Massive power outage hits San Diego area

[pintobean]

SAN DIEGO -- A major power outage hit San Diego County, Imperial County and parts of Orange County Thursday, leaving residents throughout the region without power.

The outage knocked out power at the Fox 5 studios at about 3:40 p.m.

San Diego Gas and Electric officials were scrambling to find out the cause of the outage. They said they would have a news conference when they have more information. The utility used Twitter to send the following message: "We understand power is out, we are working on the cause and solution. We do not have a restoration time yet"



The San Diego County Sheriff's Department confirmed that its substations all over the county were without power. In addition, viewers from Chula Vista in the south to Oceanside in the north and as far east as Alpine called Fox 5 to report they were without power.

http://www.fox5sandiego.com/news/kswb-massive-power-outage-hits-county-20110908,0,6894078.story

[MADem]

1. Infrastructure issue, equipment failure... or hack, or terra-terra-terra?

Anyone know?

[global1]

2. I Understand That It Also Is Affecting Arizona & Mexico?.....

Any explanation yet?

[Shagbark Hickory]

3. I thought it was because everyone all tuning in to the obama speech at once.

:rofl:

[pintobean]

9. I wonder how many

DUers can't get on line. We didn't have as much op live blogging during the speech as we did during the debate.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. San Diego, Baja California and Tijuana? A family member out there thinks?

[krispos42]

5. From the AP: Power out for millions in Calif., Ariz., Mexico

By JULIE WATSON - Associated Press | AP – 4 mins 50 secs ago

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A power outage is affecting millions of people across southern California, Arizona and Mexico. San Diego Gas & Electric Co. Darcel Hulce said that crews Thursday believe the outage was caused by a system breakdown and assured people it was not the result of a terror attack.

All outgoing flights from San Diego's Lindbergh Field have been halted and police stations are using generators to accept emergency calls.

The outage that started shortly before 4 p.m. PDT extends from San Clemente, Calif. to San Diego to Yuma, Arizona. It also is affecting cities south of the border across much of the state of northern Baja.

Hulce says power may not be returned until Friday.

<end>

http://news.yahoo.com/power-millions-calif-ariz-mexico-002048883.html

But it's not a terrorist attack.


It could be a result of corporate greed overcoming sensible infrastructure maintenance, but thank god that's not considered terrorism.

[Overseas]

15. love your closing comment

calling out that fabulous voluntary self-regulation.

[krispos42]

16. :shrug: They do a calculation.

They know how to maximize profit. Enough money to keep people happy on a day-to-day basis. Maybe some money for R&D for higher-efficiency equipment or more automation, which saves money, but...


Had to do an economics problem in college once, just as an example here. It went something like this.

A certain sports stadium could hold X sports fans.


The manager had an equation for attendance versus price. If the price was less than a certain amount, all the tickets (X) would be sold. If the price went over a certain amount (let's call it P₀), the number of tickets sold would start to drop according to a certain formula.

When you plotted the formula out (x-axis being price, y-axis being price times attendance) you see that the point of maximum profit for the stadium is not P₀, it's a point where the stadium is at less than full capacity.

In other words, by raising the price above P₀, the profit from selling the tickets compensates for the loss of butts in the seats. To a point.

So the owner of the stadium is not doing what's best for the team (a full stadium of rabid fans), he's doing what's best for his bottom line.

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. they lost power to ALL their customers in San Diego...1.4million!

WOW

[boston bean]

7. I was speaking with my colleague out in San Fran

He was without power last night due to blown transformer.

he said there have been brown outs all day, and that it was taking him forever to get home because the traffic lights aren't working.

That was about 730pm eastern

[eShirl]

13. +1 interesting

[lpbk2713]

8. Chinese or North Koreans testing their software again.

:shrug:

[kentuck]

10. Terrorism?

possibly?

[pintobean]

12. I would think we will know the cause by morning.

[cherokeeprogressive]

11. South Orange County too. The lady on ABC7 said it could last into tomorrow.

Looking at the helicopter shots, it's a mess in the Mission Viejo area with the traffic coming from and going to I-5.

Thank goodness I moved from there five years ago. Whew!

[pintobean]

14. The loss of power led to a shutdown of two reactors at the San Onofre nuclear power plant.

[hatrack]

17. The guy in the Gumby suit who tried to rob the Quickie-Mart?

Definitely involved!