POWER OUTAGE...KNBC goes black as LA Power & Water goes on air

[Atman]

She was going to answer "Do we know what happened?" She got as far as "Unfortunately..." and the screen went black.

Otherwise, no word as to why, or what is going on.

Maybe FEMA is on the scene! They'll have all the answers!

[tjdee]

1. If I lose power I'm going apeshit.

I'm in NJ, but I dealt with the last huge blackout.

Gee, the Bush administration. Always planning and protecting us....
learning from the past...

:eyes:

I'm getting mad now, actually. Where do I live? Bangladesh??

[incapsulated]

9. Don't you mean...

Baghdad?

Blackouts suck big-time. :(

[Carni]

48. You and me both...I also endured that bullshit power outage

I am half tempted to get in the car and go buy ice.

I know it sounds paranoid to live on the opposite side of the country and think I may lose power, but I don't trust anything this corrupt and stupid admin does at this point.

Someone talk me down before I go and waste money on a bunch of ice!

[kahleefornia]

2. ooh - drama!

We love drama here. The power is still on in Reseda (west valley), but maybe I will get a chance to use my emergency hand-crank radio! And I just bought a case of bottled water yesterday!

FEMA does not have to worry about me.

[JuniperLea]

5. I need one of those radios!

[libnnc]

18. just ordered mine last week...

Freeplay Plus radio--AM/FM/SW, flashlight, wind-up power and solar panel. Pretty cool.
www.ccrane.com

[Skidmore]

29. Thank you....

My husband's Christmas present this year--you made my shopping much easier.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

37. Grundig

You get a lot less power from a minute of cranking than they claim but the price is right.

[scarletlib]

54. Excellent little radio.

I bught mine just before bushco invaded Iraq. I wanted to hear news outside of US and was afraid the internet might go down.

It was invaluable when we went through 2 hurricanes last year--Francis and Jeanne--and didn't have any power for days. Never even had to change the batteries or use the hand crank. It ran almost 12-16 hours a day on same set of batteries.

You can now find them at Circuit City and Target. (Originally got mine at Radio Shack) Just told my daughter in LA she needs to get one.

[JuniperLea]

3. Maybe FEMA cut LA's power

and is hooking up their own in light of terra'lert?

Funny thought... I was reading not long ago about mental breakdowns and schizophrenic episodes... many of the ramblings link electricity to the ability of "the bad guys" to find people.

[Field Of Dreams]

6. Brownie tripped on the cord on his way out? n/t

[bribri16]

4. Hmmmm....ignoring the latest threat from Al-qaeda? n/t

[SodoffBush]

13. Day after 9-11.

Makes you wonder.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. dime on the dollar they link this to terrra

[samdogmom]

16. Just tried to on MSNBC

Or, they brought up the Australia/LA terrorist threat and left the audience to connect the dots.

[Imagevision]

38. 7 LAX airline terminals are out - they can't buy gas - serious problem..!

[JuniperLea]

41. oh yeah

a little power outage = enough to scare people but not enough to really hurt anything.

power still out?

[maine_raptor]

8. Read the book: Dies the Fire by S M Stirling

Spooky, very Spooky...this report

[MissB]

10. Wolfie is on the story- says large parts of LA are w/o power.

[tjdee]

15. I bet he said it with the excitement he delivers all the news.

:eyes:

[Skidmore]

35. And it was exclusive and shocking, too.

[Pithy Cherub]

11. KTTV is out not KNBC.

KNBC went from Breaking News to Days of our Lives. They just interviewed someone from DWP before going back to regular programming.

KTTV - Channel 11 IS off the air... (Faux)

[Atman]

14. It was KNBC that went black on MSNBC

They may have lost power to their remote/satellite. MSNBC is confirming that KNBC is without power. Or at least, ALLEDGING it.

[Pithy Cherub]

27. KNBC & Days of Our Lives going strong... just checked again.

MSNBC is confused :crazy: but they are correct that a TV station is down it just happens to be Fox's local affilate KTTV. The traffic jams are getting serious though...

[Atman]

33. That's weird...KNBC is another NBC affiliate...it seems like they'd know

There wasn't any question. MSNBC said their LA affiliate, KNBC, is without power. I have no explanation for how/why you are getting soaps on that channel. Remote satellite feeds? Don't want to lose those ad revenues!

[mandyky]

12. Maybe this is the end of Ahnold!

But if this goes overnight, man oh man! Will FEMA be involved? OYOY!

[Atman]

17. FBI office has power...how conveeeeeeeeeenient

Although MSNBC is casually making the Al Q link.

Isn't this suppose to be serious solar flare season or something? Or maybe an overzealous Rovian attempt to alter the news cycle? Dear lordy, hope it ain't Al Q, just as BushCo is trying to blame all his blundering on Mayor Nagin and Katrina. That'll be a hard connection to make stick.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. they have internal generators

and you can bet your sweet hiney they will connect this to AQ even if a major transmision line went off for the most innocent of reasons

[Imagevision]

40. you need to buy gas for generators-gas stations are closed

no electricity to pump...!

[incapsulated]

21. Solar Flares...

Yeah, they were supposed to be from hell this week. I don't know if that would create a massive power outage though. ?

