I've Been in the Dark - What's the Scoop on the Blackout?

[Stephanie]

After spending Thursday and Friday in pure survival mode in NYC, I've been too exhausted to search out and study the blackout threads. While you guys were doing research, I was wandering the city in the heat trying to find a working ATM and supplies. Didn't get power back until 9:00 pm Friday. Can someone run down the working theories on what's behind this? Is it LIHOP? Your comments much appreciated.

p.s. If you don't have an old fashioned, non-cordless, non-electric phone in the house, pick one up. The cell phones failed. Also, keep some cash in the house. It is no fun to run out of cash when the ATMs are down.

[Maple]

1. So far

it's been traced to 3 transmission lines, and failed alarms in Ohio.

I sympathize...I had the same blackout in Canada.

First I made coffee, then I turned on the computer...then I showered. ;-)

PS...Tomorrow will be dicey as the workweek starts and there is massive demand. Maybe rolling blackouts, maybe no power at all.

Brace yourself.

[Stephanie]

2. Wow. I have heard no warnings

about rolling blackouts or anything else tomorrow. Great!

[kainah]

3. political fallout is still in development mode

everyone seems to accept that it was a failure of the power grid ... but that wasn't supposed to happen. So you're hearing a lot of stuff about deregulation. The company most likely to be responsible (in Cleveland) FirstEnergy, may be an Enron-wannabe. * was slow to respond, as after 9/11, and looked most uncomfortable when he finally did. That was also done oddly, as it was taped in a little room with empty bookshelves (very symbolic) in front of a few, apparently hand-picked reporters. And only after it was taped and edited was it sent out for broadcast. Very odd. Bill Richardson immediately jumped into the fray, as did Hillary Clinton, saying that everyone knew the grid was aging. Richardson called it a third world grid. Dem candidates jumping on it. It will be interesting to see it play out. Once again, * seems he can spout platitudes and push the same old policies. Drill ANWR.

What's the mood in NYC? And other blackout cities? Are people angry?

[Stephanie]

4. People are resigned

People are exhausted. We made the most of it Thursday night, hung out, had drinks, walked around. It was too hot to stay in the dark apartment. But by Friday it had gone on way too long. Friday was grueling. Nobody's talking much about it right now. I haven't heard theories or explanations from friends here, just war stories. But it was no joke. Old people were especially in danger.

Interesting about bush* speaking - those affected didn't see that * performance, of course. I had battery radio but I didn't catch that. I heard that he spoke very late in the day. Do you know when? Lights went out at 4:10. Bloomberg got on the radio right away and kept talking throughout the ordeal. I did not hear Chimpy at all. Bloomberg should get credit, he did a good job.

So I heard that FirstEnergy started the blackout rolling, and that they are Bushites. But what is the bottom line? Are people saying it was deliberate at all? Or just that deregulation allowed the greedy companies to take profits before repairing infrastructure? Or what?

[Maple]

7. Well I'm fairly annoyed

This is the third time I've been in a blackout of the entire east coast.

1965, 1977 and now.

It was never supposed to happen again. Grrrr

(not at you...at the powers that be...that don't fix things!)

[aquart]

17. If people react like I did, this is going to be very nasty.

Crying in the supermarket? That's showing symptoms of trauma. Delayed reactions?

When I got mugged, my first reaction wasn't anger: it was hurt. Rage came way after the event.

I'm reacting as if I'd been mugged.

If there are a few million like me........?

[aquart]

5. Does any other blackouter feel as if you've been mugged?

I walked into Western Beef market today to start restocking my refrigerator, and I started crying.

Trust me, it's not a sentimental place.

But I've had delayed reactions like that after being mugged (4 times, gun, knife, lead pipe, head bashed on wall--2 losses, 1 win, 1 draw).

Then, in Associated, I saw a woman sort of standing in the middle of the aisle almost disoriented. She had also thrown out the contents of her refrigerator, and like me, didn't know what to trust. I saw men and women picking up food and sniffing it, not sure, not trusting. Scared.

There was food all around us and we were afraid of it.

[Stephanie]

6. Yeah, I'm not trusting the food either

My friend ate a chicken sandwich at a Midtown deli Friday - I TOLD him not to eat it. He was sick as a dog half an hour later.

I've only eaten pasta the last few days. Can't look at anything else.

[aquart]

8. That's what I had for dinner.

I actually bought chicken. But I couldn't make myself eat it.

