this just in whole cites outta power
 

NYC, united nations in usa outta power.. widespread power outtage.. all of manhattan... poof.. peps out in the streets.. detroit.. toranto(spelling sorry)\


werid

power out?
 

ok, nyc, detroit, ottawa,toronto,cleveland.........what's going on? everyone ok?

Fox News: "US Govt says no indication outages are work of terrorists."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...wer_outages_dc

HUGE Power Outage takes down NYC, Detroit, Toronto & Montreal
 

Check it out here!!!

Good job its 25 above and not 25 below outside.

woot for once i was first to post a major news thing.. although Hal got the official news.. still hehe

but realy.. can you imagine the ones trapped on the subways.. its dark.. way dark there.. and i bet the emergency lighting isnt working too hot..

i told my dad it was nigrai falls.. and 10 sec later.. bam they think it was..

just goes to show.. thanks to big oil and such.. we depend too much on old outta date energy systems..

hmm seems they havent talked to many of the ones that run the power there at the site of this all.. were the power generates.. cell phones down.. god i feel sorry for the ones codeing at the outtage.. ack

Almost got me, I'm still here though =)

Damn! I hate the thought of being trapped in the subway, wondering if they even have emergency batteries to keep the lights on.. We are waiting for the next extra News on TV, the last one was in swedish.. hang in there, and don't go wasting your portable radio batteries on listening to music.. Now look at me!! I'm trying to be funny - when really I am worried sick..

Both Power and Water out in Detroit.

thats really fucked
*calls parents and relatives*

Well, I'm sitting here at ISO New England where they're trying to get a handle on it. I just passed around that article, which was news to people here.

We're the ones who regulate (in the sense of "so much power is going to be needed there at this time of day via that transmission line) the power grid in New England.

Whatever is going on is not due to us, but we're on it just in case there's something we can do. That's why I'm on TFP so much: most of the time, everything's working so I don't have to do much. :D

All computers I administer are on large UPSs. I don't do sudden shutdowns. :)

WRT the Official Situation, if y'all check out the web sites of the equivalent ISO companies in NY and such, you'll see REALLY LOW numbers. We even found a negative one. :(

http://jaih.optus.nu/img.php/iraqpwer.gif

Oh No, it spread to Iraq...

(not taking credit for the pic)

Wow, glad I just got home. Hope it doesn't start spreading elsewhere.

Mayor Bloomberg just reported that power is starting to come back and will be switched on in a matter of hours.

I wouldn't be so quick to discount the possibility that this was caused by a terrorist attack -
<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cyberwar/vulnerable/grid.html">frontline: cyber war!: vulnerabilities: the power grid?</a>

In a potential cyber attack on the U.S., there are experts who believe one of the targets could be the country's electric power grid. By exploiting vulnerabilities in the control systems utility companies use to remotely monitor and manage their operations, U.S. cities could be blacked out for extended periods of time.

...

When we go after an electrical power system, electrical power provider for the critical infrastructures, we always penetrate that system. And we do that in a number of ways: through social engineering, through cyber means. What this points out is that there are a number of vulnerabilities that exist for a certain level of adversary. This doesn't mean that there's no security or that we can penetrate with the simplest means. It just means as a sophisticated adversary, as a national lab, we are eventually able to get in.

The fact that we're able to penetrate these systems all the time is significant in that it shows that industry isn't able to apply security mechanisms to their critical infrastructures. This is for a couple of reasons. Number one, they don't have a business case to apply that security, and the awareness is being raised now where they're starting to realize that this may be important.

...

<b>Could your team, if you wanted to, take down the entire grid in the United States?</b>

The IDART red team could demonstrate numerous vulnerabilities and system effects against U.S. critical infrastructure that are scenario-dependent and adversary-dependent, and we do this so that we can help improve the systems so that they can't be taken down in the future and a cyber Pearl Harbor won't affect the U.S. infrastructures.


<b>But could you if you wanted to? </b>

I won't answer that question. ...

Blah... shouldn't have happened... someone needs to be hung out to dry...

Lots of old people and such that can't handle losing air conditioning and power...

And the transportation is a nightmare (I remember being in a darkened subway for hours in the heat of the summer...)

They just mentioned on one of the babble channels that Detroit hasn't had any fires yet.

