Cause of Blackout Is Not Yet Known

[QuietStorm]

Associated Press Writer
7 hours ago

The cause of the largest power blackout in American history has thus far proved elusive.

Was it lightning or fire? Antiquated lines or bad luck? Born in America or Canada?

It depends on who's talking.

The early confusion underscored the bedeviling complexity woven into the North American electricity network in recent decades, the boom in cross-border power trading, and the interdependence of the many parts and partners multiplied by energy deregulation.

Like a river's tributaries, their contributions spill into immense regional power grids, where they become anonymous and untraceable. Managers at dozens of control sites monitor intricate crosscurrents of supply and demand, watching over their delicate balance.

read more...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3030095,00.html

[snake1306]

1. Here is the cause:

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[underpants]

3. Hilarious

Stupid Whtie Men

[underpants]

2. But W KNOWS it wasn't terrism

:eyes:

How he could know that I have no idea. Unless he knows their plans for some reason.

[QuietStorm]

4. considering he was the one reading the GOAT STORY

and seemed to be completely out of the loop on 9/11... WHAT DOES BUSH REALLY KNOW... did you read his body language yesterday. He kept shuffling around on his feet. He appeared nervous to me.

[underpants]

5. The man in the Yellow Hat tells him what he needs to know and think

[QuietStorm]

6. LOL

well at least you have a better sense of humor about it than I. Really this stuff infuriates me. I know there is little I can do, but my rage becomes further compounded by the utter apathy I observe around me.

[section321]

10. And he kept look over to his handlers...

so they could tell him what to say next.

He also called it a "Rolling Blackout." We in California know what a Rolling Blackout is and that wasn't a Rolling Blackout.

[Sequoia]

20. RECALL GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK!

Hey, if Davis can get blamed for our blackouts, why not him dang it!
(Just kidding of course)

[NoKingGeorge]

15. Military and Power grids

The Military can disable a power grid. Not sure if they use Graphite dropped from planes or an electro magnetic pulse. Tghis would explain how those in the know (Cheney etc) could have Awol use the word 'certainty'. It would also explain Awol's behavior in that he is as much terrorized by ruthlessness of those controlling him (remember
'staying put' during 9/11 attack) as we are.
Bad timing by Cheney/Rumsfeld though, doing it at the end of the markets day and having no storms in area was a mistake...

[dArKeR]

22. The Media Whores don't questions this. How can you know it's not

terrorism but you have no idea what caused it?

[0007]

7. Why didn't the "fail safe" safeties catch this?

A fire in PA or a lightening taking out switch grear should only be contained only in that area. There are serious questioning
that need to be answered.

The computerized system failed no matter the cause.

[QuietStorm]

8. very early on there was talk of main circuits

having been tripped off. That was when the story moved up north to Naigara falls and the fire at the Con Ed building in NYC (astoria queens actually) was recanted as some wet towel procedure set in place to cool down generators there in a heat wave. Tell me do you believe that procedure would cause black plumes of smoke that could be seen as such and smelt all the way across the river in NJ. My sister was evacuated from where she works where they had lost all running water. When she hit the parking lot she could smell the fire and could see black plumes of smoke. I was born in queens. I lived in Manhattan a decade. No such black plumes of smoke have ever risen from con ed in line with this "cooling procedure" that I have ever been aware of till now.

Once again things don't add up and they are not adding up from jump just like 9/11.

[andy12]

9. privatizing ontario hydro

Ontario hydro and other American utilities have resulted in extreme overcapacity of the power grid. Long periods of high or low heat have caused their utilities to shed power and constantly up generation to fulfil clients’ power needs. They have not invested in maintaining their grids or upgrading generating stations whether fossil or hydro generated. Once the system starts to go down, only the small independent utilities will have the capacity to operate.

This is what I believe the real story; hope someone looks into this as it is a huge issue in the upcoming provincial election in Ontario.