[Stephanie]

19. And Abby, I walked in to Western Beef Friday night

and did the exact same thing. But I walked out again after just wandering around for a few minutes. I even picked up a box of pasta and put THAT back on the shelf.

[jfkennedy]

9. Bush is the cause of blackout

The press in England are saying that Bush is the cause of the blackout because of the Enron energy deal cover-ups. They then cite Graham wanting to pass bills to modernize the plants but it was not passed by the Republicans because they want their Enron Klan, to keep making money.

When Enron was in the media way back in the past I thought Enron was just a tip of the iceberg, of the scandal.I guess I was right.

Bush blamed for chaos which led to blackouts
Independent UK
18 August 2003

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=434764

http://www.enronwatchdog.org/PDFs/badactors/FirstEnergy.pdf

http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/aplayers.asp

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=007zjd

[Stephanie]

11. Thanks! Good background

Do you think it's LIHOP?

http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/aplayers.asp

By all indications, there is no national energy crisis and little reason to expect one. But the administration apparently believes that saying "crisis" often enough eventually will convince everyone that one exists - paving the way for industry-friendly policies outlined in the Bush-Cheney energy plan.

Crisis or not, the administration's energy plan is a thinly veiled prescription for higher corporate profits that, in the end, will gouge consumers; and more pollution, which will threaten public health and the environment, and exacerbate global warming. The plan pays only lip service to energy efficiency and renewable energy, and focuses most of its attention on promoting the interests of the energy industry that arguably paid for it. As Boston Globe columnist David Nyhan opined: "Now the country's hostage to a domestic energy cartel, which owns the president and fellow oilman and viceroy, Dick."<51 > In other words, we now have the best administration money can buy, and that money came from the oil, coal and nuclear industries.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

13. I am 99.9% sure this will be the "nail" in Bush's coffin.

BTW steph, it's supposed to ber reasonable in NYC tomorrow and people will be conserving anyway out of fear.

[Stephanie]

18. Well I hope I'm not on the 26th floor again if it does happen

Getting down was fine but it was NERVEWRACKING when the place went black, and we have no windows in our dept. A little scary.

[aquart]

21. But you will keep candles and flashlights in your desk now, yes?

And what the hell is wrong with putting nice useful glow tape on the stairs?

[Stephanie]

22. The emergency lights came up right away

Maybe 30 seconds of dark, then emergency lights. Then our nice security people got on the intercom and told us it was JUST a power outage, that power was out across the street too, and that the building was secure. The stairs were lit with emergency lights. Everything worked like it should. At HOME there were no lights in the stairs, but the high rise office building was ready. So the scary part didn't last long.

Yes, there is a flashlight in my bag now.

[Wonk]

10. Welcome back. re: "tinfoil", check out these threads

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=182703&mesg_id=182703
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=6269

[Stephanie]

12. Thanks

I looked at Junkdrawer's thread but haven't studied it thoroughly. There were suspicious trades beforehand? Sounds familiar.

[Stephanie]

15. This is good, thanks, from the mahablog

But is there motivation for the bushites to LIHOP? How do they plan to use this to pick our pockets and stuff their own? I agree with Abby above, I feel like I've been mugged and it's not over yet.

The earlier event at the Hilton Akron/Fairlawn wasn't billed as a fund-raiser. All the same, it poured tens of thousands into the Bush campaign -- vividly demonstrating how a major corporation can flex its political muscle despite laws aimed at curbing the power of big business to affect elections.

The occasion was the annual two-day conference of high-level managers of FirstEnergy Corp., the Akron-based utility giant that provides electricity for homes and businesses across northern Ohio and into western Pennsylvania.

Amid the usual business of business, about 170 executives, directors, supervisors, managers and spouses heard a hard sales pitch for donations for Bush.

There was nothing illegal about that. While corporations are barred by law from donating a dime to a presidential candidate, nothing stops them from asking their employees to give.

<snip>

In the following days, 111 employees and spouses of FirstEnergy and corporate subsidiaries came through to the tune of $69,600 -- nearly 7 percent of all contributions made by Ohioans to Bush in the critical first six months of his campaign. - David Knox, "Utility Employees Brighten Bush's Coffers," The Akron Beacon Journal, October 10, 1999

And this, also posted by maha:

But deregulation hasn't worked, for three basic reasons. First, there is a fairly fixed demand for electricity and generating capacity is tight, so companies that produce it enjoy a good deal of power to manipulate prices. The Enron scandal, which soaked Californians for tens of billions of dollars, was only the most extreme example. California authorities calculated that a generating company needed to control just 3 percent of the state's supply to set a monopoly price.

