Power Outages all across the US

[Aquarius]

BOSTON (Aug. 14) - Power outages struck major U.S. and Canadian cities on Thursday, witnesses said, although it was not immediately clear if there was a link between the breakdowns.

Power outages were reported in the New York metropolitan area and Detroit, as well as in Toronto and Ottawa, witnesses said.


Apparently about 30 minutes ago, more than half of the US was without power. Ours flickers on and off for a minute and then stayed on. Since one of the areas affected the most was Detroit, we'll have to wait and see if Umah lost power.

[Aquarius]

New York Port Authority Police said the power outage that has shut down many transportation services.

''Right now the power outage is affecting all of our operations, We have no buses, no trains, no subways running. The airports have their perimeters secured and I can't say right now if flights are coming in or out,'' a spokesman for the Port Authority said.

[Aquarius]

A huge power blackout hit U.S. cities spreading from New York to Cleveland and Detroit and north into Canada Thursday afternoon.

In New York City, the blackout affected subways, elevators and airports, including John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports.

Thousands of people streamed into the streets of lower Manhattan in 90-degree heat.

In Toronto, Ontario, too, workers left their offices after the blackout hit shortly after 4 p.m. EDT.

Traffic lights were out throughout downtown Cleveland, creating havoc at the beginning of rush hour.

There were reports of outages in New Jersey and Connecticut as well.

Every prison in New York state reported a loss of power and had switched to backup generators, said James Flateau, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections.

White House officials were monitoring the blackout from Washington and from San Diego, where President Bush addressed troops at midday.

From what else I've heard from watching ABC and CBS right now, apparently this started up in Ottawa, Canada and then filtered down to US power plants.

[Matt from Spam Buddies]

I was browsing through the channels just some minutes ago and heard a tad about it, but I had no idea that more than half of the US have been left without juice?!

Seriously, man? That drastic, huh. :(

- Matthew

[DKSM]

Not half the US, the North Eastern part, and it isn't all the states in the North East either.

[Aquarius]

Most of the US's population is on the East Coast. ;) So that about covers more than half. :p

[DKSM]

Originally posted by Aquarius
Most of the US's population is on the East Coast. ;) So that about covers more than half. :p

Yeah, well, I wasn't talking about people. I meant the area of the whole country. ;)

[Aquarius]

Apparently, parts of Flint, Flushing (my city actually has a part in this for once! :D), and Lansing are without power now.

Woohoo! Flushing is actually on the national scene for once! ;)

[DKSM]

It isn't on the NY feed, Aqua, so you haven't gotten such a big break. ;)

[theBlackman]

Also Canadian cities, Toronto for one. It's that damn MSBLASTER striking again. not really but it makes a good story. Maybe I can sell it to the NY times like the dismissed reporter :D :rolleyes:

[Aquarius]

I meant, we're actually part of something happening that has affected a big part of the US. :p ;)

Oh, and Flushing has 8,463 people living here. So take that NYC with your 8 million people! :D

[LARAMANIAC]

Boy!!!!!!!! That is one huge area - I'm really shocked!!!!

[theBlackman]

Originally posted by LARAMANIAC
Boy!!!!!!!! That is one huge area - I'm really shocked!!!!

Ah hah! It's your fault. You short circuited the system and blew the fuzes (fuses for those americans). :D

[Aquarius]

I was telling DK awhile ago that in actuality, this is a perfect opportunity for a terrorist attack. There are more than half a million people out on the streest of NYC. Hopefully this will be a missed opportunity. ;)

BTW, I think this'll be good news for you LM. :) The al-Qaeda guy who ordered the attack in Bali last year, was caught today! :D

[Mr Spock]

Hasten to an exterior area and check for UFO activity. :)

[LARAMANIAC]

Originally posted by theBlackman
Ah hah! It's your fault. You short circuited the system and blew the fuzes (fuses for those americans). :D

Now, now!!! Don't you be blaming me here!!!!! I didn't touch no fuze box anywhere, no sir not me!!!! :p

[Lil Lara]

No outages over here at the moment. hm.

[SpyroDragon]

And it was exactly 26 years ago this month. BLACKOUT 77. That was the time in summer of 1977 when lightning hit the main Con- Ed Power Station, knocking out power, and there was a whole lot of looting in New York City. Pretty wild.

But I got power here in central NJ!!

