I survived the Great Power Outage

[pakman]

We were not hit in Chicago. Glad you maded it through ok.

[Baylan]

I have survived! And I'm pissed!

In the last 6 months, my family's home has had 3 significant power outages (24 hours or more). Once in April when the ice storms hit Michigan, once in June after a rather nasty storm, and this occasion. My step-father was extremely lucky too - he managed to get on an early flight from Boston to the Metro Airport (Detroit's major airport) and he pulled up to the gate just as the power went out in our area - essentially he would've been stranded in Boston if he hadn't managed to get on that plane! Once he got home though, he was practically out of gas... so we stayed in, ate some melting ice cream, and just relaxed. Today I was forced to miss football practice because of a lack of water in my area. We've been forced to use the water out of our hot water heater in order to flush our toilets :-/. Boil advisories have also been issued in the Detroit area in order to be 100% no water-born diseases are transmitted through the water system...

To say the least - it has been a long day, and I look forward to the next hot shower I get. That hot shower may not come for another several days. :-(

On the plus side, I got to see the stars really well last night. I also managed to get through a good portion of my summer reading (hundred and fifty pages or so). :-)

Later
Baylan

[goldfish]

It is certainly nice to see the stars at times.

On the other hand, it's also nice to be able to get a decent black-and-white shake, good sushi, incredible Italian food, a nice bowl of Yankee bean soup, and a perfect toasted whole-wheat bagel with veggie cream cheese. All within walking distance of work, or at most a quick subway ride. ;) Cities have drawbacks, but they certainly have their advantages as well.

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

On the other hand, it's also nice to be able to get a decent black-and-white shake, good sushi, incredible Italian food, a nice bowl of Yankee bean soup, and a perfect toasted whole-wheat bagel with veggie cream cheese. All within walking distance of work, or at most a quick subway ride.

Played that trump card against me rather fast, didn't ye!? :( The closest respectable sushi to my locale is 50 minutes away via highway... but it's worth the gasoline. It's not coastal, it's not the Ginza... but it's not bad for where the Prairies meet the Rocky Mountains.

Point taken. :)

[channel1]

I thought it was funny, all the hot air getting blown around about where the fault was, when the people who are most competent to determine the cause were too busy fixing things to worry about where it started.

Canada blamed the US, the US blamed Canada, George Bush blamed the French, accused Canada of bringing in Uranium for their nu-cue-lar plants, and figured the way to fix it all was to bomb Niagara Falls. :)

Quebec got payback for the big ice storm. They were unaffected, because their electricity distribution system was so torn up by the storm that a lot of it was completely upgraded to modern specs.

Maybe this will be the spark that will get the utility companies to upgrade the antiquated distribution system here, but I doubt it. Regardless of which generation facility set off this incident, the real fault lies in the obsolete distribution system, and the people who should be upgrading it.

-rcv-

[Yrrek]

Where at in the midwest? I used to live in Leavenworth, Kansas, and now am located in Lee's Summit, Missouri. I am very familiar with those days you are talking about. A little too familiar. :ph34r:

[--Pete]

Hi,

Maybe this will be the spark that will get the utility companies to upgrade the antiquated distribution system here, but I doubt it. Regardless of which generation facility set off this incident, the real fault lies in the obsolete distribution system, and the people who should be upgrading it.

TANSTAAFL. The real fault is the public who wants a first rate power system at third rate prices.

--Pete

[Jedi Knight]

Quebec got payback for the big ice storm. They were unaffected, because their electricity distribution system was so torn up by the storm that a lot of it was completely upgraded to modern specs.

Apparently, we were spared because of the way electricity is distributed - since we only have hydro plants (only exception, one nuclear plant), that are very far from cities, so our electricity is not "synchronized" with Ontario and US. Since Quebec exports lots of electricity to both, there are special equipments that re-syncs power, and they acted as buffers in the present case. Of course, since the storm (in fact, there were two storms, the first one that occured the year before was not as nasty however), the distribution network has been upgraded, but from what I've heard, it wouldn't have changed anything.

