Just checked in to c.s.y2k and thought you might be interested in this post. Several questions were asked and then a followup post answered them. This is obviously unverifiable second or third hand knowledge, but Teague is a regular poster to c.s.y2k. Just passing it along FYI. From:Teague Harper
Topic:More On The Taiwan Power Outage
Message:1 of 15
Sent:Fri, 30 Jul 1999 17:48:17 -0600
I just received another frantic call from my son in Taiwan concerning the huge power outage that occurred there yesterday. He said he talked to an American friend (engineer) who works for Taiwan Power who told him that the problem Y2k related. He told my son that if he was smart he would get the Hell out as soon as possible. This information has ignited a fire under my son and daughter who are both anxious to come home. they are going to both divest themselves of all their investments over there and get out. When I talked to my son today, he was shocked and panicked. He finally gets it. My daughter said she was so scared when it happened that she just cried all night. The power company has told the people that this will be happening several more times in the next several months. They know they are screwed! Teague PS Don't hand me any bull that this story is just hearsay - My son told me the guy's name. He just wants to remain anonymous. ----------------------------------------------- From: Teague Harper
Topic:Re: More On The Taiwan Power Outage
Message:6 of 15 (In response to Mark)
Sent: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 13:41:59 -0600
Mark wrote in message <37A2766C.A3DCDF6E@mindsprin.com>... Is there any annecdotal information you can add to this story, Teague, especially about how well your son knows the engineer? About any comments the engineer made about the official story being given to the people? About any comments the engineer might have made about the likelihood of them fixing the problem? Anything, even how your son happens to know the guy or why the guy would take the risk of telling your son anything so incindiary? Yes - now that I've calmed down, I think I can tell the story with more precision. BTW, Zach was supposed to call me last night, but I havn't heard back from him yet. My son has been in Taiwan for almost six (not consecutive) years now. He served an LDS mission there then came home and got his degree in Chinese at the University of Utah. He has been back in Taiwan for almost four years now. He met and married a girl from Tiawan that he met in Utah while going to school. After he went back to Taiwan, he opened an english school. He has also worked as a translator for various governmental and business people. He is fluent in the language and loves the people there. And, my daughter Sarah has been over there for almost four years. In his position, he meets many people from all over the world. He made friends with and American (name deleted) who works as a consultant for Taiwan Power. He was talking to the unnamed gentleman yesterday and just casually commented about the power outage. The guy got very serious with him and told him NOT to believe what was being broadcast through the media. He said the problem was "man made" that it was "Y2k" related. Then he told Zach to get the "Hell" out of Taiwan and said the whole damn "thing" was going "go down". My son was totally shocked. He had no idea it was going to get that bad. He asked me to start looking for him a job so that he'll have something to do when he gets home. He told me it would take a few weeks to unwind his p osition and tie up some loose ends. Then he said that they were broadcasting that people over there should EXPECT more blackouts during the next few months. (Why if this was a real one time problem? Hummmm?) It appears to me that Tiawan Power is just beginning to understand the full extent of the mess they are in and are doing everything possible to maintain the status quo as long as possible. But, It's just a matter of time before everyone gets the picture. During the outage, my son and daughter told me that the convenience stores in Taichung and Puli where they each live were stripped of merchandise. They had never seen anything like this before and it spooked them - big time. Anyway, to the best of my knowledge this is what I know. I know it is still just a second hand story, so believe what you will. But, I now know what real panic looks and sounds like. Even though we were on the phone, I could see it in my son's eyes and hear it in his voice. A harbenger of things to come? And, I am at last vindicated for my Y2k views; because, now he thinks I was and am inspired. So, if you think your advise has fallen on deaf ears, think again. Just pray your loved ones wake up in time.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), August 01, 1999

Answers

sorry about the formatting

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), August 01, 1999.

Might not this be the opportunity for mainland China to help Taiwan "restore power"?

-- Randolph (dinosaur@williams-net.com), August 01, 1999.

(For educational purposes only)

Friday July 30 9:00 AM ET

Blackout in Taiwan Lingers

By ANNIE HUANG Associated Press Writer

"In the chaos of the blackout, at least five trains were stalled for a few hours. Police said they rescued 113 people from elevators around the island. There were 28 small fires, most caused by candles, but they only caused minor injuries, police said.

``Taiwanese had a dark, dangerous and rumor-ridden night,'' the state- run Central News Agency said, noting that speculated causes ranged from a Chinese attack to interference by aliens.

The blackout did tremendous industrial damage. Officials at a high- tech industrial park in the northern city of Hsinchu said the blackout caused an estimated $62 million worth of damage to its factories manufacturing computer chips, optical electronics and other items."

I have cut, pasted and snipped the above because I want to point out how much damage was done in ONE BRIEF TEMPORARY outage in ONE place. Regardless of whether or not the above was caused by Y2k. Being familiar with Teague's posts I am inclined to believe him and his son.

Anyone who thinks 3 days without power while they do FOF will be no big deal are in for quite the shock.

Sounds more like bumps in the night than bumps in the road.

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), August 01, 1999.

Very interesting. Especially since I am following the Chinese/Taiwan situation closely. Watch this folks. Even more than the middle east (for the moment), this is a tinder box ready to blow. I suspect it will go sky high after Y2K but only the Lord knows. This situation will effect America in a very profound way (Read: WAR). China cannot get to Taiwan unless it deals with the USA but the dragon is flexing its' muscles and feeling suddenly very powerful. This "Y2K induced blackout", along with this story by "Teague", has some very ominous implications.