[LARAMANIAC]

How strange!! What a coincidence!!! It's a glitch I tell you!!! :p

[Veronica Ma]

Well that was fun. Power just came on about 1/2 hr ago. No candles anywhere in the house. Ice cream melting in the freezer. (ok we ate it)

Just reading 1/2 of the US? Unbelievable. Never can remember such a large power out... ever.
veronica.
southern ontario, canada

[John Carter]

There was a blackout on this scale in 1965. Studies and councils and standards and such were set up in the wake of that one to regulate and fix such systemic problems. They thought they had. They were wrong.

Very interesting old TV show, showed on PBS over here, believe it was British-made, called "Connections". It examined the nail-shoe-horse-cart-battle effect in several areas of human endeavor.

When it examined the 1965 blackout, the host showed how one rectifier failure somewhere started a cascade effect, and how that had come to happen due to way the power grid system had "evolved".

The guy called such things "technology traps". We became dependent on that which we ourselves had built, and when it failed, we were in a world of hurt. There are many such technology traps lying in wait for us. The more "advanced" your society, the more vulnerable it is.

[TombRaiderChik]

only Northern Mass. was affected. i just hope that it doesnt spread to over where i am.

and i just read on MSN that they don't suspect terrorism, good thing, but i was thinkin could it be that big computer virus goin around thats doing this?

[LARAMANIAC]

Very true indeed Mr Carter!

[Aquarius]

Over 50 million were afffected today, meaning there were over 50 million people without power at some point today. This makes it the largest blackout ever in the history of the US.

I don't know the situation in other parts of the country, but it only spread further and further west in Michigan. Last I heard it had gone all the way over to South Haven which is way over on the other side of the state, on the coast of Lake Michigan.

[HikingBoots]

Cazenovia was the only town in Madison County that didn't lose power. It was great!
All over Manhattan, people were just walking the streets. I heard that many were stuck in elevators... argh.. that's gotta be scary.

[TombRaiderChik]

yikes! id pass out if i got stuck on an elevator :eek:

i was talkin to my friend jason from New York, and he said his power was out for a few hours, but about an hour ago it came back on.

[Aquarius]

100% of all DTE customers in Detroit are still without power tonight and may remains so through the weekend. This is approxiamately 2.2 million people living in Detroit.

[Umah Bloodomen]

I just came on ten minutes ago or so. The news is covering this right and left. I will check with my dad shortly to see what the situation is in Ferndale and Melvindale (which are closer to downtown). Update: Ferndale is not up and I doubt Melvindale is. We need to call my grandmother yet.

We heard on the radio that they were making the suburbs the priority before working on the major cities.

Oxford, which isn't far from where I am, came on last night. The radio is reporting that power could be restored in many places in southeastern MI between noon today and Monday even.

We have a generator, but we only use that for the necessities. We're in the sticks so have to power our pump so we can get water and flush the toilets etc.

Talk about a day. :p

[LARAMANIAC]

Well I'm very relieved that everyone seems to be okay! I am also relieved that this was a genuine electrical system breakdown, I have been so worried that something else was behind this. I'm sure it was at the forefront of a lot of people's minds.

*Waves at her friends across the pond, good to see you all trickling back in!!!! ;)

[Umah Bloodomen]

Originally posted by LARAMANIAC
Well I'm very relieved that everyone seems to be okay! I am also relieved that this was a genuine electrical system breakdown, I have been so worried that something else was behind this. I'm sure it was at the forefront of a lot of people's minds.


Yes, I must admit my mind began wandering over *something else* being responsible when I heard on the radio how much of the country was out. Such a shame. :(

EDIT:

Aquarius ~ You may wish to contact your little environmental group about your trip to the zoo on Sunday. It is closed right now and they are going to try to get it open again tomorrow, but they are not sure if that will happen, or when the backup open date is.

[Arlene]

See what happens when you don't pay your bill? ;)

I couldn't help wondering if DEEK was in all that crowd of people that the news was showing. DKSM, you must be lucky, eh?, didn't lose power at home. Glad Tom's ok too. :)

[Johnny]

It's been chaos here in the Toronto area! :eek: It's amazing how much we depend on electricity. However, we don't appreciate it until it's gone... Power is slowly returning in this region thankfully, so good luck to those people without air-conditioning. :D

Here's an up-to-date story from MSN:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/952578.asp

[Deekman]

BOO 3 - BlackOut '03. - You heard the phrase coined here first, folks!
Power just came on in my section of Brooklyn at around 4:00pm EST Friday.
Nearly 24 hours without it for me. NYC is still only 50% powered back up as
I type this. Time Warner Cable is out still, but it hasn't affected my internet.
I heard the news showed New Yorkers making their way across the Brooklyn Bridge. My wife managed to find me by my job as people were milling about and we made the walk home together. We took the Williamsburg Bridge.
(That makes it twice for me, now.)
The power grid affected is called the Niagara-Mohawk Corridor and it is an interchange between parts of the U.S. and Canada.
At first the reports were that something happened near Niagra Falls (presumed lightning strike) then they were looking at somewheres near
Detroit, but all signs are now pointing to something in Northern Ohio.
They still haven't pinpointed it.
Hope this hasn't affected the Woodward Cruise - I'm gonna want to be seing pictures!
I told Steempy not to push that booteen

[Umah Bloodomen]

Welcome back, DEEK. Still waiting to hear word from Roxy. (She's my only friend from NYC still unaccounted for).

