Massive power Outages

[Paz]

this whole turn of events reminds me of a movie..."Canadina Bacon."

 LOL, That was the first thing that crossed my mind too when I saw the Canadian news on NWI reporting the whole thing started in New York, and all the U.S. news stations saying it started in Canada.
 I guess I should consider myself lucky, I live on the west side of Michigan.

 I sure feel for all you guys who were effected, I hate it when we lose power for even a couple of hours.
 It's nice to see most of the news is of people helping each other, I really haven't seen any stories of people taking advantage of this for negative purposes.
 Things could have been much worse.

[Scottler]

My favorite part was when the government-I can't remember whose, but I thought it was Canada-said that it was the result of a lightning strike.

Then the local meteorologist showed the lightning "radar" and there wasn't a single lightning strike anywhere in the northeast between 11am and 11pm...lol

[tvale80]

it was Canada

[Travis]

it was Canada

Couldn't find their arse with two hands and a map!!











I'M SOOOOOOOO JUST KIDDING!!!!
If I could move to Canada right now, I would with no regrets!

[Iroquois]

I beleive it was us, well Ontario Hydro actually. Read my theory in the Cafe.

Got power about 11:30 this morning and just got the cable TV back 30 minutes ago. It was erie outside last night. Clear and hot and no AC. I should have slept in the basement where it's cool. I feel sorry for people stuck on lifts and on subway trains. Could you imagine being stuck in a cramped dark box in the sweltering heat with a bunch of strangers. Don't know how much longer I can stay here as they're threatning rotating blackouts until well into the weekend. I'm in the GTA so I expect that most of these will occure outside the Toronto area.

[KJones]

I was on my way to work in Burlington, Ontario at the time the power went out and there was a huge plume of black smoke in the east (towards Oakville and Toronto). I thought for sure that was the cause but it turned out to be a petroleum refinery doing a "burn-off".

I was sent home from work almost immediately after I got there. When I got to my apartment building there was someone trapped in the elevator... luckily the fire department got her out less than two hours after she was trapped.

I watched the parade for the "Cactus Festival" that is being held this weekend and then spent the rest of the evening listening to the radio. I went to bed at midnight but couldn't sleep because of the heat.

The power came back on at 2am (slightly less than 10 hours after it went out) and so far it has stayed on, so we were luckier than some places. We will probably have blackouts all weekend and they're asking us to conserve electricity and water... the McMaster University hospital is running really low on water.

[Iroquois]

I was on my way to work in Burlington, Ontario at the time the power went out and there was a huge plume of black smoke in the east (towards Oakville and Toronto). I thought for sure that was the cause but it turned out to be a petroleum refinery doing a "burn-off".

I was sent home from work almost immediately after I got there. When I got to my apartment building there was someone trapped in the elevator... luckily the fire department got her out less than two hours after she was trapped.

I watched the parade for the "Cactus Festival" that is being held this weekend and then spent the rest of the evening listening to the radio. I went to bed at midnight but couldn't sleep because of the heat.

The power came back on at 2am (slightly less than 10 hours after it went out) and so far it has stayed on, so we were luckier than some places. We will probably have blackouts all weekend and they're asking us to conserve electricity and water... the McMaster University hospital is running really low on water.

I heard Hamilton and parts of Burlington had power. I got stuck in the dark only a few kilometers from the Burlington town line.
Today George W Bush and Ontario Premire Eves have stated that the problem likely occured in the US after a failure in the power grid in Niagera Falls or perhaps Ohio. Power is being slowly restored and should be at about 2/3 normal by now. We are told not to use the airconditioning tonight and into the weekend because it causes a huge strain on the system and cause further damage. Of course there is my stupid neighbour cranked up the air as soon as it came back on. It's been droning ever since.

[Chunkey]

I live 15 min north from the Toronto Border.  I personnally got my power back at 400am, my friend a couple of kilometers away got his back at 12, but the people across the street from him don't have anything.
I work at a grocery store and we were one of the only open today.  It was hell, I barely even got a brake and worked 2/12 hours overtime, but at least I raked in th money.

Last night was cool though, you never see the starts in the city unless you drive at least an hour north.  My friend was telling me that he rode his bike with some of the guys in the pitch dark over to the observatory and they had some astrologer nerd teach them about the stars.  They also saw 4 shooting stars.

At my house, we had nothing better to do so we got drunk, brought out the guitars and piano and starting singing until we passed out.  (first time having German beer, very good, not like that American crap that tastes like water)

[KJones]

Yeah, I could see the glow of lights in the direction of Burlington (I'm in Dundas, to the west) at around 11:30-12am. Hamilton had power up on the mountain a little later but I think the downtown core was without power until 3 or 4am.

Burlington's power has been off and on today so I was told not to go in to work... two days pay gone. Oh well, it could be worse.

[Iroquois]

Milton's power has been up and running smoothly since it came on. It's like a sauna out here though. Last time I checked it was 39C with the humidity or 102F for you folk on the old system. Now they're saying that an American hydro company has overloaded the lines in the "Lake Eire Loop". The loop runs clockwise but they think a large feed back pulse of energy came through in the oposite direction. Basically it was a gigantic shot circut.

It's quite funny out here though. People are so stupid. There are huge lines at the gas pumps even though most aren't working and the ones that do were to be reserved for emergency use only. Flights are still cancelled at CYYZ.

[KJones]

The thing that bothered me was the lack of skill a lot of drivers have... they didn't seem to understand that when an intersection doesn't have power it should be treated like a four way stop.  ::)

I thought the blackout was kind of fun in a way, although I'm glad it isn't going to last much longer. It's fun until all of the food spoils.  ;)

It was kind of cool to share an experience with people that are hundreds of miles away.

[Hogans_Alley]

>:( >:( >:( >:(

It was a disaster waiting to happen. What caused it? Too much load on an inadequate power source using antiquated equipment which did not work because of operators who did not know what they were doing. In reality, it's pathetic that this could happen to one of the most, if not the most, technically advanced country in the world. Helo?

Hogans Alley