Second, the idea of creating large national markets to buy and sell electricity makes more sense as economic theory than as physics, because it consumes power to transmit power. "It's only efficient to transmit electricity for a few hundred miles at most," says Dr. Richard Rosen, a physicist at the Tellus Institute, a nonprofit research group.

Third, under deregulation the local utilities no longer have an economic incentive to invest in keeping up transmission lines. Antiquated power lines are operating too close to their capacity. The more power that is shipped long distances in the new deregulated markets, the more power those lines must carry. - Robert Kuttner, "An Industry Trapped by a Theory," The New York Times, August 16, 2003

[pansypoo53219]

14. land phones???

i have recently bought 2 ROTARY PHONES and an older (60's-70's) beige touchtone. weighty. NOW THAT IS A PHONE!

[Stephanie]

16. Good for you!

It didn't even OCCUR to me, until I went to check on an elderly neighbor and her phone WORKED. She got a kick out of my ignorance. Then she loaned me a phone. Quite a beauty - probably from the sixties - looks like a magic lantern. Worked! Boy did I feel like a dope.

[aquart]

20. I'll never get rid of my old red rotary.

It always works and the sound quality is a lot better than my cordless.

Personally, I like phones on wires so I can find them when I put them down.

[AmeriCanadian]

23. What part of the city were you ...

... in?

We got power back on at almost exactly 12 hours in Midtown Manhattan.
Lots of folks here treated the outage like a "hurricane party".
My cell phone was out most the time too.

[Stephanie]

25. I'm in Chelsea - we were out for 29 hours

They turned on Midtown and Wall Street first. I don't argue with that decision - my neighborhood is less dense and mostly residential. We treated it like a party that night, but the next day was a long day.

[aquart]

33. I will forever bless the Salvation Army coffee and bagel.

I went out at dawn on Friday morning looking for news and food and light. The Salvation Army on 14th was handing out water, hot coffee, tea, bagels, cookies...

Many of the people on line were wearing medical greens from St. Vincent's. They'd spent the night in the hospital.

[nostamj]

37. in brooklyn, we got power at 8am

phone at 11am

(but, the WALK home was a bit longer.... oh my aching feet/legs!)

[Stephanie]

38. If we had known that, my friend would have gone home to Brooklyn

instead of wandering around Manhattan all day. News radio (1010WINS, WNYC, WABC) was really unspecific about what neighborhoods were back in service. That was vital information that they should have been able to provide.

[efhmc]

28. "Hurricane Party"? I thought those were only for the Gulf Coast folks.

Didn't know they occurred up east. Glad you are all okay. After Hurricane Alicia, some parts of Houston were without power for weeks. People across the street from one another would run extension cords to get some power from the neighbor with electricity. The big difference is that we all had warning and weren't caught just hanging as you were. Welcome back to "civilization" as we know it.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

24. FirstEnergy 's president Tony Alexander ...a loyal bush* team player

Tony Alexander
President
First Energy Corp.


First Energy is nation's 10th-largest investor-owned electric utility, and owns fossil and nuclear power plants; the company also produces and sells oil and gas; a Bush "pioneer" (raised more than $100,000 in individual contributions to the George W. Bush presidential campaign)

http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/aplayers2.asp

Guess Tony is too busy fund raising for Bu$h and spending all his profits to get in Bu$h's pioneer club, to bother with spending money on upgrading infrastructure.

Tony Alexander was on WH TTeam and a member of Cheney's Energy Task Force
he sounds like he is very loyal...a real team player

[Stephanie]

26. Deregulation caused this, no?

You know they will use it to further yet another diabolical agenda. What is it? And is it accepted that it was all just an unfortunate mistake? Or has anyone advanced a more tinfoil plot? I did not see Chimpy's comments. Where are they going with this? I really don't believe in accidents.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

27. they were about to let Cheney's Energy Bill die a respectable death in...

Conference...but WALA! now the dems will have to rollover again or risk being labeled "obstructionist"....:grr: :grr: :grr:

oh and yes deregulation did help them make this blackout happen!

[aquart]

29. Well, isn't that amazingly convenient.

My, my, my, my.