*!DON'T GIVE THEM IDEAS!*

Detroit used to have a reputation for numerous arsons on Halloween, "Devil's Night". I sure there's still a couple of firebugs out there that would take advantage of the blackout.

that would suck big time losing power god dam glad i live in no one cares about indiana

When Iraq was attacked it's power grids were hit.

When Naboo was attacked it's communications was jammed.

When Skynet rose it infected computers around the world with it's virus and proceeded to disrupt power and communications.

Hmmm....

and now.. NOW people have no power, and thus cannot Communicate on TFP!!! They seem to have us all figured out.....

Damn those Terminators! Why'd they have to come back in time!!

But yeah.. That truely sucks... Purge's Website is down because the server is in one of the affected cities :(.... Thinking of that.. Think of how many websites are dead right now.. Not just cities are suffering either, there are probably some important stuff online suffering bigtime as well... :(

Where'd The Power Go?
 

I'm tucked down here in Florida, but i am wondering how you guys are up there.

Yes i know that they dont have power, so they may not get this, but when they do....

THIS JUST IN, FOX REPORTING THAT THE POWER OUTAGE WAS NOT CAUSED BY SKYNET, GODZILLA, TERRORISTS OR GOD.

Seriously, worst news coverage ever.

I smell a cover-up:hmm:

I just got my power back at home. Yeah!! The outage shut me out of work, it sucked, the drive home, no traffic signals. Toledo drivers really suck, and this only made it worse. At least I'll be able to work tomorrow.

/sarcasm

wow, it's still going. I better stay home in my nice cool house. Mmmm. Electric.

ah the dependency of the modern civilization...

hope everyone's ok though.

Just got power back here after 5 hours. Canadian authorities say that lightning caused the outage. The National Weather Service says there were no storms capable of producing lightning in the area at the time.

Figures here in Erie County was like one of 3 total counties in PA that got hit..

i8one2 just called me from Boston - power went out there in the last hour or so. It was on at 8 when I talked to him.

The northern reaches are still lit so far. Thank God, that means the downstairs tenant is still able to blast Led Zepplin at full volume. My butt is actually vibrating to the bass line.

Still I could be climbing down the stairs of a skyscraper or stuck on the subway, so I'll chalk it up as an ok day.

I'm outside of Toronto and we lost all power at around 4.10. Luckily I had the day off and was actually outside reading a book in the backward at the time. Slowly saw the neighbours coming out looking all hot and bothered so went to check and sure enough...no power. look over at the sky and see this huge ball of smoke rising...(!)

So I got in the Car and listened to the CBC where they themselves were running on backup power...They didnt have any details themselves and were asking callers to call in telling them what the situation was in their neck of the woods...Apparently the smoke rising turned out to be a burning oil refinery here in the town which they didnt know was caused by the outtage or not...

Its a good thing I wasnt at work when this happened otherwise I wouldnt know how I'd have gotten home...

Its also funny since this situation was part of a report I did last semester on security in the tech age...

oh yess....I got power back at 11pm....power is slowly being restored across Ontario.

Just got our power back. Time to shut off the generators.

Though, me being on the board would be somewhat indicative of the power being back on...........I guess ;)

Power came back on here (London Ontario) in spurts. South side came back on first, which was a given cuz it has one of Ontario's largest hospitals. That was around 7-7:30 from what I heard. We didn't get ours back on til about 10ish (east London). Funny thing is my parents live in a small city 15 min south of London, and they said they had power back around 6. Ah well. It was kinda nice though not having any power and getting away from technology. The stars were just starting to come out just before the power came back on, and you could see tons. The power came back on, people cheered, yet I was kinda sad inside. Ah well, can't win em all. Define irony: I wouldn't be here typing if the power was still out :)

note: power in boston was fine, except our street, a transformer line caught fire, and our street went black, thank god for SPIKES! had a hot dog with roomie, met some other roomies and went to bed, with no tv!

One question from a normal down-to-earth Dutch guy: why the hell are there reports of people running out onto the street? It's just the *power* that's down, it's not like the sky is falling or anything...

sheesh.

Well, yesterday I was working on my computer on one of the upper floors of the Empire State Building in NYC, and suddenly everything went dead. Phones, computers, lights, elevators. Bam. We thought it was just the ESB, but it was all of New York and much of the East Coast.

Three hours later, we got evacuated. Many dozens of floors down, I saw thongs of people trying to get home. It was organized chaos. Streetlights were off, but people were volunteering to control traffic. People were giving away free water to those who need it. It was a display of solidarity and goodness. No looting, no panicking. Really brings a tear to my eyes.