[The Kicker]

46. Re solar flares:

http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/eiskappenman.html

Geomagnetic Storms Can Threaten Electric Power Grid


The sprawling North American power grid resembles a large antenna, attracting electrical currents induced by giant solar storms. Severe space weather occurring during solar cycles has the potential to cause a large-scale blackout in North America.
by John G. Kappenman, Minnesota Power, Duluth, Minn.; Lawrence J. Zanetti, Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.; and William A. Radasky, Metatech, Goleta, Calif.
Since the turn of the century, society has relied more heavily on electricity for meeting essential needs. Three large, interconnected grids that span the continent provide rapid response to the diverse energy demands of users in the United States and Canada. This unique energy service requires coordination of electrical supply, demand, and delivery—all occurring at the speed of light.
Disturbances caused by solar activity can disrupt these complex power grids. When the Earth's magnetic field captures ionized particles carried by the solar wind, geomagnetically induced currents (GIC) can flow through the power system, entering and exiting the many grounding points on a transmission network. GICs are produced when shocks resulting from sudden and severe magnetic storms subject portions of the Earth's surface to fluctuations in the planet's normally stable magnetic field. These fluctuations induce electric fields in the Earth that create potential differences in voltage between grounding points—which causes GICs to flow through transformers, power system lines, and grounding points. Only a few amps are needed to disrupt transformer operation, but over 100 amps have been measured in the grounding connections of transformers in affected areas.
Anatomy of a Blackout continued at link.

[JHB]

23. Back-up generators ARE conveeeeeeeenient...

...and their building probably has one.

[frictionlessO]

53. Solar flares this past week have been frequent and massive.

Im hoping that is all that it was... pissed that I didn't catch any Borealis action up here near Buffalo.

[shance]

20. This seems so premeditated.

I've never for no reason seen our power shut down like this.

[202 456]

22. You're right

Seems like another distraction.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. oh welcome to DU

[202 456]

45. Thank You *bow*

[tjdee]

25. It happened a few years ago in NYC/northeast.

But I'm sure someone at Bushco will say "no one could have expected the power to shut down in a major city".

:eyes:

[GOPisEvil]

26. Using Republi-logic: RECALL TIME!!!!

[salin]

31. omg ... could this be there strategy for keeping that newly disclosed

playboy tape of arnie ('83) from being aired in the largest population in the city?

Just kidding - but the timing was just too easy.

[Atman]

28. Solar flares? Breaking, too.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050912/sunflare.html

Sept. 12, 2005— A rowdy sunspot cluster hurled a record-breaking flare into space on Wednesday, blacking out all high- and low-frequency radio communications on both American continents, causing power surges, blinding satellites and lighting up aurorae, and more trouble is likely on the way, say experts.

A massive initial X-ray flare on Sept. 7 was immediately followed by an eruption of solar material that broke free from the sun at a speed of 5.8 million miles per hour, the speediest seen in 20 years of CME observations by the National Center for Atmospheric Research's High Altitude Observatory in Hawaii.

Earth and near-Earth space was first hit with X-rays, followed by an ongoing magnetic storm and hard radiation

[incapsulated]

32. "...causing power surges"

Hmmm, could be?

[maine_raptor]

34. The Northern Lights have been real bright the last couple of nights

Bright enough to actually read by. Great big waves of pale green with white fingers all along the northern horizon.

[annabanana]

55. i miss seeing them

down here in the mid-Atlantic states...

for me they were fairy curtains.... magic...

[radwriter0555]

30. A construction worker hit a cable north of LA is all, nothing serious..

You'll be back on line in a little while.

See what I can learn, all the way over in FRANCE, from chatting in yahoo with my LA friends?

[DeepModem Mom]

36. I hope you're right, radwriter. Are several people reporting this?

[incapsulated]

39. Where did they hear this?

Local News?

[atomic-fly]

42. didn't they have a power outage on 9-10-01 in nyc?

Good distraction for monkey business.

[incapsulated]

43. Not that I remember

Although that period is a fog, now. We had one a couple of years ago, real nightmare that went on for days.

[tjdee]

44. No, it was 2003.

:hi:

[radwriter0555]

47. that's reported by KFI the local news there.... my pal online is listening

to it.

[LeahD]

49. All it takes is hitting ONE cable? Joke, right? n/t

[LeahD]

52. Oh my....I spoke too soon. n/t

[highplainsdem]

50. Heard the same on MSNBC & Fox -- line cut accidentally by a

utility worker.

John Gibson on Fox sounded disappointed. They'd had the author of a book on terrorism on earlier.

[incapsulated]

58. Power is gradually coming back on...

According to CNN. So that must have been the story.

[Nikki Stone 1]

51. Link, please

LA is one of the few areas in SOCal with its own municipal power. (Ie, not in thrall to the crooks at SDG&E or Edison.)

[highplainsdem]

56. CNBC reporting some of the power just came back on.

[highplainsdem]

59. Fox now reporting the same thing.

[onecent]

57. THIS IS TOTAL BULLSHIT. Now saying someone accidentally pulled

a plug on FAUX PHONEY NEWS.

[Atman]

60. I think radwriter nailed it...all the way from France.

He called this broken wire angle half-way into the "crisis." It seems to jibe with everything being reported now.