Well, the majority of the NorthEast, a lot of Canada, parts of Michigan and Ohio are without power today.

No one really knows what happened, but it's off. I'm one of the lucky ones, I've got power.

NYC has closed to all incoming traffic and thousands of people are walking home to NJ and CT. It's an absolute mess, no public transportation at all. People trapped in elevators and subways and trains.

So, we sit and wait and watch and wonder when the power will be back on.

Wow. And I just want to know why I'm not getting your e-mails --

Try

Director@DoubleRainbow.Co.Uk (NOT .Com)

I just sent you one a few minutes ago, let me know if you get it.

Gosh, that sounds awful! I hope it's back on soon.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Power may not be on until tomorrow.

A thing like that is virtually inconceivable here other than through extreme weather. What's it like over there?

Bloody hot and a madhouse. All of NYC, most of New Jersey, Connecticut, all of Long Island, Detroit, Ohio all the way up to Canada with no power.

I was in San Fransciso a few years ago when the power went out. Me and my daughter (Emily; a few people on here know her so I just thought I'd mention that) were stranded at night one side of the city with the rest of the family in our hotel on the other side of the city. We'd only been there a few hours so didn't really know our way around, but were determined to make our way back amongst the confusion. It was FUN!! Especially trying to cross the Interstate! After about 6 or 7 blocks were were experts at crossing busy streets in the dark without any signals to assist; in fact with the spirit of the Blitz behind us and stiff upper lips to the fore, we seemed to become sidewalk ringleaders - people would follow our determined marching figures, sensing somehow that we could lead them to freedom across the street. Utter madness, of course - but we made it! Hoorah!

To cheer up North America :

In the middle of my finals, the night before my fourth exam of five in five days, I was in a state of shock as my memory had shot it and I could barely function. Desperate to sort things out, I prepared for late night revision. Went for a shower first, and whilst inside the lights went out, which was a bit inconvenient. Went back to my room draped in towels, and looked out the window. The whole hall was out.

Concerned not to lose the benefits of three years Physics degree over this, I stormed off to the Porters Lodge, in towels from waist down. Arrive to find the local transformer is out and no-one knows when it'll be back. Met my usual gang - two electrical engineers and a computer scientist - and called them out. Off we went to the transformer across the road, me still in towels, and tried to see if we could fix the thing. We were just about to prise off a plastic cover guarding the 11kV supply when it came back on again.

Back to my room, revise until 7, fall asleep, woken by friend at 7:15, introduced to coffee, did a decent exam and crashed.

Tracy, I got the test one on the 'Director' line. I'm looking forward to the others. Maybe hotmail bit hard on the power outage somehow, I never did find out about how net hardware works. Have some red wine on me (e-version of course) and a pack of marshmallows, British size, mixed white and pink. :)

Thanks Dave. Will take the wine and marshmallows most definitely. I'll forward the others shortly.

Dave check email now.

I hope Jen's ok. The news report I saw said parts of Ottawa were without power too. Glad you have your's Tracy:)

Escaped the East Coast without incident. Safely back in the Midwest.

Apparently Canada is saying that the USA caused it and the USA are saying Canada caused it. How weird New York looked with the lights out on the news, just the cars illuminating the grid of streets.

I wonder how Jen and Magda are holding up. Poor Magda's trying to get packed!

It's so strange - we rarely even have a whole town out at once.



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Do something pretty while you can...

I hope that all of the fforumites who were affected by this problem have got their power supplies restored now, or get them back again very soon.

Has anybody else here read H. Beam Piper's short story 'Day of the Moron', which is sort-of relevant to this incident?

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"God rot Botchkamos Istochnik!"

Well, it's Friday morning and more and more people are getting the power back on.

While not really wanting to rub in the fact that I never lost power, I would just like to say that well, I never lost power.

Trains are still not running. Subways are not running. Area airports are open but have many cancellations and lots of delays.

Most of NYC is getting a 3 day weekend it appears. With temperatures soaring again today the power companies are afraid the whole system will fall apart again as more and more people get their power back.

No one really knows what caused this. The Canadians are blaming NY, NY is blaming the Canadians. Supposedly it could never happen again after the blackout in the 70s. People should refrain from using the word "never".

So, life slowly gets back to normal here in the NorthEast. At least as close to normal as 55million people can get who haven't had electricity in over 16 hours.

I thought Enron stopped trading a year or two ago? ;)

And how does Canada influence New York's electricity supply? I'm probably ignorant of some crucial factor in the way North America's electrical grid is set up, but I would've thought Canada and the US would have separate grids. Or is that too sensible?



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"Whisky-wa-wa," I breathed - she was dressed as Biffo the Bear.