Blackouts

[ldg]

OMG!!!!! I hope everybody from TCS who was affected has their power back on!

Gary, his mom (who is here from Chicago visiting) and I headed into Manahattan yesterday. Went to the office - left Gary there for meetings - headed off to a museum with BJ (his mom).

Met Gary for lunch at 2:00. At 3:00, Gary said - we'd better get going. Traffic'll start to get bad soon, and I'm worried about the power. This time last year, there were rolling brown-outs, and part of the Bronx lost power. Gary's really observant (he was recon & patrol for 6 1/2 years), and in NYC, there are nitrous tanks at almost every corner. They're hooked up to help cool the electric and phone switches. (Anyone been in the city and seen those huge steam vents coming up at the corners? That's what that is). He'd noticed that they had extra ice build-up at the bases, and he literally said, I wouldn't be surprised if the power went out. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We wrapped things up, denied BJ her desert, headed to the parking garage. We were in the car and moving at 3:40. He drove like a madman to the Lincoln Tunnel - and we were on the other side of the Lincoln Tunnel at 4:10. The power went out in the city at 4:15!!!!

Gary wanted to take the day off today, and told everyone that works for us not to come in today. I guess they wouldn't have been able to anyway!

He told our assistant to take off early - and he didn't leave soon enough. He walked down 14 flights of stairs to get out of the building, and walked 40-some blocks to Penn Station - and there were so many people there, he knew not to bother. He slept on the street last night! I didn't hear how he got home, but he got there early this morning.

No one's cellphones are working (ours are Verizon - east NJ numbers - and all we got were different messages - never a line). Our electricity out here was fine as we're on a PA grid, but our phones went out. I don't know if that had anything to do with what was going on or not.

What an exciting story for his mom to share! I'm so glad we didn't get stuck in the city.

None of our Manhattan friends have power back yet. Restaurants/hotels are being encouraged to donate their still good but perishable food for immediate consumption. Friends in Queens still have no power.

NYC has 3 1/2 days of food supply in stores without deliveries. That's something to think about......

Hope everyone affected is OK!!!!!!!

 

[nora]

Laurie,

Thank goodness you got out in time. Boy, it sure is a good thing that Gary was that observant!

 

[skykitty]

Originally posted by kev
Any chance you can confirm if Ajax is out for me - thats where my familly live and also in Missasaugua?

Thanks

k

I believe that I've heard that all of Toronto and Mississaugua also have their power on. Hope this helps you Kev!

Peter just came back from Huntsville and he said that people are stocking up like crazy on groceries, gas and basically anything they can get their hands on! Everyone has gone MAD!!!!!!!!!

April

 

[ldg]

Thanks Nora, and no kidding!!! I'm just so thankful that there has been no rioting and looting like there was in 1977 when a blackout like this last happened.

 

[sammie5]

Kev, Ajax and Mississauga were both out for at least part of the day. Some areas came back on very early, and there is not any pattern to who got power early, and who waited for hours. For example, the other side of the street here got power at about 5 am,(that's 13 hours after it went off) I didn't get any until noon. So your family members certainly had power out for a number of hours. And all of the greater Toronto area has not been completely restored. Some areas are still dark. And now they have begun a series of rolling black outs, we just finished one here. So I had three hours of power, then it went out again for two. I;ve had a total of three hours of power in the last 25 hours. At least they are controlling these, each black out is scheduled to be 2 hours long. This will continue until all of the power plants are back on line, and the power grid has stabilized.

Now in "cottage country", there are some areas where the power never went out. My sister and her family are in Haliburton, and they have had no problems. Its just difficult to get places, the traffic lights are out all over as well, as well as street lights, so driving after dark is a bit hazardous.

This is kind of a mess.

 

[sherral46]

My power was off for about 5 hour's.just got in my new car and drove around intill it came on.

 

[slave2_ragdolls]

I live 15 minutes NW of Detroit. I lost power for 22 hours

I never lost my water thank god. Everything is back to normal now

It is amazing how much we take our electricity for granted until it is out..

 

[deb25]

A friend of mine in upstate NY was at a friend's on Long Island and had to spend the night. When she finally ventured home, she got lost. She stopped to ask some police officers for directions to the bridge she was looking for, and they escorted her with the lights flashing on the cruisers!

to New York's finest!

 

[thh20]

what a story! I'm in Montreal, and thankfully, was not affected by the blackout. However, as one of the people who were stuck in "Ice Storm '98", I don't take electricity for granted like I used to... It would be interesting to see how power consuption changes once the electricity gets restored everywhere

During the Ice Storm, I stayed with my father, who still had power (he lost it for about 3 days), and we kept warm by heating a skillet on the gas stove and putting it under our coats until it got cold again.

it was kind of funny really. I was watching T.V and the anchor man said "if you lose power, please remember to unplug all appliances and turn switches off", and then the power went out.

