Eastern power outages (8/14 - the ONLY thread)

[mvario]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

[ QUOTE ]
paulr said:
The changes did stop the blackout from spreading past the NE. From what I heard, if the old system was still in place, the whole east coast would have gone dark. More improvements are probably possible and desirable. However you have to understand that the spreading came from the interconnectedness of the system, which has a benefit as well as a cost. The purpose is that if a local generator goes offline, other providers can take up the slack. So you get a big blackout every few decades instead of having little localized blackouts all the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I don't really know anything about the way the power grid works, but if you're telling me that the best technology has to offer is that one failure can take out the whole northeast then we are in a LOT of trouble. Because even if it happens due to some system failure every few decades it means that it's real fragile and real vulnerable to someone who wants to take it down intentionally.

Now maybe when they said they were building safeguards in to the system so we wouldn't have another blackout of that scope they meant just the northeast instead of the whole eastern seaboard, that's not they way everyone understood it.

I think we should probably get some of of the DARPA folks who designed the Internet (redundancy, no single point of failure) in here to work on a new grid system.

 

[Tomas]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

SIDEBAR: Phone Service.

The phone system basicly only uses commercial power to light and heat its 'people' buildings and to charge it's batteries ...

Different office have different backup scenarios, so let me give you two.

In the Class AA office I worked in (one of three in my state - lots of critical government circuits) we had eight to 10 hours on just batteries available at all times, and twin diesels in the basement (either one could take the essential load) with 30,000 gallons of fuel in the tanks. We were good for at least seven days before needing more fuel. Commercial power was fed from two different underground routes (this was a central city location with highly reliable power).

In the more usual offices, they ALL had minimum eight hour battery backup, and about 80 percent of them had generator sets installed to take over. There were portable generator sets (trailer-mounted - needed a truck to pull 'em) to handle failures of installed sets, or for offices that did not have installed sets.

Essentially everything would run for eight hours without power, the most important could run for at least a week. Some of the smaller outlying office would fail after the initial eight hours - no way around it.

Some really remote, but important locations had multi-day battery backup, and a month or more on generator sets before it was critical to get to them. Only ever saw one of those fail before we could get a sno-cat or chopper in to it.

So, as along as your regular hardwired phone is not some fancy thing that needs AC power locally, it really should work through a power outage as long as the lines are physically OK, and you're not out in the sticks. (One thing I strongly recommend to friends and family is that their bedroom next-to-the-bed-phone be as simple and reliable a wired in phone as possible.) My cordless phones are not bottom of the line phones, and they all have NiMH packs in the base as well as in the handset - they'll run wireless for 5 or so hours. Even so, next to the bed is a good old Western Electric desk set hard-wired in.

(Cellular operators tend to take a bit different view of the importance of their services, and many do not really have more than an hour or so backup at their remote sites. Some are much better than others, and a lot of that comes from their heritage: Those belonging to companies with a lot of experience in local phone service might be more reliable than others. One of the cellular carriers that used to be one of my customers didn't believe in providing any backup to cell sites. They went down instantly when commercial power failed. Oddly, that's who my service is with ... Hmmmmmmm ... )

Most cell phones (and many cordless phones with batteries in both handset and base) can be charged from your car's electrical system. Try to have the "car charger" for your sell phone available ...

(25 Years engineering phone systems)

 

[Skyline]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

Hmm, just spoke to a couple of friends. Seems one of them had to leave from the 34th floor of his office building in midtown, and the stairwells were not lit! Fortunately, he had his ASP Keylight and was able to make his way out. He was not happy about having to keep his thumb on the button to keep it on though.

I think I may have him convinced he wants two Arc AAAs. LOL. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[Tomas]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

Not having emergency lighting in buildings and stairwells in NYC truly astounds me.

In my state (Washington - the state not the black hole ) even this cheap apartment building is required by law to have full emergency lighting for a minimum of 90 minutes after commercial power fails (hallways, exit routes, stairwells).

 

[webley445]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

I have a trunking portable scanner that I enjoy listening to on an almost daily basis. Our county uses a Motorola trunked system currently being upgraded to a smart system. There is one municipality that utilizes an edacs system. I find my scanner beneficial when storms hit our area [Tampa Bay area] and have used it in the past when hurricanes came close to keep abreast of current conditions, not to mention it is a fun hobby. It is an essential part of my "preparedness" kit. Hmm, sounds like a new topic for me to start in another thread.

Now I;m wondering if an interesst in long running latern type lights will be starting into production by our modders.
Could you imagine a Mr Bulk twin 1 watt "Room Needle", in either white, cyan, or blue, with 18+ hour run time?

 

[Charles Bradshaw]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

BentheadTX, I have a 2C pack for my Arc LSes (custom by DSpeck), as well as a 4AA series/parallel headlamp Mod for the Arc LS. I have a Versalux PR-2 LED bulb in my 2D Mag. Now that is long runtime!

I have these custom LED bulbs by AB for 4.5 volt Petzl headlamps. They are resistored for use with Lithium AAs, as well as Alkalines, and they do real good on 1800 MaH NiMh (This single 9200 mcd Nichia runs for well over 1 week at 8 hours per day on specified NiMH, before dimming).

