Monday September 13 08:36 PM EDT Power Outage Hits LAX http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/2000/19990913/lo/19990913005.html

Excerpts:

"We had passengers waiting in all the terminals. They seem to be not too mad or not too disgruntled. They didn't seem to be disappointed that they had to wait, they waited maybe for an hour before the airport told them they would have to wait until tomorrow to get their bags," airport worker Brandon Robinson told CBS 2 News. ... The airport declined to comment on its electricty backup policies."

-- Tom (Y2KOhno!@Yikes!.com), September 13, 1999

Answers

I heard about it and watched it on the news...very strange. LAX was very tight regarding information of the cause. Power would come back on in some areas then go off only to appear in other areas (like I said...strange : )

What is reported in this coverage doesn't necessarily seem to fit with reality.

Mike

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-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), September 13, 1999.

Glad to see you back, Michael. Missed your posts. Maybe their back-up generators failed? That seems to be a common problem. Maybe they're testing ... the secret contingency plans ;^)

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), September 13, 1999.

"Officials do not know what caused the outage between 9:25 p.m. and 10:50 p.m. Sunday, said Mary Ann Pierson of the city's Department of Water and Power."

No comment. I leave this one for the Pollies to explain.

A total mystery? Nah! Happens every day.

-- @ (@@@.@), September 13, 1999.

Atlanta Airport had the same trouble several weeks ago. Trains wouldn't run - no air con. Lights off. Testing? I think so. Remember, Atlanta Hartsfield announced it was "ready" months ago.

-- April (Alwzapril@home.com), September 14, 1999.

Actually it does happen every day. I suspect if you could find a way to look at all of the US you would find some type of power outage almost everyday.

There is something here I dont understand: When the 9999s came and went with almost no problem in the US and overseas we were told that Its Y2K. Yet at the same time the predictions are that 80% of Y2K problems will be experienced before the year 2000. And some people are predicting that there will be problems well into the next decade.

So lets see: Anytime something thats predicted to happen or be an indicator of a portent of doom doesnt happen its not suppose to mean anything because its not Y2K yet. On the other hand anytime something that happens somewhere in the US such as a power outage or plant going down its an indication of Y2K.

Makes sense to me.

-- The Engineer (The Engineer@tech. com), September 14, 1999.

Engineer my ass! No one as dimwitted as you could possibly be an engineer. Show me a national news headline for every single day of the year stating that a major metropolitan airport had a power outage for over an hour. Did it ever occur to you that maybe the 9's DID cause some problems, and they still can continue to surface AFTER that day, and that this in fact may be one such example? If you're an engineer then how do you explain this outage, and why their backup systems weren't activated? Why are they concealing the truth?

-- @ (@@@.@), September 14, 1999.

National news? It didn't make the "National News" here. I hate to tell you this but the world doesn't revolve around LA or what happens there. As for the specifics to you question about what happen we will just have to wait to see what comes out of it. It could be a transformer failure. As for why it didn't transfer, I hate to tell you but that happens all the time. If you don't exercise the transfer switches they don't work all the time. Still the world didn't end did it? Weather problems at O'hare have caused more problems in the past then this.

What makes you think it's a cover up? Is everything a cover up to you? Or is it your belief that you understand the way things work. A lot more than you obviously really do.

-- The Engineer (The Engineer@tech.com), September 14, 1999.

"Engineer",

Oh, excuse me you're right, CNN isn't national news, it's International.

If they're aren't covering up, and it's just a transformer failure, then why don't they just say so? If you can't discern a motive for trying to keep the real reason under wraps then you must be blind.

They've got Federal inspectors and Airline agents crawling all over that airport trying to confirm their compliance. BILLIONS OF DOLLARS will depend on this in the very near future!! Dimwit.

-- @ (@@@.@), September 14, 1999.

@,

"Officials do not know what caused the outage between 9:25 p.m. and 10:50 p.m. Sunday, said Mary Ann Pierson of the city's Department of Water and Power."

I can believe that. Officials seldom understand aything of a technical nature. Now if the operators or controllers were allowed to comment then I'm sure everyone would be able to find out the cause.

I have seen some "Official" comments at times on outages with our power system, and in most cases the explanation is so off track as to be hilarious. When we ask anyone concerned with public realations how they can screw up an explanation so badly the general answer seems to be that the public would not understand the technical answer.

Malcolm

-- Malcolm Taylor (taylorm@es.co.nz), September 14, 1999.

Just because something is on CNN doesnt make it important. CNN isnt the be all and end all of news reporting. If anything it repeats small items over and over and over to fill up the news day. How much in depth reporting do you see there? Well they did have the report about nerve gas being used in Vietnam but then that turned out to be phony didnt it?

It didnt make my local paper and in other papers it was on the inside. Not a headline. And it wasnt on the local news at all.

