wasn't that bad. Talkign with Family, eatting Chinese food, seeing the stars at night (that had been the highlight of the NIGHT)... the only bitch was trying to sleep in muggy weather... couldn't sleep 'till.. what seemed like 4 o' clock.
All of the Northeast was hit.. and Canada (can't forget them).
- Tazer - 08-16-2003
Heh, luckily it was completely out of my region. Considering I'm on the west coast of the US, it's too far away to hit me. Sounds bad tho..
- urban dream - 08-16-2003
Forgive my stupidity, but how did the blackout happen? I haven't heard of this before, and it seems weird that such a large area can be hit all at once.
- Blackwargreymon Lover - 08-16-2003
It's not stupidity if you don't know. It's stupidity if you do know, but ask to be an ass.
Anyways, what the people on the news said (by me anyways), was that an engine in the power grid shut down and everything loast power. It seemed kind of weird that it would just shut down.
- urban dream - 08-16-2003
Actually, I've just done a little surfing on the topic, and the European press reports the following:
None of the official sources seem to agree on what the problem was. Canadian authorities claimed the blackout was caused by a fire in a powerplant belonging to the Con Edison company, on the US-side of the Niagara falls. Con Edison in turn denied that they have a plant there at all.
The Canadian ministry of defense then said a US plant had been struck by lightning, whereas the minister of defense personally seemed to think that the blackout started with a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania overheating. US authorities deny any responsibility but have so far not delivered a proper explanation of the events.
Experts do seem to agree though, that North America's power supply system is highly outdated. Bill Richardson, governour of New Mexico and former ernergy minister is quoted as saying, "We are a superpower with an electricity network worthy of a third world country."
Isn't it a mad mad world?
- Angeteen - 08-16-2003
Yeah, maybe it is, but you will eventually get used to it. Either that or you will soon go completely insane.
- Darkfox - 08-16-2003
Twas a pretty weird night, who knows who to blame, would you really wanna be responsible for shutting down the power for so long? lol.
Only thing that sucked was I ran out of ice cubes for my drinks and my milk spoiled lol.
- InsaneImpmon - 08-16-2003
From what I understand, the problem started in Lansing, MI at a little after 3:00 pm EST. The problem rippled down to Cincinatti, OH. The power level were gyrating and the system failed to compenstate for that. (insert dirty joke about gyrating power)
At about 4:10 PM EST, somewhere along Lake Erie something tripped and isolated the power plant. Without any load, the power plant were shut down. Because the power grid were already near maximum capacity (mostly due to all those A/C running to beat the heat), and with one power plant isolated the grid couldn't handle the demand and started tripping more safeties. More tripped safeties meant more power plants were offlined but the demand didn't change and the power grid tried to draw power from elsewhere.
Now had Ohio power plant isolated the power grid from the nation, the blackout would have been confined to Michigan and Ohio but that didn't happen.
In the span of just a few minutes from the initial trip, nearly 30 more power plants throughout the New England region were shut down before the power companies finally isolated the grids to protect the rest of the nation from blackout.
Exactly what started the cascade failure is unclear but too many power companies didn't isolate their grids quickly enough to contain the spread of the blackout.
Michigan power company should be comended because they did isolate quickly enough, and that prevented the failure from reaching Illinois, Wisconsion, even as far as Montana. And since other states shut down quickly enough to keep the failure from reaching as far south as Florida.
The way the grid was set up, had nothing been done, we're looking at blackout from the entire Eastern seaboard all the way to Rockies and more than half of Canada. Texas has its own power grid and the remaining Western states were also on separate grids and neither would be affected by this worse case scenario. (Akaska and Hawaii are separate and uses different system)
Had the worse case scenario happened, it'd be weeks and not days before it's fully restored. Water shortage was already bad as it is right now, and would have been a lot worse along with fuel shortage (no electric to run pumps) and food shortage. Basically USA would have been reduced to 3rd world quality of living.
Although I live in Michigan, I was sparred the worse. I did suffer sudden brownout and noticeably flickering lights for a minute before the upper portion of Michigan was isolated from the failing grid. The only casuality is one of my PC needs a complete reinstall of Winblows because it was on when the power failure hit and the hard drive's trashed so badly I can't recover anything and had to reformat. Thankfully I just made backups of everything important on my new DVD burner a few days ago. :whew!:
- fatpat60 - 08-16-2003
Well indeed it was pretty bad, especially for those poor, poor people who are still suppose to be stuck without electricity. We got lucky here. Only bad thing is that I was putting together my news paper to be delivered and my comp was defragmenting drive C when it happened and BOOM! No power. Looks like we're having barbequed stakes and potatoes tonight kids. Toss in some broccoli salad and a normal green salad and it was a pretty normal meal aside from the fact that slowly but surely the AC air inside our home began to become normal, 'outside' hot air. So indeed we delivered newspapers and it was so frickin' interesting to see most of the neighbourhood just walking around, doing friggin' nothing! I felt an strange sense of awe and wonder and strange joyous, satisfaction that these people were being forced to socialize and come together under extreme circumstances thus proving that if we aren't all dead due to some apocalypse, we'll help each other(hopefully :D ) Anyway, so after delivering newspapers I'm sitting at home and it is gradually getting darker and I want to write some story. But the damn comp ain't workin' so I says to myself I says: "I'm gonna grab a pen and some paper and write the old fashion way!" Yeah right, cause then it gets dark and I can't see anymore so I never wrote anything. I called my friend up at 9-ish and we talked for an hour and half cause he didn't want me to leave him 'alone' in the boredom. Anywho, before we said our good byes he warned me to disconnect my comp because the sudden power surge could fry them so I did. Then I listened to our battery operated radio and disconnect the TV, and our boom box so as to do as that energy guy recommended. Anyway, what have I learned from this experience? That batteries are still widely useful today and that the phone will always be our most important method of communicatiing over long distances. I also learnt that people come together under disastrous circumstances but are otherwise asses under normal circumstances, well not all the time, but some people are. Also, indeed I do deliver newspapers, that's right, and I make over a hundred every month, except I gots to spli it with my sis cause she does one side of the street and I do the other although my side of the street has more houses on it MEH :P ) Anyway so I'm done rambling and my stupid GBA SP was RECHARGING SO I COULDN"T PLAY IT AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH the fates were agaisnt me. DAMN IT! Ah well, it is raining outside now and it is 8:30 on Saturday morning and I slept at one last night, why am I not sleeping in? I unno, I never sleep in. Anyway, I'll shut up now and go stare at some art.