I also have a versalux installed in my coleman peak 1 expedition headlamp (2D belt pack). I also have a Petzl Mega Belt (3C or 3AA) that I can put one of my afformentioned custom bulbs into.

I have an X5T white, and I consider 20 hours on a pair of 123s to be a long time.

I am a person who thinks in terms of longer runtime for several reasons:

1. Disabled
2. On socsec disability at less then $400 per month
3. I don't drive, so can't simply run to store to get more batteries.

I also buy my food on a monthly basis and have a couple of month's worth of non-refrigerated food for backup (just in case).

So, what I would use for light, depends alot on what my battery stock is, when an incident like this happens. Besides, I have already taken power outages lasting much longer, into consideration. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[BentHeadTX]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

Charles,
The 2C pack sounds great! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/buttrock.gif DSpeck makes some great battery bodies, the 2C was something I did not know about. I wonder if he would make a 4D body for the Surefire L4? From what I understand, the Surefire KL1 can handle 3 to 9 volts, a 6D DSpeck body on that head sure would last for a loooooong time. Maybe I should build that 8D lantern with four LS's in flood mode running through a regulator.

 

[brightnorm]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

Charles,

You've really done some creative thinking about this and you've inspired me to think along the same lines.

Brightnorm

 

[ygbsm]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

For me the blackout occurred when I was in a conference room on the 4nd floor of a midtown office building in Manhattan. I waited a couple of hours for the number of people in the streets to decline and took an inventory of what I had at the office. With the prospect of a lot of walking involving not only 42 floors down a long walk home and 10 floors up at home, /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon23.gif luckily I had a pair of boots to replace the dress shoes I was wearing. Flashlight wise, the inventory was an A2, a G2Z, an M2, an e1 woith a KL1, and two Photon Microlights. (I also had a couple of pocket knives, a Gerber Legend multitool, first aid kit, Nomex flight gloves, goretex jacket, pepper spray, rigger's belt for carring "first line" stuff, sunglasses, spare socks, emergency strobe, water and spare bottles, etc. etc.) It's funny, but the people who make fun of me for carrying so much stuff had little to say on the day of the blackout -- no one was asking with the ususal incredulity -- why do you carry so many flashlights? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif. One thing worth noting is that after a few hours, emergency lighting in most buildings dies -- my office building was large enough to have a generator so that the emergency stairs had ample lighting, however, to get to the stair entry, you had to pass through interior passages of the building which were pitch black. After a long walk down and a long walk home and a long and totally dark walk up the 10 stories, I reached my apartment. Many people I knew used the displays on there cellphone as navigation lights -- which was basically the only use they had because cellphone service died immediately (regular phone service was useable in my office building and Blackberry service also contiued after the blackout started, although regular phone service was patchy and sporadic throughout the blackout).

I immediately took a shower and used the bathroom while the getting was good and then filled the bathtub and some buckets with water (I didn't believe the Mayor when he said the outage would be over in a few hours). Many of the buildings here have water from tanks on the roofs which is pumped by electric motor pumps into those tanks -- in my case, the water stopped running within 8 hours of the start of the blackout. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smoker5.gif I have a small water purifier and those vile tasting tablets at home for camping so the water in the bathtub could have been for drinking (as well as for washing/flushing)-- luckily it never came to that.

I had a battery powered TV set, but most of the stations were dead. I also had a Grundig hand powered radio with built in light. Needless to say, the blackout lasted longer than the mayor predicted, for some sections of town well over 24 hours.

The most useful light for me was the A2 /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif -- the LEDs were suitable for navigating dark halways and stairs without the fear of depleting the batteries too rapidly, while if it wasw needed the incan was available. For this situation, a lanyard was also extremely valuable, because in a pinch you could hang the light around you neck and have two hands free and still see. Some friends of mine found the Petzl Zipkas I gave them "stars of the blackout" because of the handsfree capability. I have at home an M4, several M3s e2s e1s, but carried the A2 with an e2 with a KL1 and an M2
as "backup."

The Grundig was useful -- it allowed access to information without fear of depleting batteries because of it's built in hand crank generator. Its small built in light was also useful. The freeplay lantern my friends had broke. The hand held TV was also useful, but because batteries were hard to come by, had to be used sparingly ( I guess I need a portable TV that runs on DL123s -- I had plenty of those).

Another bonus -- my friend's wife who had made fun of me for carrying a flashlight wherever I go, vowed never to make fun of me again.

Also useful -- the HP2215 IPAQ with a spare battery.

A lot of pizza places and chinese restaurants (cooking with gas as they say) were open during the blackout and a number of places gave out free food before it would have gone bad. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

 

[paulr]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

Wow, good story, but what the heck did you do with the iPaq? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Was the TV set useful? A couple people mentioned them. I don't own any TV set (wired or otherwise) at the moment and it wouldn't have occurred to me that I might need one in a blackout. I do have a handheld portable radio (runs for at least 10 hours on two AAA cells) and that's seemed to me like an adequate source of news.

