Next Blackout May Be Catastrophic

[OrdinaryTa]

This year in New York we've had thunderstorms that were real doozies - one just a day or two before the blackout. It's only a matter of time before the two events happen together. There's nothing like an August cloudburst to turn grownups back into wide-eyed kids, especially with booming thunderclaps. But just imagine if the power were out at the same time. There'd be no joshing about stoic New Yorkers grinning and bearing it. No talk about tourists agreeably sleeping out under the stars.

The newspapers on Friday were full of stories denying how truly dangerous a power blackout is. Just imagine if commuters were stuck in Manhattan overnight - angry, frightened, and soaking wet. And just imagine if New York's criminal element were to take advantage of the thunderstorm. It will happen eventually.

[NYC]

1. I would expect less crime to be committed during a thunderstorm.

Maybe it's just me. I would think even the criminals would be deterred by a downpour.

[MiltonLeBerle]

4. Tv sets and computors would get ruined-

what would be the point of looting?

and besides, you could catch a cold.

[OrdinaryTa]

5. No Lights, No Air

If there were a thunderstorm in the middle of blackout, there wouldn't be enough indoor space to absorb all the people seeking shelter from the downpour. It's not simply an issue of property crimes, but the breakdown of civil order. Even a large space like Grand Central Terminal quickly fills up in a thunderstorm. Now, turn the lights out. Then you've got 50,000 strangers packed in a dense space, and this is only one such place in a large city.

If we're unprepared for a blackout, we are certainly unprepared for a blackout and a thunderstorm at the same time. This is a calamity waiting to happen. The "good feeling" among New Yorkers after September 11th is waning - it shouldn't be taken for granted.

[bicentennial_baby]

12. Funny you should say that

We had an monsoon here a few weeks ago, with major street flooding, etc. I've never seen rain like this before. I said to my brother, "Well, we know the criminals won't be out tonight!" Lo and behold, the next morning we find my brother's $800 car stereo ripped out!

[Stephanie]

2. This could be you

Imagine if it were pouring rain.



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)



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)

[NYC]

3. Or it could be winter.

I know it was hot as hell sleeping outside that night, but a cold winter night could be much worse, and the ground could be covered with snow.

Privatization of public utilities is against the public good.

[OrdinaryTa]

6. Nobody In Charge

Privatization of public utilities is against the public good

Privatization has resulted in a situation where nobody makes the necessary investment in infrastructure, and nobody takes responsibility when blackouts occur. All of the "players" sign on for just those parts which advantage them, and nobody signs on for the parts that are difficult, expensive or unglamorous.

The politicians and the energy companies point fingers at everybody but themselves. New York blames Canada, Canada blames Ohio, and Bush says "We're looking into it." Nobody's in charge.

[ctex]

9. What exactly did privatization have to do with the recent blackout?

Absolutely nothing!

It has been a very long time since any major publicly owned electric utility in the U.S. has been privatized.

Also, while the recent blackout may have been the fault of First Energy, an investor-owned utility, the award for the poorest job in restoring service goes to Ontario Hydro, a publicly-owned utility.

[OrdinaryTa]

13. Deregulation of Energy Industry

This week's Village Voice has three separate articles that blame last week's blackout on deregulation. It's true that deregulation is not the same as privatization; the point is that there's no incentive for energy companies to make the investments needed to prevent future blackouts. Here are the links to the articles:

Wayne Barrett, cover story:

... And it hasn't just been Democrats who've been appalled at state policies. As quiet as the tabloids have been since the blackout, a Daily News editorial in 2000 blasted the governor's deregulation as "dopey," accusing it of "electrocuting the state's economy," and the Post said the governor "crowed it would lead to more competition and lower prices, but the opposite proved true." Even an upstate utility, NYSEG (New York State Electric & Gas), issued an unusual policy paper in 2001, warning that our energy market, "like a train without brakes," was "on a volatile, high-priced track leading to derailment." The NYSEG report charged that "no significant transmission expansion" had occurred here in a decade, "there was no policy to encourage construction of new transmission," and that New York had to link up with regional partners.

