Power Outage

You don't suppose someone out east who works in a power switching station just got a new khukri and was maybe testing the feel and the weight and....oops!!!!! slips on the the control panel and,,,,,:eek:
 
Sorry guys, but I'm afraid there's more where that came from.

After many years of neglecting stuff like the wires that deliver power, and the like in favor of over-investing in in sexy new stuff like fiber-optics, some chickens be comin' home. The first ones.

Wish I was out in the sticks on a hunk of land like some folks here, I think the chances are better there. Placing more semi-conductor chips in overworked stuff may look good next quarter, but over the long run, it's no substitute for building what ought to be there in the first place.

Zero-inventory, just-in-time, my *ss. That's just asking for it when things go just a little bit wrong.
 
firkin,
I work for the Power Co. in Fl.(29yrs.)part of what you are stating is just a bit of the iceburg!"DOWNSIZING"is the main culprit! Only "IDIOTS" that don't see it are the upper management! CEO's are the one's making the $$$! People either don't understand or they don't want too!:(
THE SAINT! :D
 
I was sitting at my computer in the office at 16:11 yesterday when the power went off just like that, ZAP! We have independent power supplies hooked up here, so it's a strange feeling suddenly to be typing by the light of your monitor alone.

A woman in our office was speaking to a branch in Albany when the phones (which need electricity to operate) cut out. She made contact again, I think by wireless phone, and was told that the power was out in Albany as well. Already I knew this was Not Good.

I packed up, got my SureFire knockoff out of my bag, and drove downtown. The reports were already on the radio as I drove, telling us that the power was off -- this is a technical term -- Every****ingWhere. I was a little concerned, as I had no way to contact my wife with the power off and the wireless phone network hoplessly jammed.

I picked up my wife and we went home, where I got out the Big Red Box of Power Outage Supplies -- something I've had since the "Labor Day Storm" a few days back left us without power in CNY for three days.

We grilled on our portable grill for dinner and listened to the news, then CBS's The Amazing Race, on the portable AM/FM/TV radio I keep handy. Not long after I went to bed, the power came back on, accompanied by shouts of joy from somewhere out there in the darkness.

Today it's business as usual.
 
Thanks for the chuckle, Phil. Glad to see you got through it.


Kismet - I barely made it to the FedEx in time for the cutoff for overnight delivery - 8 PM. Amazing how 189 pieces of paper can somehow be worth so much, and cause so many problems, and still result in a building being constructed.

I think a lot of people take architecture for granted, not realizing what herculean effort it is to even just get an office building up, let alone a large medical building. Incidently, in the architecture world, $11 million is a "mid-sized" project. For our little 5-man operation, it's a monster.

Unfortunately, the hard part is not over. :( Just the "crunch" part. Now we have to spend the next 15 months somehow convincing the contracting company to actually build it the way we specified it...:rolleyes:
 
I have my eye on this old strip pit in SEKS. It's maybe 100 feet wide, about a mile long, and tree lined. Maybe 40 feet deep. There's perch, bass, crappie and catfish in it. I'm thinking that a 40x8 trailer mounted on 50 gallon drums would make a good houseboat to live in. A generator and some solar panels. Got all the fresh water I need and the fish eat the garbage and I eat them so we're 100% self sufficient and self contained. I could still run the computer off the dish and get solar power to do everything I want. Dream on, Uncle, dream on.
 
I was at dinner with my mother & stepfather, 65-year old uncle, and 86-year old grandmother when the power finally gave out. We sat in the yard near the breezy section with my sister & brother in law, some neighbors, talked, read books, had a few cold ones. The kids ran around in the yard instead of sitting in front of the TV or nintendo all day.
Except for the extra traffic generated by the downed stoplights, and people driving in their cars where the air conditioner worked, it was remarkably quiet and "like the old days" according to my elders. We had a few battery powered radios to check the news once in a while.
We're near Newark airport, but the only air traffic was a few National Guard choppers.
Flashlights, candles, water, plenty of canned goods. We were set, but thankfully our neck of the woods had power up in about six hours. Others weren't so lucky.
At work, the generator overheated and failed, and we had to shut down. Had to send a lot of labor home, those guys lost pay. Some guys worked all night, on the other hand. Things seem back to normal today.
 
The word we got in the control room Friday morning was that lightning had made a direct hit on a transformer in a Canadian hydro across from our border & Conn-Edison's hydro plant. Seems that their plant is probably set-up with their units feeding onto a ring buss that feeds the transformer(s). All the lines (grid) were extremely heavily loaded. Overcurrent relays took Canadian plant out & this, in turn, started a domino effect, because the plants close to this fault could see the load change & tried to compensate. This cause those units to trip on over-current &/or differentials & this just went on down the grid until the relays on the far end didn't see this & consequently didn't trip. All this, PLUS what Jim posted is the essence. Down-size the plants, substations, & etc., & then when this happens.........whose left to put it back?
 
Were the lights out long enough to contribute to the population explosion nine months later as happened with the infamous New York City power outage of the 60's?

Beat you to this one, Bruise!:p ;) :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top