[QuietStorm]

11. but would these cooling procedures cause black plumes of smoke

to rise high up into the sky to be seen and smelt from across the hudson river? That was my main point. That is the explanation now for what first reported as a fire at the ConEd building in Queens. See there was a sequeway from that report to the cause of the black out, with no further followup on what was at first reported as a fire at the Con Ed building in NYC. Once attention was drawn upstate, it appears the fire at ConEd was downplayed or revised to be not a fire but a cooling procedure. SO MY QUESTION IS would this cooling procedure cause there to be BLACK PLUMES OF SMOKE THAT COULD BE SEEN FROM ACROSS THE HUDSON BY THOSE IN NEW JERSEY.

You see, I also feel our attention is being drawn away from the ConEd building, not necessarily because it is a cause of the outage but because there may be more than meets he eye here. My sister gave an eyewit account of seeing black plumes of smoke from NJ.

I guess I should goggle it.

[NoKingGeorge]

16. Generators fired up

A certain amount of electricity is needed to maintain monitoring equipment etc. I belive Mike got it wrong, I think what is seen is the Diesel generators for these systems automaticalley firing up. I have worked in Disaster recovery field in the NY area and I can tell you it takes some serious Diesel engines to keep the Recovery site running. Banks and other companies would use the sites for computer recoveries in theevent they could not access their offices (storms,floods).

[QuietStorm]

17. okay well then perhaps

the news people just got the linquistics wrong in their haste to scoop the story. see post 12. Because there is disparity in wording from fire to cooling procedure to shut down to explain these black plumes of smoke.

All in all it still seems they nixed terrorism very very very early to me. Don't you think considering they still do not know the cause that ruling out terrorism so early is a bit suspicious?

[QuietStorm]

12. a googles on black plumes of smoke

not too much comes up as this fire was recanted almost immediately. It could be that our talking heads are just irresponsible and report things too early without the proper referencing in their mad attempts to be the first to report breaking news.

snip

A duty agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York office said he understands the cause of the outage in New York is related to a fire at Con Edison's plant on 14th Street. The fire department said it wasn't clear if any fire was related to the outage,

The FBI is coordinating with local agencies, but right now has no reason to believe the incident is terrorist related, the duty agent said.

snip

On CNN, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the Con Ed system shut down as it should have. He said the black smoke seen on 14th Street wasn't a fire but the natural consequence of the shutdown.

read more (most is just reiteration of what we already know)...
http://www.quicken.com/investments/news_center/story/?story=NewsStory/dowJones/20030814/ON200308141758001240.var&column=P0DFP

But do notice that in this statement it appears the explanation for the black plumes is just a tad different from the explanation I first heard. Here they are being attributed to the plant being shut down rather than cooling procedures to avert an overheat.

[wabeewoman]

13. I know the cause

I'm sure it was God. I remember hearing just a week ago about how lightening struck a church service and that it was a message from God. Maybe He's saying, 'well, folks, this is how it feels to be in Iraq..." Of course, the right wingers only use God when it suits their purposes.

[Snellius]

14. This is beginning to sound like where are the WMDs

Now they're speculating that even a local power district "that didn't follow the rules" could trigger this cataclysmic series of events. Almost as weird as a quarter of American losing its power in a couple of minutes is how long it's taking to find out why.

[rucky]

21. Good arguement against deregulation - n/t

[witchbitch]

18. I'm sorry...

The blackout was my fault. I was going to call upon Beelzebub but mistakenly awoke Cthulu instead.

Again, my apologies. I'll just stick with demonic orgies from now on.

witchbitch

[Az]

19. Don't know the cause of the outage but Detroit is back online

Was an interesting 24 hours there. But neighborhoods are coming back online now. Sooooo what did we miss?

[NYC]

24. I guess you missed a lot.

Midtown Manhattan was out for 22 1/2 hours. Power came back at 2:40 p.m.

I've heard lots of nonsense, but I heard the Mayor of Toronto (?) say when did the Americans ever take the blame for anything.

Interestingly, Gov. Pataki (R. NYS) seems genuinely angry. I'm surprised by that. Not sure why.

I've heard lots of confliciting stories. You need to find the threads that relate to stock trading in England, and ownership of part of the grid by a U.K. company (for which Tony Blair vouches).

Sorry I can't remember any details. Last night turned out to be probably the noisiest night of my life. No sleep.

[dArKeR]

23. CNN just said it might have started by a down line in Cleveland at 3pm

So if this down line was caused by a terrorist how would Bush know this wasn't terrorism?