As for the Dream Cruise, they say tentatively that it will run as scheduled, most of the route though is still without power (including the most important: gasoline, water and traffic signals). They will be closing Woodward at 8 PM every evening and most of the festivities that coincide with the cruise (e.g. State Fair, retro-entertainment and car shows) have been postponed.

The decision to run the cruise tomorrow is in the hands of the police in the areas still without power. My dad is a bit pessimistic about the actual Cruise tomorrow, and I don't really blame him. It's not looking good.

Will keep you posted. **crosses fingers**

Slowly but surely, this is being worked out. :)

[LARAMANIAC]

Good to see you back DEEKMAN!! So now we are just missing Roxy??? Is there anyone else unaccounted for???

[Umah Bloodomen]

Most of the people I know from NYC frequent the LOK forums. DEEK and Roxy are the only ones from here who I can remember being from NYC.

I am really at a loss to remember who (if any) are still unaccounted for.

[Aquarius]

Good to see you're safe and sound Umah! :) How long were you without power? Or did you not lose any? :p

I think my cousin in Royal Oak still doesn't have power. :(

About the zoo, we were planning on going there Monday afternoon. It shouldn't be closed still at that time should it?

And last I heard an hour ago over 2 million in the Detroit area were still without power.

[Umah Bloodomen]

Last check, there were 1.2 million with power as of around 8 PM. Royal Oak supposedly has it, however the advisory to businesses is to stay closed. Again, the zoo was going to try and open tomorrow, but that all depends on what is decided as far as the advisories.

I would probably call and check tomorrow to see if they are open. If they are, they will most likely be through Monday as well.

We only lost our power for about seventeen hours in total. It came on between 9 and 9:30 this morning.

[Apocrypha Roxy]

I've got the power! :D

Originally posted by Aquarius:
Oh, and Flushing has 8,463 people living here. So take that NYC with your 8 million people!

Make that 12 million. The population's jumped, as the energy demand has. :D

So many people got stuck in elevators! One lady in my building was stuck between the 5th and 6th floors with her baby - no air, no lights, nothing!! :eek:

The subways were halted, everything was shut down. New York City has never been at such a standstill as it had been last night. PITCH BLACK. If I looked out my window, where I normally see streetlights, a car service place, the El with the W train rolling by, and my school's campus - nothing. The hallways in my building? It was like playing some sick combination of Tomb Raider, Thief and Splinter Cell without the goggles. :rolleyes:

Even my guinea pig was uncomfortable. LOL. All that fuzz...

Scary stuff, man. Although it was pretty cool. Though 'cool' is not what first comes to mind when you hear "Blackout in the middle of August".:p

[Aquarius]

12 million? :eek: Whoa, I didn't know there were that many people there! lol

How is it looking in NYC right now Roxy? How much of the city has power once again?

[Salvage]

There seems to be confusion as to how much went out. It was 1/4 of the power grid in North America.


Power came back on here at around 8:30 PM EST, my DSL works but the phones do not(same company supplies each, go figure).:rolleyes:

[Aquarius]

I just got this little snippet off of AOL News.

"The blackout washed across a huge slice of North America, knocking out service in parts of eight states and Canada in just nine seconds."

:eek: That's a very scary thought! It only took 9 seconds for 50 million people to lose power....

[Apocrypha Roxy]

9 seconds? DAMN!!!


Aquarius: Looks like normal, now. If you took a look at the news yesterday (well, we couldn't), but you'd have seen probably lots of black and lots of cars in the street if they aired a pic of NYC. Killer traffic, with no streetlights. You know Time's Square? With all the neon lights and whatnot? It all fizzled out. If you've been in the countryside, where it's all woods and deer and vacation homes, you'd know what I mean when I say it was PITCH BLACK. You could see nothing.

Right now, we're almost 100%, I suppose. There were parts of my neighborhood/surrounding neighborhoods that had lights and power. We were lagging behind. You could hear the cheers when the electricity finally came on.