BTW, could someone tell me how to get to c.s.y2k

SDB

-- S. David Bays (sdbays@intplus.com), August 02, 1999.

The Taiwan power outtage was caused by a collapse of a power transfer structure on a mountainside, not Y2k.

-- Power Ranger (PowerRanger@electric.com), August 02, 1999.

PowerRanger.. yes.. that's what we read in the news reports too. And of course everything we read in the paper is true.

S. David Bays... the newsgroup is comp.software.year-2000. Try: USENET:comp.software.year-2000

or news:comp.software.year-2000

or http://www.remarq.com/threads.asp?group=comp%2Esoftwar e%2Eyear%2D2000&nav=LAST

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), August 02, 1999.

It will be interesting to see the extent of the impact on the computer industry of the devastation in the computer chip sector in Taiwan from a very short-lived electrical outage. Of course, nothing that a modest contingency plan (like emergency generation) wouldn't have taken care of. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these companies say that they do have such a plan, but as we have noticed in other recent problems in this country, none of these plans seem to be in effect yet.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), August 02, 1999.

Apparently the outage has already caused extremely serious damage to the chip plants.

This is an example of the domino effect, with I'm sure many other victims of the outage surfacing in due course...

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), August 02, 1999.

does anyone know how total the power loss was?How was water and waste treatment effected?

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.com), August 02, 1999.

Linda, so because the news media printed something and local news in taiwan showed the damage, they must be lying?.

Do we really want to turn this into a "great conspiracy" chat room.

Does someone have to take you up in a helicopter and show you the actual cause in order for you to believe it or would you rather trust some unknown poster who's son suddenly found some engineer who is involved who said it was Y2k related ?.

-- Power Ranger (PowerRanger@electric.com), August 02, 1999.

Brooks, you touch on a real concern of mine. I'll relate an experience to give you a better idea of why I'm rather short on confidence.

I worked for a small manufacturer (50+ employees) for several years. The main plant was located in a rural area known for power fluctuations, short outages & so forth. I strolled into the computer room (walk-in closet) to look things over. I noticed they had uninterruptable power supplies (UPS) for the file server & such. I also noticed that NOTHING had been plugged into the UPS! All computer equipment was plugged DIRECTLY into the wall outlets!

It is fine & dandy to have contingency plans on the books. It is quite another to implement them. In my experience, people are generally unwilling to go the extra mile in order to finish a given project thoroughly - "just good enough to get by" seems to be the slogan most fitting these folks. IMHO contingency plans are not high priority with most firms. Half-assed is the performance level which most comes to mind.

Gives me pause to wonder, for sure.

Best Wishes,

-- Bingo1 (howe9@pop.shentel.net), August 02, 1999.

More from Teague on csy2k:

>With all due respect to Teague, his son can be the victim of of BS as easily as anyone. I've been to Asia. The power goes out fairly often. Having seen Asian construction from the ground up, I have no difficulty believing Anne Huang's report of a tower collapsed in a landslide.

>Steve

Steve - I'll be the first to admit that you may be right. All I can do is pass along what my son told me. He's never been one given to exaggeration. He knows many, many business people over there and is really very savvy. But, here's something to think about: Why would one of Zach's good friends just out of the clear blue pull his chain about the outage. If you were just slinging BS about something like this to a good friend, and you knew that the lie you were telling would drastically change his/her life, would you allow him/her to believe the lie for very long? I don't think so. You'd say something like, "Ah, heck - I was just kiddin - the outage was just a transmission line." Wouldn't you?
Think about it.

Steve, I hope you're right. But, then again, you weren't over there during the outage and didn't witness the panic first hand. Just imagine what this outage would have done to some of our cities here in America or England. Heck, we can't even enjoy ourselves at a weekend rock concert or soccer match over a weekend without rioting and burning everything in sight - right?

Sincerely,

Teague
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xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xx

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 02, 1999.

Bingo - There's a miserable corollary. I expect that many companies have contingency plans, but they involve ordering supplies (like generators) that will not be available in time. But I'll bet they take credit for having a "plan"!

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), August 02, 1999.

PowerRanger... I assume that would be a BLACK helicopter. Sure.. you provide the black helicopter, I'll provide the tinfoil hat.

In the beginning of my post I stated: "This is obviously unverifiable second or third hand knowledge, but Teague is a regular poster to c.s.y2k. Just passing it along FYI."

There are no absolutes in this subject (or much of anything else in life). Teague's son might have been led astray. The crumpled tower (which I haven't seen) could have been the real cause or an after-the-fact coverup or sabotage. I passed along a heresay story for what it is worth. Obviously not much to you. So be it. But please feel free to contact me (preferably with a little notice) when that helicopter is ready.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), August 02, 1999.

I have great difficulty believing that the cause of the blackout here was the result of a landslide knocking out some transmission towers. The ENTIRE island (with the exception of Kaohshiung city) was without electricity. I fail to see how the whole island only has one supply route through the mountains when most of the cities and power stations are near the coast. The TV footage - while obviously real, was most unconvincing in showing how it affected everywhere simultaneously.

-- Steve (angryboy@cheerful.com), August 03, 1999.