OT Do you have power?

[gerry_szarek]

So the power flickered here briefly in the Boston area around dinner

time, luckily we have a very diverse powerbase, Nuke, coal, hydro and

Quebec Hydro.

 

So what is your status?

 

GS

[seanb]

As an unaffected reader from the UK, I'm wondering how those without power are going to reply :-)

[jfm]

Ny City (120th Westside) is back up.

 

best,

jm

[john_boyle3]

I live in the country south of Ottawa. We were out for about 6 hours. The power was back just after 10 PM.

[continuity]

I'm located in Owen Sound Ontario - about 2 hours north west of T.O. and about 45

minutes from the Bruce Nuclear power plant.

 

Power came on 9:15pm EST. The Premier has declared a state of emergency in

Ontario, and we were told not to go to work. I think my boss would disagree since we

have power ;)

 

Reports say that Toronto does not yet have power. Yikes.

[Spearhead]

How would someone who doesn't have power respond to this? Even with a laptop, this is posted more than fifteen hours after the power failure and the battery would have run down. So the only answer anyone could give is "yes," isn't it?

[ray .]

Sure, we'd want to see who posts. Hope Beau and Andrew are alright.

[lex_jenkins]

Nope, no power. I'm running my desktop for 15 seconds at a time via a huge homemade capacitor made from several rolls of aluminum foil (BBQ grill strength) and wax paper. To recharge it I've kidnapped every cat in the neighborhood - most of 'em are rubbed nekkid by now.

 

Oh, lord...I just heard a CNN anchorette say "preventative." I think I'll just nip off and shoot myself. What a waste of electricity.

[wingell]

I'm in a small community in upstate New York about 15 miles west of Binghamton. That city and the towns in between all lost power at 4:10 p.m. yesterday but my location did not. The cities to the north from Utica to Buffalo suffered outages but there were sections in those areas that did not. It was a curious pattern. In any case, all of the upstate region is back on line, and authorities are now trying to figure out why it happened. The latest thinking centers on a surge or other disruption in a line in Canada. Note to our New England members: aren't you glad you're on another grid? :)

[jay_.]

<<How would someone who doesn't have power respond to this? Even with a laptop, this is posted more than fifteen hours after the power failure and the battery would have run down. So the only answer anyone could give is "yes," isn't it?>>

 

Um, no. Everyone I know here in S Florida has a gas generator and a generous stock of fuel in case of a hurricane power outage that could last for several days. While the generator would be running periodically to keep the freezer frozen (lest all that old film thaw out!) it would recharge the laptop batteries and also be an opportunity to log on briefly.

 

Also I don't know about you but I have a power cable for my laptop that plugs into the cigar lighter in my car.

[ray .]

Maybe Arnold could just jump from over here in California and fix the east coast problem too. He seems on his way to running for president anyway, may as well practice now.

[vic_.]

<I>Maybe Arnold could just jump from over here in California and fix the east coast problem too. He seems on his way to running for president anyway, may as well practice now.</I><P>Arnold has painted himself into a corner. He hasn't said anything of substance so far. He lacks <I>gravitas.</I> If you look at his position on issues, he is a liberal, far to the left of Clinton, and the conservative wing of the Republican party doesn't like him, and now don't know what to do about it. If they embrace him they're potentially in trouble. If they distance themselves, they'll cause a schism. Either way it is not a good thing.<P>Also, the recall was initiated by a wealthy opportunist, who dropped out as soon as he figured he couldn't win the governorship. And now he has left a comic mess. The only thing missing is that Kobe Bryant isn't running. The other thing is that the reason for the recall was the budget deficit. Why is that bad for the state and ok for the federal government, which keeps adding to the deficit every second. If the Republican party goes along with this it seems a double standard. It should make for a good reality based show.

[Rob F.]

Here in St. Louis, I keep marine deep-cycle batteries on charge in the basement. I have a small AC inverter to be able to run 115VAC gear, and I can plug my laptop into that. So far, I've not needed it, but I'm glad I have it.

 

The larger question is what the phone company does for power during times like this. I remember visiting a small phone exchange back in the late '50's and seeing a bank of storage batteries on charge as a backup system. Does anyone know if this is the case in a modern full-size telephone exchange?

