MAJOR power outage over US & Canada! [Archive]

Invictus

08-14-03, 06:02 PM

My jaw hit the floor when I heard this. I mean, New York and surrounding areas alone has 14 million people! This could go down in history as one of the all time biggest fluke disasters.

Anyway, to all of our Canadian and American friends out east, hope we see you back here soon and with healthy herps and no rotten feeders. (Good luck with that Lisa!)

Zoe

08-14-03, 06:13 PM

This could go down in history as one of the all time biggest fluke disasters.

It already has! Unless, of course, the pentagon is lying, and it IS terrorism. It's already been dubbed the biggest power outage ever. Not that we've had power for that many years, but still.

Zoe

Gregg M

08-14-03, 06:14 PM

I am stuck in NJ because all the bridges are closed....... Grrrrrrrrrrrr...... I wanna go home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

burmer

08-14-03, 06:42 PM

I used to work in NYC and commute to Jersey. I'll bet all people in Jersey going into the city and vice versa are pulling their hair out. Pretty freaky stuff. I watched people walking over the bridges into Brooklyn by the thousands. The subways must be a real mess. I heard something on the radio about a lightning strike hitting a power plant. Not sure how true it is though. I hope anyone affected by this is ok.

Clownfishie

08-14-03, 06:47 PM

That's just insane, eh? Man am I glad I don't live in Toronto anymore... lol... Kept wondering at work today why all the faxes that I tried to send to Ontario weren't working until I heard about the power outage...

Linds

08-14-03, 07:25 PM

Ahhhhhhh! My wee little town is NOT prepared for this! We are like the only ones inthe area with power, all the surrounding cities are out so you walk outside and everythings crazy! And now we are having to share our power with Welland and a few others, and they are being greedy so before long we are ALL going to be out! Argh! Its not gonna make much difference but I've turned pretty close to everything off in my house trying to conserve as much as I can. Poor town. We have 3 bars, 1 fast food joint, and two banks, and a few restaurants... it can't deal with all the big cities coming here! People are parked all over the grass, parking lots and drive-thrus are overflowing, geez... they are saying its gonna take 2-5 days before everything gets up and running... I don't think we can last that long :eek:

Emily-Fisher

08-14-03, 08:17 PM

AND KATE'S NOT HERE! There is NO way that I will last 2-5 days without Kate! I might as well commit suicide... it'll be a faster way to die rather than suffering for a couple days! :(

alex_33

08-14-03, 08:31 PM

Linds where abouts do you live? I Live in Welland, But am on vacation right now is Saskatoon.

BWSmith

08-14-03, 09:50 PM

I blame Canada! LOL ;) j/k

Magdalen

08-14-03, 09:57 PM

I doubt this was related to terrorism. Considering sh&% happens. And this too "In the Great Northeast Blackout of 1965, the largest in U.S. history, at least 25 million people in New York, New England and portions of Pennsylvania and New Jersey lost electricity for a day starting late in the afternoon of November 9." So yeah, this years isn't the only time its happened.

Hope everyone gets their power back soon.

HeatherRose

08-14-03, 10:02 PM

Ugh I was hit....at like....4 pm I think? JUST got it back now at midnight....

It's sad to think of how reliant I am on electricity :| there's NOTHING to do :P

But it WAS kind of nice to see the stars for once, living in the city :)

Linds

08-14-03, 10:32 PM

It wasn't related at all to terrorism... there was never any doubt. I can't remember what happened, something about some moron plugging in this to that and it didn't work and repeated it too manyt imes and ended up shorting it out and blowing it up :firestart Thats one hell of an accident! :eek:

LISA127

08-15-03, 05:25 AM

My power went out at about 4 p.m. yesterday, but came back on by about 7 p.m. However, every city surrounding me still did not have power when I went to sleep at midnight. It is 7:30 a.m. now and I haven't talked to anybody, but I'm assuming they have power now. Lots of ppl didn't have water either. I never lost water. No cable though.

