I am very new to the y2k scene so apologies if this has been talked about before. In fact I am only half way through TB2000. Anyway...

Predicting the effect of long term power outage is not easy since the duration of power cuts, or blackouts, is typically less then a few hours. However, the massive power loss to Aukland, New Zeland, last year must have presented an opportunity to study the impact of long term electrical failure. Though, IIRC it was mainly a business area that was cut off. As opposed to a residential area.

-- Mark (aag78@dial.pipex.com), July 07, 1998

Answers

The conclusions which we draw from it must be limited however, because of the fact that the rest of New Zealand was not affected and was able to provide assistance. In the case Y2K, with possibly widespread power outages and other failures, communities will be largely left to their own resources-- a much different situation.

Also imagine if the city had been, say, Chicago.

-- Max Dixon (Max.Dixon@gte.net), July 07, 1998.

Mark: I note most of the detail about the power outage has vanished off the net! You could check out Mercury Energy Auckland New Zealand the responsible company at: http://www.mercury.co.nz/ (Make sure you have 'cookies' turned on) You could also ask the New Zealand Herald to check around Feb to May in their archives. As a regular commuter in and out of Auckland the major effect was the CBD was a dark hole 2km in size where people stayed out afterdark. Loss of all services meant most businesses moved out, Hotels closed, highrise apartments closed and their residents went elsewhere, commerce lost a lot of money. 99% of the city carried on as usual. Max is correct. Wrong scale, it was just a wake up call for Aucklanders and only gives the vaguest of ideas about Y2K possibilities. I study natural hazards where the closet parallel to Y2K is the plagues that swept Europe in earlier times. Of course, the impact is also all avoidable at the individual scale with prompt and early action. Get people to do what they must, or leave to a place where technology is not a problem. Best of luck.

-- Bob Barbour (r.barbour@waikato.ac.nz), July 07, 1998.