[nolabels]

34. Did I hear someone mention Secret Dick again

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20020524.html
MORE THAN JUST HIS LOCATION REMAINS UNDISCLOSED:
Why Dick Cheney's Secrecy Scheme For Pre-9/11 Information Makes No Sense
By JOHN W. DEAN
----
Friday, May. 24, 2002

Vice President Dick Cheney is at it again: More secrecy. Now he wants to bury the intelligence information given to President Bush on August 6, 2001 - over a month before the terrorist attacks. Indeed, Cheney wants Congress, far more generally, to keep its investigative nose out of issue of what intelligence the Bush Administration did, or did not, have about terrorism prior to September 11.

Nor does Cheney want Congress creating a high-level commission to look into this issue. In resisting any investigation, the Vice President advised Congress threateningly, "Be very cautious not to seek political advantage by making incendiary suggestions." Furthermore, Cheney has even gone so far as to warn the Democrats that they could be aiding the enemy by going where the Administration does not want them. The accusation takes aim not just at the wisdom, but at the purported lack of patriotism of such an investigation.

According to The Washington Post, White House political types have been putting the word out to their network of conservative radio talk show hosts throughout the country to rally the troops, set the dogs loose, and shout the Democrats down. Secrecy, however, is a tough sell, so they're going to have to attack some of their own as well.

Even Some Republicans Are Sharply Critical of the Secrecy Policy

Increasingly, stalwart conservative supporters of Bush and Cheney have become critical of what columnist Robert Novak calls their "passion for secrecy," noting that they only have themselves to blame for the public and Congressional reaction.

After all, Bush and Cheney could have revealed at the time, rather than keeping secret, that the White House had pre-9/11 intelligence warnings from the CIA and FBI about potential terrorist hijackings, and about the unexplained influx of middle-Eastern men in pilot training. Had they done so, the reaction would have been very different. No one expected the Administration to be psychic and the information, thus far, does not seem to rise to the level of a warning of the type of attacks that actually occurred, in which planes were used as missiles.
(snip)

The part that was realy near and dear to my Heart was this sentence later on.

Cheney also thought that Reagan should never have let Congress exert control over his Central American policy in the first place - by using an Executive Order to make it illegal for Congress to ban sales of weapons to Nicaraguan rebels.

on edit: dropped the comentary,not inportant

[knight_of_the_star]

30. Aside from the pun in the subject line

You guys got raped up the rear by the energy industry. After what was done to California, I would not be surprised if they did that to you guys. Imagine how much cash they saved by not running the power plants out there for a day or two to such a large area. Remember how much a of a killing Enron made when they raped California's economy? I'm willing to bet a month's pay that the same thing happened out there. Problem is, it will be damn near impossible to get proof it was deliberate unless we can get about a ton of supeonas.

[Stephanie]

31. Well this is what I'm wondering. But since they did it to CANADA too....

Isn't there hope we'll get some sort of resolution to this? I don't imagine Canada's going to let this one go.

[alaine]

32. I really like Greg Palast's article. He had it e-mailed

out to everybody by 10:00 am Friday. As of now it is still on the home page at www.gregpalast.com., title is "Blackout linked to dim bulb in white house" or something similar.

http://www.gregpalast.com

[Stephanie]

35. Thanks! Excerpt:

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=257&row=0

<snip>Meanwhile, the deregulation bug made it to New York where Republican Governor George Pataki and his industry-picked utility commissioners ripped the lid off electric bills and relieved my old friends at Niagara Mohawk of the expensive obligation to properly fund the maintenance of the grid system.

And the Pataki-Bush Axis of Weasels permitted something that must have former New York governor Roosevelt spinning in his wheelchair in Heaven: They allowed a foreign company, the notoriously incompetent National Grid of England, to buy up NiMo, get rid of 800 workers and pocket most of their wages - producing a bonus for NiMo stockholders approaching $90 million.

Is tonight's black-out a surprise? Heck, no, not to us in the field who've watched Bush's buddies flick the switches across the globe. In Brazil, Houston Industries seized ownership of Rio de Janeiro's electric company. The Texans (aided by their French partners) fired workers, raised prices, cut maintenance expenditures and, CLICK! the juice went out so often the locals now call it, "Rio Dark."

So too the free-market British buckaroos controlling Niagara Mohawk raised prices, slashed staff, cut maintenance and CLICK! -- New York joins Brazil in the Dark Ages.

Californians have found the solution to the deregulation disaster: re-call the only governor in the nation with the cojones to stand up to the electricity price fixers. And unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gov. Gray Davis stood alone against the bad guys without using a body double. Davis called Reliant Corp of Houston a pack of "pirates" --and now he'll walk the plank for daring to stand up to the Texas marauders.