[Count Duckula]

Every time I think my mother is the only person in the universe who pretty much memorized Heinlein's works, I just go to this forum and start reading. :)

At the time of the power outage, I was having dinner with a friend, and she's looking at the waitress, and the waitress is looking at me like I should be having a problem with it. (We're not dating, much as I'd want to.) The drunks at the bar (at 4pm?) start shouting about how the terrorists were coming, the power's flickering, and how everyone should have free beer.

If I was at Hollins when this happened, we'd probably be holding prayer circles or singing Kum-bay-yah on Front Quad or something, so I'm glad I was at Spanky's listening to drunks. And I'm glad everyone's okay. :)

[LavCat]

I was at work (central New Jersey) when the power dropped enough to knock out our computers that were not on a UPS. The dip was followed by a spike, but we thought little of it. The first I learned of a widespread outage was a phone call from an Israeli customer who had just landed in New York. He had me go to CNN and check, since the passengers at the airport had no idea what happened, and there was no Internet! His suspicions were similar to those of your drunks.

My UPS logs from home confirmed the spike, and in addition showed an initial spike before the dip. I have friends who had their network damaged even though it was on a UPS.

North of here the power was out, but we were fine. No free beer however.

[aurikan]

I, too, hail from London, Ont. However, I was on the road when the grid went down.

I was heading from London to Waterloo for my last final exam of the summer semester, which was scheduled for 7pm on Thursday 14th. The exam was in the final slot for exams, as the exam period officially ended on the 15th, and the last day is always reserved for emergency make-up exams.

I left London at about 3:15pm, when everything was still normal. I was just entering Stratford, and planning stop off at a local chocolate shop I often hit on the way. Upon entering the town I passed through an intersection and noticed the traffic light wasn't working. I felt that was odd, but did not feel anything in a larger scale was wrong. I took a normal back-roads way to the chocolate shop to avoid the normally difficult traffic in Stratford, and parked on the street in front of the shop. Upon entering, I noticed the lights were off in the shop. Again, thinking nothing of it, I picked up my chocolates and lined up at the till.

I first had an inkling that something larger had gone wrong when I got up to the front of the line and realized that the tills were off. Fortunately, I had enough cash on-hand to pay. The time was about 4:25. Nobody in the shop knew the extent of the power outage, or at least if they did, they weren't being very forthcoming, as people started chatting about our common situation.

I got back on the road and, realizing that all the traffic lights in the city were off, I jogged off the main route onto back roads. Back routes don't have traffic lights; they have stop signs. Stop signs still function when the power is out. Given the normal traffic situation in Stratford compounded by the lack of traffic signals, back roads would be orders of magnitudes safer and faster. Half an hour down the road, I marvel at the size of the outage. I still hadn't seen any sign of power. My cell phone, which normally reports full reception along the entire highway corridor, is reporting zero reception.

Eventually I made it to Waterloo, where I was amazed to find the power is still out. I went to the university and confirmed that my exam was likely to be cancelled, as the buildings were all running on emergency lights and thus the light level was insufficient to write an exam. I stuck around until 7pm, whereupon the teacher announced the exam, barring a continuing lack of power, would be moved to 9am the following morning.

Now my biggest problem was that I had been waking up at 11am or noon the past week. Given that I was expecting to take one last exam in the evening and then be on a short vacation, I was already getting myself into total-slack mode. Getting up for a 9am exam would be problematic, especially with the lack of an alarm clock. Furthermore, before the power went out, my plan of action had been to take the exam and return to London. I had a train ticket to Chicago leaving from London at 10am on the 15th. With the exam being postponed to 9am, and the duration of the exam being 3 hours, the likelihood that I would make my train became zero, even neglecting the 90 minute drive between London and Waterloo.

Having not much to do, and not having any candles, I decided to wander over to the house of some university friends of mine. When I got there, I experienced another aspect of the power outage: what to do about spoiling food. Five of my friends live at this house, plus significant others and several "surrogate housemates" that don't exactly live there but can be found chilling out at the residence more often than not. Thus, they have a lot of food on hand -- several refridgerators full, including quite a lot of beer. Thus, a group of about 10 or 12 of us sat around, drinking, chatting, eating barbeque, and playing cards by candlelight.