Yeah, we have that many people on a little island (and the surrounding boroughs). NYC is all islands except for the Bronx, which is actually 'on' New York State. Brooklyn is the western tip of Long Island. Staten Island is right next to New Jersey (you can see the SI dump on sattelite, I've been told). Manhattan seems to be the smallest of all - so damn NARROW compared to everything else. And they fit an airport and a huge park in there, too.


With the phones, only my father's cell worked. Cordless phones need energy to function, but if you had a wall-mounted, corded phone, it would have worked. Unfortunately, we have all of our corded phones in storage. And really, now. Who's going to plug in an old phone? :p


Thank goodness it's all over. If it happens again, let it happen in the winter. Then we'll have blankets and stuff. Also I have a gas stove, so we were actually able to toast bread on the stovetop like oldfashioned. My mom makes roasted peppers that way. Lets 'em burn right on the stovetop. Mmm, smells really good.

And I'm still achin' for a shower...

[Aquarius]

You don't want it to happen in the winter, trust me. ;) It's not fun....but then again you probably don't have our bad Michigan winters either...

I heard that a lot of the tourists in NYC that were locked out of their hotel rooms had to sleep on the street in Times Square. :p I don't know what would've been worst. Being a tourist and locked out of your room, or being locked in your room....

[Umah Bloodomen]

We were out for three days in March of this year. It's really great when it's 20 degrees and below. :p

Some lady in Southfield I think it was, was stuck in an elevator for 18 hours.

[Aquarius]

And you were right Umah. :p It did start in Ohio. I just saw something on the news that said it started in suburban Ohio and travelled to Michigan. When it got to Michigan, I guess Detroit removed itself from the national grid, which spared other parts of the country from losing power. I guess that if Ohio had disconnected from the grid too, NYC and Canada would have been spared.

It's always Ohio.... ;)

I wonder how Cleveland and Canada are doing. According to Roxy ;), NYC is back up but nothing really about Cleveland or Toronto. Do they have all of their power back up, does anyone know?

[Umah Bloodomen]

I think Rook is from northeastern Ohio. Maybe Cleveland-area, but don't quote me on that. We haven't heard from her yet at all. (Although she does tend to post rather late).

[Apocrypha Roxy]

Now that I think about it, we've got alot of night-owls on the boards...


To keep up with you all, I'm going to make myself some cold coffee... I got enough sleep last night, God knows. My mom and sister weren't so lucky... Hell, I sleep through everything!


Aquarius - better being locked out, rather than locked in. Outdoors was cool. It was like being in a Showtime Rotisserie. For 26 hours.

*gasps and dies*

*ressurects to wait for LoK Defiance*

[Aquarius]

Two of the night owls being Michiganders. :p ;)

And I forgot what I was going to say now..... lol

Hmmm, I guess it's a plus. How many tourists can say they got to sleep on the street of Times Square and see the stars above NYC, which I guess isn't a common thing. :p :D

[Umah Bloodomen]

One of the night owls might be headed to bed soon. She has to get up at 4 am to see if she can actually get into a gas station. (I was smart, I kept over a half of a tank). :D

Then it's off to the Cruise... :D

[Aquarius]

Good luck with getting a reasonable price for gas! ;) :p

Well, if you must go Umah. ;) Night :) And have a good time tomorrow at the Dream Cruise!

[Umah Bloodomen]

I dare a gas station attendant to overcharge me for gas.

I'll hack him from crotch to gizzard and feed what's left of him to his brides. ~ Malek (Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen).

Actually I'll report him to the Attorney General, but the other thing sounded more dramatic. :p

Nyghty nyght. ;)

[Apocrypha Roxy]

Originally posted by Aquarius
Two of the night owls being Michiganders. :p ;)

And I forgot what I was going to say now..... lol

Hmmm, I guess it's a plus. How many tourists can say they got to sleep on the street of Times Square and see the stars above NYC, which I guess isn't a common thing. :p :D

NONE before last night lol. If you wanted to see stars at night before, you'd need to go to Broadway. Which was as deserted as the dark side of the moon, and just as black.

They also got to see Mars, too, if they looked hard enough. I saw Mars and the Moon nearly side by side. The Moon was freakin' RED, too. I thought it was Mars for a sec. They were right when they said it would be close! Then my father pointed out that Mars was that tiny red dot farther up.

Cool...

