IT Employment

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Power Outage Lessons Learned

0 helpful
9 replies

by nat18466

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.
Last week the East coast experienced a major electrical power outage. Companies lost power and tested their UPS capabilities and IT as well as fascility support structure. The various IT support teams played a major role in keeping the data integrity intact. The Helpdesk also played a major role in communicating the status of systems and reporting any failures. I question have we taken full advantage of this incident to learn all we can in the face of another emergency such as this? I fear in some cases companies have forgotten the basics. Simple issues such as communicating emergency procedures to the user community i.e. shutting down the PC or reporting for work tomorrow. Has anyone encountered anything interesting that we can learn to avoid the next time this happens?

9 replies

by jimhm

I am sure there would of been more problems if it didn't happen on a Friday - after the closing bell of the NYSE.

The problems weren't as nasty as if it would of started on a Monday. Then you would of found all the problems - and lessons to learn...

50,000,000 - US and Canada - I am sure the Honda Company and other makers of generators sales are going to climb. As for companies - the phone company had Cell service up and running - in less than 2 hours, Hospitals continued to work without problems, major data centers didn't miss a tick.

The problems were more individual - elevators without emergency power to get them to the ground floor (800 rescues in NYC alone) - people on Home O2 without emergency power supplies.

I don't know about Canada - but I think the US companies faired pretty well - because of the day and time it happened...

by jardinier

As JimHM says, it's lucky it was a Friday. But next time, and wherever in the world it happens, it could prove very nasty.
What an excellent prompting it could be though, if everyone: and I mean EVERYONE, saw this incident as a warning against taking too many things for granted. This outage could be the first step towards a renewed effort to make plans for preventive disaster measures across the whole spectrum of industry and domestic life as well.

by jimhm

A couple of years ago our area (about 3 miles) lost power due to a storm for 7 days. The power company still hasn't done anything to prevent this from happening again. I also don't think there is anything that can be done to prevent something like that by the company.

But something like the latest outage - if the companies - don't do anything to prevent this from happening again ... individuals need to take action for their own.

I have upgraded my home to have a 50 Amp - emergency generator tie in -

Companies and buildings are going to have to start planning for emergencies - and not rely on the corporations to have the resources and stablility to do it...

by hal 9000

Underground instead of above ground there would be fewer interruptions to the power grid owing to things getting caught in or hitting these overhead power lines/poles. Also as all the underground wires need to be insulated they would stand a better chance of remaining safe in the event of the most severe things that nature can throw at us. The only trouble here is that is costs more initially but over time has proved cheaper in the long run well at least in the studied done in Australia. I can't see it being too much different anywhere else either.

The big advantage of going underground is that these power lines would be not affected by adverse weather conditions, fire or flood which of course the current installations are.

by hal 9000

Learnt from the power failure in the East coast of the US. It was a bit of a nusiance but in reality little more on the whole anyway.

In the erarly days power generation plants where built in or close to the cities that they serviced and the now 70 year old desigh for the overhead power network was ok because there where only a few areas to actually check when something went wrong. However nowdays these power plantsa are built a long way from the areas that they service and have hundreds of miles of overhead power lines that are suspectiable to attack/failure for a variety of reasons that don't involve human intervention of any kind. These long lengts of power lines are extremly prone to damage from nature and it can prove very hard to reach this damage when it happens making it longer for repairs to happen.

But more importantly as our society is totally dependant on electricity we would have a real problem if it was to be stopped for even as short as period as one week most city people just couldn't live without hitting a switch on a wall and there being light or turning a tap to get water but without electricity there would be none of this and worse still a lot of what are considered as necessary services couldn't function properly so it would be possible with nothing more than a box of matches to get a group of people together and under ideal weather condidions render a lot of the grid non-fuctional and requiring a long time to repair as if done properly a couple of miles of overhead high transmission lines destroyed by fire and then add to this all around the country would reak havock to main land America.

