[Denny]

It is one year since the worst power failure in history hit North America.

It would be interesting to get comments from people on whatever they learned, liked and disliked about the blackout last year.

It was not a terrible ordeal for me, in fact it was an interesting experience. I think the "highlight" was going to bed that night. My wife put a couple of candles in the bedroom, and it was very romantic, with no exterior light coming in, no streets lights etc. It made me realize that just the last three or four generations in all human history experienced the night time as we now take for granted. I wonder if we get a lot less sleep than previous generations ?

It was at work, getting ready to leave for the day, it was near the start of the start of the afternoon shift when the power went out in our large distribution centre where I work. It was odd as we we have two major power feeds, with lights interlaced such that losing one or the other leaves us still operational. But of course not that day. On leaving the building I noticed all the stoplights were out, traffic was becoming a mess and so I begged a ride from a friend, rather than take the bus, and we were able to take the expressway home by a shortcut, and escape the traffic mayhem that had already ensued. It was in the car that we learned from the radio (only 2 stations were powered) of the extent of the blackout. He dropped me off near a large hospital. I waited there for a bus to take me about 3 km away to my home, and it was interesting to go into the hospital, with its own emergency generator, and see everything still humming and cool from the air conditioning. Even the coffee shop and the boutique stores.

At home that evening, the BBQ became our stove. It was hot and sticky, and I was took a hot shower, something I learned from farming years ago, that a hot shower has the echo effect of leaving your perception of the air currents more acute and cooling. It was startling to see just how clear the stars were that night. The power came back about 4 a.m. in our house. I went to work the next day by bus to avoid the traffic risks due to stoplights being out. The power was on at work, but went off again about 9 a.m., so went home for the day. I recall going for a bike ride that morning around town, and seeing many islands of homes without power, in one case, someone ran an extension cord across the road to get power, and protected the cord with 1" X 3" boards nailed to the pavement.

[Jack]

That's an interesting report. Since I live in Texas, you might suppose that I didn't experience any effects...as it turns out, I have OnStar in my car, and their call centers were overwhelmed by users in the Northeast who were in the middle of the problem.

In these days of globalization, a power failure in Bangalore, India may well have consequences in your home town or mine.

Sorta scary, isn't it?

[Leanan]

The power went off at about 4pm, just as I was leaving work. (My employer has work hours that are skewed early, so their employees can avoid rush hour traffic.) The power was out at home, too, which was no surprise, since I'm on the same transformer as the office. (I live walking distance of my office.)

When I got home, my computer UPS was beeping. I was glad, because it meant the power hadn't run out yet. I had left a huge 3D graphics render going when I left for work that morning. (It can take hours, even days, to process a job like that.) The render was finished, so I saved it and shut down. I figured the power would be back on soon, and went out onto my deck, where I had a tub set up, containing tropical fish and plants. Sort of a portable pond. I was feeding the fish when my neighbor saw me. She came over, waving her cell phone around, complaining that it wasn't working. That was my first inkling that something was seriously wrong.

I got my shower radio (because it runs off batteries), and went back out on the deck, where my neighbor could hear, too. To my amazement, the first thing I heard was power reports from all over the country. ("Power's on in Youngstown, but not in Cleveland. California is okay...") Holy guacamole! This was big!

There was speculation that it was a terrorist attack, but the politicians quickly stepped forward to say it was just a grid breakdown. They blamed Canada, and Canada was outraged. (Of course, it turned out to be Ohio that screwed up.)

It was a miserable night for me. It was sauna-hot that day (one of the reasons the grid crashed). My home is unlivable when temps are that high, without fans and/or air-conditioning. The neighborhood did get together for an impromptu party, which we usually never do, but the next day was a work day, so no one wanted to stay up too late.

But it was so darned hot, it was impossible to sleep. We felt like we were boiling in our own sweat. The radio station I had been listening to had to shut down, their power backup exhausted. They directed us down the dial to their sister station, that had a generator. I ended up listening to a baseball game, since I couldn't watch it. But finding it was an adventure. The usual station was broadcasting blackout coverage, and it was airing on an alternate station.

Power finally came back on at 11pm. I was so grateful. I immediately turned on the fan (not the aircon, because they said to conserve) and the TV. CNN was running wall-to-wall coverage of the blackout.

But of course, hardly anyone remembers it now. Have we done anything to fix the grid? Not much. Fixed the software bug, but that's about it. No changing of the rules for running power plants, even though the power industry wants them. No updating of our aging grid. Lots of talk the first week, then virtually nothing.

[Whitecrab]

I was in a locked storage cage in the basement, sorting dozens of binders on an old power generation project for my summer job, when the lights went out. "Turn the light back on! Hello?" When that didn't work, luckily my memory reminded me where everything was, so I was able to get the keys and feel my way out.

The buses were still running, so I took one home - agonizingly slow - and walked about 30 minutes rather then bother with a second bus. Got home, my parents decided on a BBQ, and for God-only-knows my dad took all the candles outside and made us read out there, with the mosquitoes munching away.

Next morning, power was still off until lunch. Then, it was "conserve water, power, etc." My dad had a rental station wagon, called and asked if we should return it. They said "oh no, just wait until the power goes on, it's ok." So we used the free rental to ship my furniture to my place at university. Ha.

I still cannot get anyone to even bother, say, stocking 3 days worth of food. "Well... I don't want to."