I walked from the ESB all the way to Queens, over the bridge, along with thousands of people. Things were really crazy. I wish I had my camera with me. The really adventurous came on their bikes/rollerblades just to take some professional shots.

Anyhow, its about 13 and a half hours later, and I can get my computer to boot to post this, just so you know what happened.

Right. I mean, for the amount of people in NYC I think it was handled pretty well myself.

In trying to ask why there could be a domestic disturbance/riot, figure this scenario in:

You are in the middle of the bronx. You're living paycheck to paycheck and have maybe $30 to spend on everything right now and happen to have a stocked fridge....which is now out. Stores are all closing because their fridges and lights are out too and they're soon going to have spoiled supplies.
You don't have any bottled water, hell, you don't have the money to spend on such frivolous yuppy nonsense, but then you realize that the water you are getting isn't fit for drinking.
So, you have no lights, which is not that big a deal. You also have no A/C which is more of a big deal. Your mother/father, being in their 70s, aren't as active anymore and are at least in as much trouble as you.
If you try to leave on foot to go to a friend/family/outside, you may get killed by the passing cars of people attempting to evacuate. If you happen to have a car even or a car available for use, you could very well also get into an easy accident with there being no traffic lights on. Attempting to get gas (if you don't have a full tank ready with all the waiting you'll do with the bottlenecked gridlock) will result in very long frustrated waits.
You don't necessarily know how long this will last at all, especially if you don't have a radio at all or don't happen to be actively chummy with neighbors.

People get weird when their sense of security is rattled and when there are few options available. The more crowded a population is, the likelier crime occurs for a variety of reasons, anthropologically due to competition for similar resources in a finite area.

Basically I slept in and called a friend or two on my corded telephone which I knew was somewhere around here. They turned the power on probably sometime after 2 am, I can't say. I wasn't too personally worried but I am very curious how today's going to pan out. Checking some utility stocks out right now, and then going to take care of my errand thing I was supposed to do yesterday.

Hope everyone else along the affected areas of the US and Canada's doing alright.

DeviouslySimple, let's put this in perspective...

You are living in the middle of Africa. You're living on, well, nothing, really. You have maybe 1 dollar to spend each week, and you *have no fridge*... Well, I could go on, but you get the picture.

I just wish some people (not necessarily you, mind) would learn to calm down and look at the big picture. You do not suddenly die of thirst if you cannot drink water for a few hours, nor is an A/C such a big deal at all.

In short: calm down and try and act normal. The world will not suddenly end if there's no power. *IF* the power is down for too long, the government/national guard *will* come over to help...

I got caught in it yesterday around 4:30pm. I was walking to a mall and I noticed the traffic lights out, one more block down the road, the mall was shut down. Two mothers with there kids were stuck in an elevator 30 minutes after the power went out ... the mechanics had just got there to start getting them out of there when I passed by. The elevator had glass all around it, but I'm claustrophobic and would have been freaking out.

The traffic was crazy so we ended up hitting a bar (while the beers were still cold) to kill an hour before trying to drive in the streets. By night time (still no power) the streets in my neighbourhood were eiery(sp?) quite and so calm and with the moon out looked pretty cool. The only disturbance here was an hour after the initial blackout, there was a robbery at a diamond store and the robber shot his gun into the air. He was caught by some pedestrians as he tried to run by.

And for this morning, everythings back running in my neck of the woods.

well, it's 8:15 am here. Power is back at my office. No power is 75% of my city though (Mississauga, just outside of Toronto). I'm gonna go back home to sleep.

They are saying that they have no idea what caused the blackout, and that power may not be fully restored for days. Also, brownouts and rolling blackouts are already happening.

Last night was really cool, clear sky, tons of stars and myself and 4 of my neighbours sitting on our front lawn with torches and candles drinking our beer as fast as we could before it spoiled. (the wives tried to tell us that beer doesnt spoil, but we don't believe them!)

My head hurts.

Got caught in it yesterday. Had to walk up the stairs to my 18th floor apartment. The emergency lights were out so the stairwell was pitch black. Lucky I still had some juice left in my thinkpad. I booted it up, went to IE (blank white screen) and was able to see my way up to my floor. Good thing I came when I did cause there were two young girls scared to death to go up there by themselves.