Why would Billions of dollars be tied up in this power failure? And why would the power failure have anything to do with Y2K? Because everything has to do with Y2K (except for the things that dont like 9999) of course. Things go wrong all the time. The question is how does it affect the vast majority of the people. The answer is this doesnt.

Itll be interesting when Y2K comes and goes without much of anything how you deal with that. Probably put it off to another cover up. Its interesting that you make the charge of a cover up with out knowing anything yet always ask everyone else to prove what it is. And right away with no investigation please. And of course its also interesting how you quickly resort to calling people names and make it personal rather then being objective about it. But then, all of the Y2K predictions of problems have come and gone without anything much happening. Not many problems at the predicted trigger dates for this year. No Joann effects. Pretty quiet. All of it a cover up to be sure. I mean it just has to be. You couldnt possibly be wrong and now have a clue, could you?

-- The Engineer (The Engineer@tech.com), September 14, 1999.

"Engineer",

Oh , OK I won't read CNN anymore, I'll just listen to whatever YOU say! Ask the CEO of American Airlines if he cares whether LAX has the power on. Ask the entire Airline Industry whether or not there are $billions of lost revenues at stake if major metro airports keep shutting down. My God you are thick man, it's no wonder you don't get Y2K. I give up, I can't get through.

-- @ (@@@.@), September 14, 1999.

I thought one looked at CNN not read it? Your assumption seems to be that there were never any problems (except for Y2K) and there will never be any problems (except for Y2K). Airports shut down because of the weather. Witness what is going on in Florida now. Will the airlines loose money? Of course. Will they fly again after the storm goes? Yes. The idea that a temporary shut down for what ever problemmis leading up to a permant shut down (without any reason except it's Y2K) is looney.

That's like saying because there are car accidents every day every one will have an accident every day.

-- The Engineer (The Engineer@tech.com), September 14, 1999.

Your attitude towards failure of systems that the public must rely upon is rather surprising, considering your profession.

Your wrong, power failures affecting national airports are very well convered nationally, though of course, few failures are caused by y2k incidents themselves. But the y2k lesson to be learned is that THE BACKUP POWER SYSTEM didn't work, or wasn't useful in maintaining airport services required for flying.

Thus, no one can fly is their luggage can't be handled. No one can fly is they can't pass through the security screen machines. No one can fly if there are troubles on the apron with fuel, cargo, or access chutes. No one can fly if gate assignments and crew assignments cannot be tracked.

So the y2k lesson you are attempting (for some reason) to ignore or to mimize is that the airport SYSTEM cannot function even through a brief power outage: and the loss of one airport quickly cascades through the system to others.

It doesn't matter if the failure is caused through computer loss, program loss, or radar air traffic control loss - the result is failure of the airport to move passengers reliably and safely.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), September 15, 1999.

This was caused by routine maintenance?

September 14, 1999

Downtown Toronto hit by power blackout

TORONTO (CP) -- A large area of the city's downtown core lost power Tuesday after routine maintenance at a Toronto Hydro station led to a transformer explosion. Power was restored just after 6:30 p.m., about three hours after it went out in several blocks surrounding the Hydro station. Hydro crews were expected to continue working through the night to fully repair the burned-out equipment that transfers power to dozens of homes and businesses in the area. The explosion caused a small fire and thick smoke, preventing repair crews from entering the area immediately, Hydro officials said. Engineers were not sure how much damage the explosion caused. The affected area included the CN Tower and several large banking and entertainment venues, as well as much of a trendy shopping district. Traffic lights were also out for a time. There were no reported injuries, but people were inconvenienced during the blackout. "We depend on power and when it's out computers and the lights and everything are off," said Toronto Hydro spokeswoman Finola Pearson. "So, to the customers it's serious and we're going to get it restored as soon as we can." While lights went out and the elevators stopped briefly at the CN Tower, backup generators kicked in within about two minutes of the power outage, said a tower spokesman. Several major broadcasters were also affected by the blackout, including City-TV which temporarily went off the air. It resumed broadcasting shortly after, with newscasters operating from its outside parking lot before moving back into the studio once power was restored.

http://www.canoe.ca/NationalTicker/CANOE-wire.Power-Outage.html

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), September 15, 1999.

Let's see now.....picture this, Toronto, mid-week, first week in January, 2000. <<... with newscasters operating from its outside parking lot before moving back into the studio once power was restored...>> Would you like to bet how long they could broadcast from outside the studio in January?

By the way. "routine maintenance" doesn't cause transformers to blow up - but abnormal or emergency operation can often cause unintended or secondary damage. That's why, even though this likely NOT caused by any y2k issue, the results of this incident show why the grid is more threatened during emergency or "manual" operation.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), September 15, 1999.