BTW I posted a handsfree Arc AAA trick in the Arc forum: you can clip the AAA to the inside of your shirt pocket or T-shirt collar with its pocket clip, then flip it over so it's pointing forward. You then have handsfree light for close-up tasks, though it's not as solid as a real headlamp.

 

[Charles Bradshaw]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

Doug can make a KL4 to Arc LS pack Adapter easily enough, as well as a 4AA body for the KL4 and Z57. I had already inquired about those, and, 4C and 4D units with switches for the KL4. I think I gave Doug a near heart attack with that part of the inquiry (4C and 4D).

I am thinking that the KL4 to Arc LS pack adapter should work with the KL1 as well. Of course, if you already have an Arc LS, why bother on that score?

It is amazing how massive outages like this, put an end to the usual derision we get about our useful addiction. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Even some Unbelievers convert to Believers. hehehe

 

[paulr]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

Why make a custom 4D battery holder for a KL4 when you can just get an EL Blaster V?

If you really want to use a Surefire head, you may be better off waiting for the KL5. Hopefully it won't get as hot as the KL4 if you run it for a while.

 

[Sigman]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

I've only seen eternaLights mentioned a couple times...they are just EXCELLENT loooooooooooonnnnng run torches. That's one I'd like to have with me if needed in that situation.

Overall I see that so far there has been 3 deaths attributed to the outage. That's certainly tragic, I'll agree with some prior posts...there's absolutely no reason for such an incident to occur in today's world with our technology!

Hopefully there will indeed be many positive improvements as a result of this!

I'm back to rethinking my "emergency kits" again!

 

[Alledges]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

Yup, Heather was in charge at Tent and Trails.
Also, Bank of NY has generators, so staff didn't leave the building. Friend's sister called Gee Whiz diner on Greenwich street for takeout. I'd like Cheeseburgers for 2,000 please. The used halogen work lights as they ran the grills.

Cheeburgi, Cheeburgi, Cheeburgi, Cheeburgi.
Uh, no Coke, Pepsi. No fries, Chip.
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yellowlaugh.gif

 

[KC2IXE]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

Ah, you work at BNY? (Yes, I know to to call it BONY) - I USED to work there, for about 12 weeks - The 2nd worst programming job I've had. Can't remember the name of the project I was on, but at one point it was run out of 1 WS, then moved to 101

 

[James S]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

KC2IXE, wanna start a "Shortest and worst jobs you ever had" thread in the Cafe? I'll certainly add my stories. Shortest programming job for me was 1 day. Came to work on Monday, quit first thing Tuesday morning. I'll post the whole story if you start the thread /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[DaveT]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

Mvario, paulr:
Interesting to hear what you said about Sprint. I was caught on the F train at Smith and 9th Streets, (about 6 stories aboveground in Brooklyn) when the power went out, and only two people in my subway car could get calls to go through in the minutes following the blackout - both were using Sprint. I have Verizon, and about an hour and change later was able to get through to my folks in Ohio, but couldn't get a call to go through to either cell phones or land lines for anyone in the city until about 6:30.
I was checking my headphone radio, and WNYC kept broadcasting and had early reports about the outage within about 5 minutes, although it took a while to get a handle on it. They've really prepared for this kind of problem since 9/11. I couldn't get a signal for 1010 WINS for over an hour after the blackout.
And vgbsm: I dug out the Grundig Freeplay I'd bought more than a year ago - I used it with crank power for a while, but the grinding noise to charge it up annoyed my wife, so I gave in and just loaded it with AAs.
Dave

 

[paulr]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

I saw people walking around pushing buttons on their cell phones shortly after the power went out; a few worked, most didn't. I asked people what carriers they used. Verizon worked some of the time but not always. Sprint seemed completely down. Later on the radio I heard Verizon's equipment stayed up the whole time, but its network overloaded from the call volume. So I guess if you had a Verizon phone, you'd get through if you kept trying.

Re earlier stuff about upgrades and politicians: sure, the system needs improvement (unfortunately Congress voted against spending $$ on it a year or so ago). However, politicians snarling "they told us this would never happen again" don't impress me. Anyone who thought it would never happen again is an idiot. It will happen again even if there's an overhaul. It will just happen less easily. But whatever weird combination of events it will take to set it off will happen, especially if the power system becomes a point of attack and people try to take it down deliberately.

Therefore, don't waste your breath on "never happen again". Put the effort into making the outages as infrequent as possible, make the system able to recover as fast as possible so you have 1-hour outages instead of 24 hours, and make sure people are prepared to deal with outages at the local level.

 

[mvario]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

DaveT
I had wired phone service, but the sprint phone couldn't even find a signal. Waiting for number portability. ;-)

I noticed 1010WINS down also. Tried 88 and they were working, but the signal was weak. Used this Casio mini-TV to get news. Went through one set of 3XAAA's but I have lots of batteries on hand. Still amazed that an hour or so into the blackout WB11, one of only 3 stations still broadcasting, was showing old episodes of Sabrina.

 

[Tomas]

Re: Eastern power outages (Aug 14)

Interesting article from Wired published just before the northeast went dark: World Wide Power Grid

Uh, no thanks ...