By midnight, most of the crew was pretty well trashed. A few people, including me, had to walk across town to their homes (at this point, nobody was fit to drive), so half the party decided to do escort duty. A group of 6 of us wandered across the quiet and very dark city. Thank goodness for the full moon and clear sky, or else we wouldn't have been able to see 10 feet in front of us. The night was a perfect temperature for walking. Along the way we met upon several other roving bands of revellers. Everybody we met was very friendly, and similarly smashed. There was a bond between us and the strangers, of a shared experience. There were plenty of interesting stories told. We saw several front-lawn parties around lanterns, most with guitars and plenty of singing.

Eventually we made it across town, and I got to my bed at about 1:30. Ten minutes later the power came on, and I set my clock for 7:30am. The next morning, I woke up on time and dragged myself to the university. Tired, hung over, and still pissed for missing my train, I wrote my exam and went home.

[Roland]

By being in Mass. ;) Must come from all that "2nd highest cost of living in the U.S." crap I've had to deal with all my life, but we haven't even had a flicker across the whole state. God bless this state. :D Have fun in the sun, and more fun in the dark. ;)

[Occhidiangela]

Try Passage to India, in The Village, a few blocks from McSorley's that pub that claims to be the oldest on in NY. Grrr, not named for Marty . . . anyway, good Indian.

The Big Apple is, without a doubt, one of the best places for a the discriminating palate: if you can afford it! :)

[Occhidiangela]

I used to live near the Federal Pen, were you there for the floods of '93,when the Big Muddy rose and we had to sand bag the civic center?

[goldfish]

Thanks, I'll have to try that one out.

There are literally several thousand restaurants in the city, so it's impossible to know them all unless you're a food critic. :)

For the record, the ones I alluded to earlier are:

Sushi: Well, I work at 8th Ave and 50th. For moderately high-end Sushi around there, there are a number of places, I've been to Ruby Foos, Sushi Den, and some place I can't remember the name that was supposed to be good but wasn't really. For $4 california rolls, there's a joint called Go Sushi right around the corner. And the best sushi I've had in the city (not surprisingly) is at Nobu down on Wall Street. Nobu is supposed to be the best sushi in the country (outside of Cali and Hawaii). I certainly liked it. :D

Soup: The Soup Nazi himself is up on 55th. There are a number of other little soup holes in midtown that work nicely. The best Yankee Bean I've had, though, was at a little deli called Clark's in Brooklyn Heights.

Black-and-white shake: Pick a diner in midtown, they all work very well. :D

Italian: My wife and I are hooked on a not-too-high-end-but-not-too-cheap-either (i.e. $10-15 for an entree, likely to go to $40 for two people) Italian joint called Bocca. Very yummy bread, good pasta, I often get their tortellini with alfredo sauce and prosciutto and other good stuff. Also in the area is Remi which unfortunately no longer has a certain baby-artichoke dish that my wife really loved. (She is a major artichoke fan).

Bagel: Pick a place. Just within a block or two are Carnegie Deli; B & H; a restaurant actually called "Pick a Bagel", and so on. New York is certainly the bagel capital of the world. :) Before coming here, I though bagels were round, overly chewy or hard little annoyances. (Think the Arnold's supermarket brand). Since coming here, I am a convert to the religion of bagel.

And the best part is, they all deliver. At work, if I work past 8 (which, alas, happens with some frequency), I can order in delivery up to $30 and expense it. Doc review or motion practice at midnight is never very fun, but it's a little less of a drag when you have free dinner.

[Occhidiangela]

And the best part is, they all deliver. At work, if I work past 8 (which, alas, happens with some frequency), I can order in delivery up to $30 and expense it. Doc review or motion practice at midnight is never very fun, but it's a little less of a drag when you have free dinner.

Oh, baby, be careful about your waistline when you can do that, huzzah! I am envious of that, but of course, the price paid is

Working late. Which suxors, when you have kids, for sure.