Of course, nothing happened. Even the NYISO, the official voice of Pataki's deregulated system, concluded in May that ours had some of the"worst" transmission bottlenecks in America, susceptible to blackouts, warning that, "lack of transmission investment could well result in reliability problems in the not-too-distant future." The ISO, which declared as far back as 2001 that New York was in a state of persistent crisis," says now that transmission development here has slowed "to a glacial crawl," making it the only one of the three Northeast combines to not even have "a planning process for infrastructure improvements." ...
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0334/barrett.php


Cynthia Cotts, this week's column entitled "It's Deregulation, Stupid":

... On August 16, the Times ran a story by David Firestone and Andrew C. Revkin that's worth reading if you missed it. Among the causes of last week's blackout, they reported, is an unregulated energy market in which private companies have no incentives to build transmitters, and industry monitors have no power to enforce reliability rules.
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0334/cotts.php


James Ridgeway, this week's column entitled "Why the Public Is Powerless":

... Many countries have nationalized the energy resources and delivery systems that provide their citizens with one of their most indispensable commodities; others tightly regulate these industries, in particular the electric utilities. In the U.S., the electricity industry is mostly privately owned and subject to astonishingly loose regulation: The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), a combination of public and private groups that passes for a standard-setting and regulatory body, has no mandatory standards and can't enforce reliability. Everything is voluntary.

And what are the entities whose voluntary cooperation is solicited? They are, of course, private companies, whose main goal is to turn a profit. And the fact is, it is difficult to make huge sums of money for executives and company owners from maintaining or improving electric-transmission systems. There has simply been no economic "incentive" for companies to invest in updating technology. There has also been no legal requirement for them to do so. And so it has not been done ...
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0334/mondo1.php

[Dissenting_Prole]

7. Add this winter's coming natural gas crisis to the mix...

and it'll be a party to remember!

more: here:
http://www.postcarbon.org/pubs.php?doc=US.NG.When_markets_fail.v1-3.JD.2003-08-13.php

[ArkDem]

8. Down here in poor 'ol Arkansas the power goes off during

thunderstorms all the time. As a matter of fact that is usually when the power goes off. I wonder if that happens anywhere else?

[jumptheshadow]

10. It happens, but...

When I lived in Buffalo once the power went off for three days after a particularly nasty ice storm.

The problem in New York is that, unlike most other cities, a vast number of people rely on the subway for transportation. When the trains go down chaos ensues. If there were thunderstorms we'd be in a world of hurt.

[JasonBerry]

11. I would think WINTER and zero degree temps...

would be the most frightening scenario. I can't imagine a city like NYC having to be in the dark, freezing - inside and outside. Even with the delivery of natural gas - the electrical grid is relied upon.

[HalfManHalfBiscuit]

14. Bull Fucking Shit

People understand rain. And New Yorkers understand that if you gat wet, you can eventually dry off.

Sorry that you are disappointed that New Yorkers handled the blackout so well.

[OrdinaryTa]

16. A Bigger Story

Sorry that you are disappointed that New Yorkers handled the blackout so well

The story of this blackout is not how many things went wrong, but how many things went right. I'm not disappointed that things went smoothly. This is the same kind of insulting remark that Freepers use against Democrats when two days go by in Iraq and no GI's are killed.

The larger story of the blackout has been ignored. It's not about heroic New Yorkers, it's about how dangerous blackouts are. Rain is only one possible complication out of many that could easily have occurred.

We're still hearing speculation that the blackout was caused by a squirrel leaping from a tree. Is that all it takes to plunge major cities into darkness? There's no guarantee that the next time the power grid fails - for whatever reason - that the outcome won't be catastrophic. We escaped Murphy's Law this time, and we are pushing our luck if we don't demand major changes.

[shanti]

15. funny

we had a prolonged (12-14 hour) LOUD and BRIGHT thunderstorm here in sacramento last nite. they are very unusual here in the summer. i don't remember many at all, but none in the summr....hmmm....