I'm sure people will find good ways of staying cool while the power is out these days.

Good luck to all who are affected!

 

[lucia]

Lower Manhattan, at least where I live (about a mile south of the UN)
just came back on line at 7:30PM EST. The biggest problem in Manhattan was probably the water: buildings higher than 8 stories or so have their water pumped up to roof tanks from where it flows down, so that was all gone by abt 8PM. (I had a lot of water at home so I was okay.)

I live a few blocks from the power plant that was reported with having a fire. It wasn't a fire..it just emits smoke when it is shutdown. The newsies were a little excited and underinformed at that point.

For the person who made the tasteful comment about 'just wait until it gets dark'..NYC has the lowest crime rate of virtually any municipality considered a city in the US. According to the NY Times tonight, there were actually about 10% less arrests in the 24 hour period than would normally be seen on a summer's day.

 

[lorie d.]

(CNN) -- Power is returning to dozens of cities in Canada and the Northeast and Midwest United States after they were hit simultaneously Thursday afternoon by a major power outage. More than 60 million customers were affected at the height of the blackout. Here is a glance of current conditions:

NEW YORK: By Friday evening, power was up and running to all five boroughs of New York City and Westchester County, officials for Con Edison said, although there may still be isolated outages in the region. Electricity service was restored to the rest of the state earlier in the day.

NEW JERSEY: Electricity was restored to nearly all affected customers, with fewer than 5,000 customers still without power, from the peak of 1 million homes and businesses. Gov. James E. McGreevey lifted the state of emergency that had mobilized 700 National Guardsmen and 300 extra state troopers Northern New Jersey commuter railroads and buses had limited to full service.

OHIO: In Cleveland, electricity was working, but Mayor Jane Campbell warned residents to boil drinking water due to concerns that sewage might have contaminated the city's water system.

MICHIGAN: In Detroit, power remained out to huge sections of the city. Gov. Jennifer Granholm declared a state of emergency for the metro Detroit area and ordered emergency gasoline shipments to the Motor City as service stations shut down and cars ran out of gas, grinding traffic to a halt. Authorities said it could be by the end of weekend before power is fully restored. At the peak, about 2.4 million were without power. Detroit Metropolitan Airport had limited operations.

CONNECTICUT: About 14,700 customers, 5,500 in Danbury, remained in the dark early Friday evening from a peak of 278,000. Gov. John G. Rowland pleaded for power savings after a transmission line that feeds southwestern Connecticut fizzled. The line was not expected to be repaired until Saturday. New York and Connecticut officials traded barbs over an underwater cable between New Haven and Long Island that was powered up for the first time Friday.

PENNSYLVANIA: No major problems reported after 100,000 customers, mostly in northwestern counties, initially lost power. Most areas recovered electricity shortly after nightfall Thursday, and FirstEnergy Corp. said all its customers in the state regained electric service by noon.

MASSACHUSETTS: Amtrak canceled all service between Boston and New York, and officials couldn't say whether it would resume Saturday. The Boston-New York line was blocked by power problems between New Haven, Connecticut, and New Rochelle, New York All of the 20,000 customers who lost power had been restored. Officials said Massachusetts was spared because its power grid operates independently from New York's. International flights bound for New York from Israel, Italy and elsewhere were diverted to Boston's Logan Airport, creating a rush on hotel rooms.

VERMONT: A quick shutdown of transmission lines from New York averted major outages in Vermont. A small section of northern Vermont near the Canadian border lost power briefly, but it only affected a few thousand customers. Richard Thompson, the Swanton town administrator, said it was "no different than a winter storm."

CANADA: Toronto was experiencing rolling blackouts, providing residents with temporary power for two hours. Ontario Premier Ernie Eves declared a state of emergency for the province and asked nonessential or non-emergency workers to stay home Friday. After Canadian and U.S. officials traded accusations of blame for the outage, Prime Minister Jean Chretien talked on the phone to U.S. President George W. Bush about a joint Canadian-U.S. task force to determine the cause of the blackout and come up with plans to prevent further outages.

AND...