Now before anyone laughs at me thnk on this for a moment in Sept 2001 it proved possible to get 19 people together and hijack 4 aircraft on a sscide mission that at least some knew of so how hard wouls it be to get 50 people to start fires in the bush without any risk to themselves? And as nothing more sufiscated than a simple box of matches would be necessary how much attention do you think that these people would attract?

A bloody side less that someone wanting to learn to fly comerical jet aircraft but not learn to take off or land I'll bet.

by nat18466

What I found interesting is that we IT people tend to forget our own personal safety. Simple things like a gased up car - or having candles and water. This past power outage I coincidently went to the garage to start my car - it was dead
I left the lights on. When I went into the office
all power was out - weird. After getting a jump my co-worker needed a lift home - no gas in her car. Its always the simple things. The aspiring terrorists also know the simple things like watching CNN a finding out what the main Power plants look like and where they are located and how vulnerable they are. What I learned from this last incident is that I want to be much more prepared for an emergency - at least cover the basics both at work and personally.

by djent

High voltage transmission lines cannot be insulated enough for burial or the cost would be beyond reality , there is also an issue with earthquakes and repair, talk about scorched earth. A democracy assumes some risks. There is no amount of security sufficient to protect the infrastructure while maintaining freedom.

by hal 9000

At least in Australia on a limited scale quite a lot of High Voltage overland power transmission lines are not only insulated but underground as well. Amasingly enough all of these lines actually run through areas where some important Pollies live and their like {that may just be a coincidence however.} I take your point about not being able to "earthquake" these lines but you have to admit that they would be far more secure underground than above ground where they are subject to all soughts of adverse enviroments.

And even if an earthquake accured the damege would be localised rather than over ten's or hundredes of miles which is currently what happens with our overhead power transmission lines during fires and severe weather conditions like Twisters and the like.

Sure it would at first cost more but as everything is related to scale of production the more of this wire that is used the cheaper it would become and then there is the other reason that underground lines don't need to be as thick because they are naturally cooled by the earth and not subject to the same heat stresses that overhead power lines are subject to. And these very same wires wouldn't need to be as thick because there wouldn't be the need to have any sacifirical thickness when these wires touch. All of these overhead power lines are over enginered for their actuall needs because they have to make alowences for them to touch and shead metal from the lines which normally falls to the ground as at least red hot and starts fires that do even more damage.

All I'm saying here is that there are better ways to do things and if these lines where underground there wouldn't be the problems with Law Suits relating to low frequence EMR fields either so it just may be saving money rather than sticking with the now obselete ways of doing things that where OK when the power plants where close to the cities/towns that they originally serviced but no longer are.

Anyway what do you think the costs will eventually be if there is ever a link found between Low Frequencie EM Fields and adverse affects on the human population? For one I'm betting that they would be cheaper to burry the problem rather than hav eit continue unabated and that doesn't even take into account any safety issues only a stright Legal issue.

While I agree with your last statment about "no amount of security being sufficent to protect the infrastructure while maintaining freedom" it doesn't necessarly follow that just because we know that everything can't be protected we should make it easy for someone to hurt us {and I'm not just thinking about the US here.}

Are you saying that as we know that there is no way to prevent aircraft from being hijacked we just shouldn't try to prevent this from happening? Look back 2 years and just remember what 4 aircraft did to three buildings and one field. While I haven't been to the US since that time I just know that it is nowhere as easy to get on an aircraft nowdays as it was even two years ago let alone 30 years ago.

We have to accept that things change and as these things change so does our idea of freedoms and security.

All I'm trying to get across here is why make it easy for someone to actually do these things to hurt us? It currently is easy enough right now without encouraging every boy qand his dog to do these things.

by djent

There many lines in the US that run above 40K volts, some over 30K volts, this imposes serious insulation requirements. This would also create a dead zone for subterainian creatures. I would be interested in the voltage on your buried transmission lines. I am all for buried utility lines but it isn't practical with high voltage. I am not a fatalist about security, we can better secure our points of entry and source points of energy then the transmission fabric.

This discussion is closed to new replies.