Dream Cruise? WHERE?! OH, of all the nights I stay up late, the resident Insomniac is going to bed EARLY! Darn! :(

Have a nice time! And good luck with getting juice for the car. I've been seeing pictures on the TV (now that I have it back). Never seen that many people need that much fuel in such a short timespace. Maybe they're all going on the cruise, too? :D

[Aquarius]

I think the gas attendants will have it easier though. It won't be easy still, but they won't have Jennifer Granholm to deal with has Attorney General. She would really make them pay. ;)

[Umah Bloodomen]

No, they have to deal with her as governor. :D

BTW, the zoo is open. :)

[Aquarius]

Granholm rocks as Governor! :D Did you know that she made Michigan to become the first state ever to have a state Surgeon General? :) And Granholm's plan health wise for Michigan is incredible! :D

The zoo probably won't happen now. :( I don't know where everyone is, but I can't get a hold of them, and no one's returning my messages. So I'll have to cancel it then. I have that much power too. ;) :p

[Aquarius]

Oh, and it all makes sense now Umah. Guess who Bush had appointed as Energy Secretary when he was elected? None other than former Michigan Senator Spencer Abraham.....

It's all crystal clear now isn't it? :p

[Salvage]

I thought that this (http://www16.brinkster.com/salvage/misc4/blackout.htm) would be of interest.

[Deekman]

Originally posted by Salvage
I thought that this (http://www16.brinkster.com/salvage/misc4/blackout.htm) would be of interest.

Its not.
More on that hoax here (http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23874).

[Salvage]

Heh, I figured it was the real thing(since I wasn't looking for a fake). It was e-mailed to me from operations(and I work in the power industry).:rolleyes:

[Deekman]

That one you linked to looks like somebody tried to do a better job than
the first fake - the blackout area actually matches the ocean!

[Aquarius]

That looks familiar, wouldn't you say so Jess? :p ;)

[HikingBoots]

Originally posted by Aquarius
Granholm rocks as Governor! :D Did you know that she made Michigan to become the first state ever to have a state Surgeon General? :) And Granholm's plan health wise for Michigan is incredible! :D

The zoo probably won't happen now. :( I don't know where everyone is, but I can't get a hold of them, and no one's returning my messages. So I'll have to cancel it then. I have that much power too. ;) :p

True, but being a former Michiganian.. Granholm's got a long way to go in terms of education. I don't know about your high school, but Sault Ste. Marie's got rid of all their AP classes because the state couldn't fund 'em. Not exactly something to be proud of, eh?

[Aquarius]

MEAPs....

Originally we were going to get $2,500 if we got a high score.

Then it went down to $500 because of the budget cuts. But when I got my letter from the Treasury Department, it was back up to $2,500. So I don't know what the deal is with the education department right now. My school didn't lose too much money I think. In fact, we added on an AP class this year.

[LARAMANIAC]

Be warned, I think the Mothership may be appearing anyday now!! Power outtages reported in Southern Sweden and Eastern Denmark today. The total people affected was in the region of 5million!! They are going to appear soon I tell you. :p

*LM applies her tinfoil hat..........protection you know!! ;)

First it was The States & Canada, then London (which I know pales into comparison when compared with the North American outtage - before you say anything Aquarius, yes I know yours was bigger than ours) now Scandinavia. :eek::eek:

[DKSM]

Yeah, the aliens are coming... :p

There was a tornado in Central/Southern New Jersey and north and east of NYC this morning. Scared the begeesus outta me, and took the roof off the Walmart that is 15 minutes from my house. Sounded a like a train was coming, and then I saw tons of white, and then it kept going.

They are not very common by me, so I was slightly shocked, although we did have one roughtly 5-7 years ago...

[Aquarius]

I get the feeling LM saw Signs too many times. ;)

The US, then London, now Scandinavia....now that's what I call a rolling blackout. :p

[HikingBoots]

The MEAPS were a joke to begin with. Try taking the Regents. They make the MEAPS look like an elementary school spelling test.

[Aquarius]

No one really took the MEAP seriously. I did because I wanted the scholarship. :p

But yeah, it is a joke. I left two long answer questions blank, and I still got the scholarship.

I'm guessing that Regents probably rank right up there with AP exams. :p Lucky me, the AP Gov't exam is the easiest to get a 3 on, but the hardest to get a 5 on.

[Aquarius]

More blackouts today!

Italy had 60 million people without power, but I guess it's all been restored.

I think you're right LM, the Mothership has landed. :eek:

[LARAMANIAC]

I heard 50million people affected!! :p This is too strange!! Just remember it was me who warned you!! :p

[Aquarius]

Could you give us a hint at what's to come next LM? :p

I heard 55-60 million this morning. Never sure what number you're ever given is correct. ;)