BLACKOUT BY THE NUMBERS
• In three minutes, 21 power plants shut down, including 10 nuclear plants
• 9,300 square miles in the U.S. and Canada were without power
• 9,500 police officers were out in New York overnight, up from the usual 1,000 to 2,000
• Seven airports grounded planes
• 800 elevator rescues; 80,000 calls to 911; a record 5,000 emergency medical service calls; 60 serious blazes and 11 burglaries in New York City
• More than 100 miners at a nickel mine were stranded underground in Ontario
• Nearly 1 million lose water in Cleveland
• About 50 million live in the affected region from New York north to Toronto and west to Detroit
• The temperature was 92 degrees Fahrenheit in New York City

Source: The Associated Press, Genscape, federal and state governments, law enforcement

 

[hopehacker]

Lucia, you are SO lucky to be able to live in Manhattan. What I wouldn't give to be able to live in New York City. It's my dream. I don't want to have to live in Brooklyn, if I move to New York. I want to live in Manhattan. I guess I'll just have to try and make it rich, because I know it's super expensive to live there. But still I dream of the day, when I can get out of Los Angeles and move to a real city, with real atmosphere and most importantly, REAL people.

Anyway, I think the people of New York pulled together and showed the rest of us, how to handle a disaster. I can tell you, if that happened here in Los Angeles, there would have been so much looting, and crimes. Personally, I think New York is a LOT safer than Los Angeles, and a LOT better place to live. If only I could afford to live there.

 

[angel]

a lot of places that did not have power.

 

[deb25]

Originally posted by Lucia
For the person who made the tasteful comment about 'just wait until it gets dark'..NYC has the lowest crime rate of virtually any municipality considered a city in the US. According to the NY Times tonight, there were actually about 10% less arrests in the 24 hour period than would normally be seen on a summer's day.

Thanks for posting that, Lucia. I heard about one NYC hotel on NPR where the guests could not get into their rooms becuase the electronic keys would not work. They slept out on the sidewalk. There was a time when that would have never happened in NYC.

 

[Anne]

I'm glad everyone's alright so far. Is it over yet?

 

[lucia]

Hi Hope,

I'm actually one of a minority of NY'ers who was even born in Manhattan, in a maternity hospital that is 4 blocks from where I now live, except that its landmark building is now an expensive apartment building lol. I was very fortunate to get an apartment about 15 years ago in one of the few middle class developments in NYC, a place called Stuyvesant Town.My apartment rent is controlled by the state rent stabilization program, and while it wouldn't be much of a bargain in other parts of the US, it is reasonable for here. Unfortunately, its owner, Metropolitan Life Insurance,who received tax abatements for years from NYC, have decided to make even more money on the complex, and are doing massive renovations on apartments as they vacate, in order to pull them out of the stabilization program. Unfortunately, Manhattan is becoming even more of a place where you cannot live unless you have a very high salary, or you are a young person starting out, whose willing to share an apartment with a few other people.

 

[katl8e]

Although I'm in AZ, I got a dose of the effects of the blackout. Our mainframe was down again, today. From 11:00 am until 3:00, I spent the day explaining to customers that I was unable to help them, because I could not access their account information.

The mainframe is in Detroit and the backup is in New York. I hope we're back online, Monday. As it is, we'll be swamped, with all of the people who couldn't be helped, today.

 

[hopehacker]

Hi Lucia,

I'm not just starting out. I'm the same age as Jon BonJovi, if you know his age. Personally I hate to say it, so I won't.

I wouldn't mind sharing, but I don't know if I could find many people who'd want to share with a some kitties and a small dog. I'm just hoping my day will come, when I can move there. I've been there a few times, and even got to live like a native New Yorker for a couple of weeks, when a friend let me have his Greenwhich Village apartment all to myself when I came to NYC for a vacation.

I just LOVE it there. All the excitment! The people are so REAL and so honest. I love everything about New York!

 

[sammie5]

I'm glad everyone's alright so far. Is it over yet?

It's sort of over for now. Power has been restored over the grid, but the reason that everyone has power is that there are significant conservation efforts going on, and its a weekend, which is traditionally lower demand. We'll see what happens Monday morning when everyone is back to work. (Its Saturday evening right now).

Ontario is a bit of a concern because a lot of our power is from nuclear power plants. And they take a long time to come back to full power. So we won't be at full capacity until some time next week. Right now the nuclear plants are at about half capacity.

This is some wake up call.

 

[okeefecl]

Originally posted by Anne
I'm glad everyone's alright so far. Is it over yet?

Luckily, it seems to be over here in Cleveland. My power came on at 4 am Friday morning and the water at 7 am. We're still under a boil alert until 12 pm tomorrow, but the power has been stable (there were some rolling blackouts in the area yesterday, but I'm lucky in that I'm on the same power grid as the Shaker Heights police station, so we weren't affected). The local grocery store was still out of bottled water, ice and batteries earlier today, but besides that it's all back to normal.