Seeing all those people on TV in N/Y out in the streets in their thousands was awesome.
I thought it might have been everyone rushing to a TFP get-together or something.

Seriously,it seems like everyone kept a cool head and just got about the business of trying to get home.
It must have been a bit scary for some at first though and I hope all TFPers are OK.

Finally got my power back half an hour ago.

It sucked, but all my neighbors were pretty cool.

I was home sick yesterday , If I went to work I would have been stuck, I am so glad I was sick :)

My Uncle was stuck in his NYC Office at Sony and he lives in Conn.
Haven't talked with him yet, just hope he made it home alright.

oh and that photochop of the blaster worm sure did come out fast hehe

I feel for all of you in the Northeast. We had a major storm blow through Memphis a couple of weeks ago that took out most of the power company's infastructure. Electricity was down for 2 weeks in some areas. Ours was out for a week.

Biggest lesson I learned...no matter how well you think you've cleaned out your refrigerator, when the power comes back on, make sure you're wearing a hazmat suit w/ respirator when you open it again for the first time in a week.

Does anyone remember the episode of the old PBS series Connections where they discussed what would happen if technology failed us and used the 1977 New York blackout as an example?

I'm here in downtown Toronto and my power is back on!
Not sure about the rest of the city but here in East York everything seems to be up and running.

In Downtown Toronto (Riverdale) and the power was on from 5 am to 7:30 am and then off again... It came back on around 10ish again and has been on since.

It was weird here last night.

The drive home was not as bad as I expected... although I drive a Vespa so I was able to skirt around much of the more mundane traffic. What was cool was that there still appeared to be a good amount of politeness when drivers approached intersections. Traffic was bad but it was flowing.

I live near a park and as planned went to see Shakespeare in the Rough last night. They are a theatre group that stages plays in the park. Saw them do Much Ado About Nothing. Excellent production. As it got dark it was very cool because the "stage area" (deliniated by the boles of a couple of large trees) was the only lit area (battery powered lights).

I live in an older urban neighbourhood (i.e. narrow tree lined streets with victorian homes) and everyone seemed to be out walking and chatting with the neighbours. Many were out with candles in their stoops taking in the cool night air and many were at the park looking across the Don Valley at the relatively darkened city skyline (generates seemed to be keeping a lot of the towers lit) and taking in the star which are ordinarily blocked out by light pollution.

It was very cool how dark everything became.

Slept out on the back deck with my son as it was too hot in the house. Drempt of fighting of bear sized racoons but no actual encounter occured.

Hope everyone else is OK and enjoying a day off (hey our Prime Minsister requested we take the day and who am I to say no?).

Thanks for sharing your stories everyone -- much more interesting then the "news." Glad everyone is ok and still praying for those without.

It was so weird here yesterday. I work at a hospital, so when the lights went out, they went out for about a minute and then went back on again (due to the emergency generator). Parts of the hospital were without power but I guess I'm on the same generator as the patient beds/OR.

So I logged on to my usual haunts and it was so weird to see nobody else from NYC posting. For a while I felt like the only person from NY on the Internet.

The power remained on at the hospital and I stayed here until about 11 PM, until I went to sleep on a pull-out couch at the hotel across the street.

It was a little scary, but honestly, also kinda cool. How often do you look out across New York City and see darkness? I mean, you could see flickers of candles in random windows, but other than that, it was completely dark.

As far as I know, power is pretty much on its way to being restored in the NYC area. Power at my apartment in Queens was apparently out for approximately 13 hours. I wonder how much of my food is completely ruined....

Good luck everybody who's still waiting for power...of course, I guess if they're without power, they're not reading this, are they?

Quadro

My aunt in NYC ended up having to walk 4 hours to get home. She said it was pretty weird seeing so many people out and about on the streets. Though, I guess folks were being really nice and offering rides to people stuck walking. nice. :)

Tell you one thing ac is a must there in nyc and here in louisiana where i live.. for two days our ac went out.. no air but for two box fans.. the 4 bedroom house rose to 95 degrees real fast.. now can you imagine what somewent through.. ive been to and seen some nyc building.. oh not the fancy one.. the ones that are sorta old and run down.. most old peps cant take heat over 78 degrees.. ..

that would totally suck.

I just my power back like two hours ago. It was a very boring night, to say the least. Fortunately, I had my camping gear to help me through it all. That, and my GBA SP. God Bless the backlight! :D