[Kazak]

36. The electricity went out...

it came back on...

[Stephanie]

39. Some interesting links, from email- DeLay killed bill to upgrade grid

There's an LBN thread to the effect that BushCO still refuses to sever the ANWAR drilling from the electric upgrade. Makes the blackout timing look mighty suspicious to me.

Democrats Tried to Invest $350 Million to Upgrade Electric Grip, But Tom DeLay Said NO

Daily Enron reports, "When Bush weighed in on the issue he quickly politicized the situation. He argued in favor of modernizing the grid, adding that he's 'said so all along.' This statement should immediately be filed under the long list of Bush administration falsehoods concerning energy policy. In June 2001, Democrats in the House advanced a proposal that would offer $350 million in federal loans for the express purpose of updating the outdated power grid. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX) blasted the proposal, calling it 'pure demagoguery' and arguing that Democrats 'have no credibility on this issue whatsoever.' House Republicans voted it down. Then they voted it down again. And then a third time. Three straight party line votes killed the bill, while the White House worked behind the scenes to orchestrate the death blow. After the bill was scuttled, Democrats issued a supplemental report once again arguing for the need to address the situation."
http://www.thedailyenron.com/documents/20030815132640-93614.asp


GOP Opposition to Grid Improvements in 2001 Led to Blackout of 2003

BuzzFlash reports, "In June of 2001, Bush opposed and the congressional GOP voted down legislation to provide $350 million worth of loans to modernize the nation's power grid because of known weaknesses in reliability and capacity. Supporters of the amendment pointed to studies by the Energy Department showing that the grid was in desperate need of upgrades as proof that their legislation sponsored by U.S. Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) should pass. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration lobbied against it and the Republicans voted it down three separate times: First, on a straight party line in the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, then on a straight party line the U.S. House Rules Committee, and finally on a party line on the floor of the full House ." Why did Republicans block grid improvements? Because the transmission bottlenecks let Enron & Co. manipulate supplies to rape consumers. Defeat ALL Republicans!
http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/03/08/15_blackout.html

Bush Was Warned of 'Grid Failures' but He Went AWOL

Boston Globe reports, "The organization responsible for preventing massive blackouts in the United States has been warning for months that the nation's system of voluntary compliance with electricity standards is inadequate and could result in just the kind of widescale power outage that occurred yesterday. Indeed, in a document written just days ago, the North American Electric Reliability Council said there has been 'a marked increase in the number and seriousness of violations' of guidelines governing the nation's power companies and that 'the very stability of the electric system upon which our economy and our society depends' has 'no effective recourse today to correct such behavior.' The document goes on to warn that 'the longer it takes to establish this new system, the greater becomes the risk and magnitude of grid failures.'" Bush was AWOL again, causing massive economic damage - Impeach Bush Now!
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/08/15/group_warned_of_potential_blackout

[Stephanie]

40. Some NYC Blackout pix - Don't underestimate the seriousness of this

Motorists and pedestrians jam traffic on the Brooklyn bridge after New York City ground to a halt from a power outage. A failure in a power plant in upstate New York sparked the massive blackout Thursday across the northeastern United States and southern Canada(AFP/Mandel Ngan)


People watch a crowded bus pass them by on 125th street in the Harlem neighborhood of New York, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2003, during the power outage. A sudden blackout robbed electricity from millions of people across a vast swath of the northern United States and southern Canada on Thursday, exposing them to stifling heat and jammed rush hour streets _ and then darkness. New Yorkers escaped silenced subways, and nuclear power plants in four states shut down. (AP Photo/Diane Bondareff)




Commuters sleep on the steps of the Post Office on 33rd Street and Eighth Avenue in New York during the early hours of Friday, Aug. 15, 2003 after being stranded following the city's electrical blackout. The blackout occurred across much of northeastern United States and Canada. (AP Photo/ Mike Appleton)


Christie Brown, left, of Pensecola Fla. feeds her daughter Whitney, 4, through a g astro tube, after being stranded at New York's LaGuardia Airport with other travelers due to a massive blackout that hit much of the Northeast, Friday, Aug. 15, 2003, in New York. Whitney, according to her mother, suffers from a metabolic disorder and came to New York for a doctor's appointment and has run out of her medication. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)




A dog and his owners try to cool off on a sidewalk outside their home in downtown New York. Huge power blackouts paralyzed New York and other major cities across the northeast United States and Canada after a massive failure of the regional electrical supply system(AFP/Mandel Ngan