[roger_michel]

arnold is not eligible to run for president.

[cmphoto1]

Ironically, it sounds like the stuff Davis got done after the power crisis a few years ago would take great steps to avoid a catastrophe of this extent. But hey, go supply-side on oil (the Bush/Cheney plan) and you golden, right? Nah, I can't get that one to add up.

 

BTW, I can not figure out why Arnold is Republican except for a few issues that will kill him in CA. And, Thankfully, without a constitutional amendment, he can not be Pres.

 

chad

[graphicjoe]

Here in New Mexico we don't have electric power, so we were not affected. I just trimmed the wicks and went on with life as usual.

 

cheers,

 

Joe

[wingell]

Power failure update: Much to Canada's relief, National Public Radio now reports that the North American Electric Reliability Council puts the likely blame for the outage on problems in northern Ohio transmission lines. Automatic relays shut the troubled lines down, and the disruption cascaded across the multi-state grid. Said the council's spokesman: "I'm very upset about this. This should not have happened."

 

Duh.

[jay_.]

<<arnold is not eligible to run for president>>

 

One of my favorite scenes is in "Demolition Man" where Sandra Bullock's character makes a reference to "the Schwarzenegger Presidential Library" and Stallone's (who we all know is one of Arnold's "rivals" in the macho-movie genre)character--who has been frozen for several decades-- asks how could that be since Arnold is a naturalized American. Bullock's character replies matter-of-factly that there was a constitutional amendment.

[h._p.]

I do feel sorry for the US having to put up with all these actors turning into politicians. I mean, what will they NOT do to get on the screen?

 

In the UK, the only theatrical I can think of who's had any success in politics is Glenda Jackson, who some may remember seeing more than enough of (and I mean that in EVERY sense) in "The Music Lovers" and various other productions.

 

The Italians (who else) have gone further than any of us by electing Ilona Staller, the porn star formerly known as Cicciolina, into their parliament. This is a woman who can confidently be relied upon to give her all for her adopted country (she was born in Hungary)

 

I hope you all have the power to read this now.

 

:-)

[majid]

Telephone exchanges are run off -48V DC power, usually from lead-acid batteries connected to the power grid, with a generator as backup hooked to a marine diesel engine or a helicopter turbine. The phone exchange is not connected directly to the grid, and the batteries act as ballast, protecting against spikes and brown-outs.

 

Normally, the battery array is configured to last at least 24 hours before the backup generator needs to kick in. The switch supplies -48V DC power to the phone over the phone line, which is why phones can run even if the power is down. Many Internet data centers are built to the same Telcordia (formerly Bell Labs) "NEBS" standards, which is why East Coast websites were not affected.

 

Of course, you need a traditional wired phone to be able to do dial in a power outage. Cordless phones, VoIP phones, cable telephones and the like need AC power adapters to run. That's one of the reasons why copper hasn't been displaced by fiber yet - you still need to get power to the phone, and phone engineers are very conservative because we have been drilled in our training that when the phone stops working, people die (police, ambulances and firemen not being dispatched and all).

[Rob F.]

Thanks for answering, Fazal.

[gib]

Central ontario on Georgian Bay, 100 miles north of Toronto, outage about 20 hours, power restored around 12:45 pm today....water restrictions in effect, electricity restricted use requested, the grid is coming back but is not stable....Greater Toronto Area: traffic lights not all back in operation, not all areas have power, subway not to be restarted until Monday at the earliest....people siphoning gasoline to transfer fuel from cans to cars ingesting fuel and in hospital....people trapped in elevators.

all amusing stuff, right, Lex?

[cmphoto1]

Jay,

 

I was in Blockbuster the day after he announce his run and almost pickup Demo Man just because of that line.

 

Frightening foretelling from a Stalone movie, isn't it?

 

chad

[matt_m__toronto_]

we got our power back this morning at 5am. however i was on set today shooting a short film and the location had no power whatsoever until 4pm (downtown toronto) we had to run everything off of a generator all day.

[cmphoto1]

Hey Matt,

 

If you Canadians don't figure out soon that this whole power-outage thing is your fault, well, let's just say "regime change." :)

 

So, do you have any bloodlines in Milwaukee?

 

chad