NewLineReptile

08-15-03, 05:43 AM

My power went out at 12:00pm and did not come back on until 12:00am

Brandon

daver676

08-15-03, 06:14 AM

We lost our power at around 4:15 pm yesterday, and got it back about 4:00 am this morning. And I agree, there is NOTHING to do when there is no power. I ended up playing cribbage by candlelight with my gf and parents! Well, I guess playing cards is SOMETHING to do when you don't have power. I can think of one other thing too! :p

Dave

Alicewave

08-15-03, 06:27 AM

My power just flickered, my b/f lives close to NYC in Connecticut and his is still out I think (as of 8am Friday). *sings "Blame Canada"* KIDDING!!! don't hurt me ;)

lanalizard

08-15-03, 06:46 AM

I work in an emergency call centre and our back up generator blew too! and we got our power restored at 4am..trust me, the lights and stuff woke me up pretty damn fast

Yve

08-15-03, 06:58 AM

i was stuck for 3 hours on the side of the road cause the traffic was so bad i almost ran out of gas!.....as well power was out in Kitchener/Waterloo area from around 4:00pm untill whatever time it was when my fire alarm and lights went on in the night!...what a wake up call!

hudson

08-15-03, 07:56 AM

From what I heard from my dad who works at Ontario Hydro, This all happened because lightning struck a power plant in New York and when it blew up it shorted everything out. The reason Canada was affected as well is because the Canadian and American power grids are intertwined because we send power to the states and vice versa.

Luckily for some reason most of Niagara Falls wasn't affected

The_Omen

08-15-03, 08:02 AM

And it all started with 'Hey, what does THIS button do?'

the reports i heard on the way in last night stated that at the time, the Niagra Falls power people said lightning overloaded the system BUT that everyone else, canadian and US were saying BS, lightning is not to blame.

Sooo.....

ErikM

08-15-03, 08:05 AM

Wow that was no fun! No power here until 12 or so, then at about 1:30 it went out again briefly until 2 :(

TheRedDragon

08-15-03, 09:02 AM

Jeez, I heard about this on radio yesterday afternoon while I was at work. I really didn't realize the severity of it until I got home and noticed that a ton of my cable channels were out of comission. So, I tuned into CNN and they were doing extensive coverage on the black-out. This is just unreal, I hope everyone gets their power back soon, hopefully everyone's herps are alright and there's no rotten feeders.

DragnDrop

08-15-03, 09:12 AM

I think it was the aliens. To throw everyone off track, they put a roasted squirrel into a transformer to make it look like al Qaeda was behind it all. :)

After the '65 Blackout there was a mini babyboom 40 weeks later, so expect the same this time. .. .. might be a good idea to invest some money in Huggies Diapers.

My section of Kitchener was in the dark for about 12 hours. It was great watching space debris and satellites go overhead, and the meteor shower (saw several dozen :) ) until the full moon killed that show, so then we watched Mars for a while. On the bright side of it all, to save opening the fridge we dined on Oreos, Pecan Turtles and marzipan - (sometimes blackouts can be fun)
:D

Simon

08-15-03, 09:57 AM

we had our power out around 4pm yesterday and didn't have power until 1am....man...it was boring!!

I was worried to death about the mice in my freezer.....imagin them all thawing out....that would totally be messy....I don't think that all my snakes could take in 5000 mice a time........lol

Invictus

08-15-03, 10:05 AM

Originally posted by The_Omen
And it all started with 'Hey, what does THIS button do?'

Either that or someone pushed that big, red button that is labelled "Do not EVER push this button!"

Steele

08-15-03, 10:18 AM

my power was out till 5:00 am mt perants live in the same city and ther power was only out for like 2 hours. seemed strrang to me.And if therr is eny one to blame it is the USA.To meny old delapated power plants

ETET

08-15-03, 10:28 AM

Try eat all popiscles, icecream in one night; thaw all feeders at once; check all the snakes in the hot room if they are OK with a flash light ( the emergency light last for a few hrs only); BBQ as much as food as possible.....
ETET

Sean Day

08-15-03, 10:33 AM

Just got my power back, about 20 hours without. Spent the whole night laying on the beach drinking warm beer!

sSNAKESs.com

08-15-03, 10:49 AM

woohoo back online!! Our power went out yesterday at 4:00pm and is still out now, but I drove to Shane and Laurynns and their power JUST came on now... yay!! :D

sSNAKESs.com

08-15-03, 10:51 AM

I didnt want to open the food freezer, and didnt want to waste the feeders in the other freezer, so I put 2 and 2 together and had rat / mousecabobs last night for dinner and this morning for breakfast... Tastes alot like chicken when cooked beleive it or not... .... ..... .....

sSNAKESs.com

08-15-03, 10:56 AM

but actually its very amusing to see how a power outtage brings people outside and communicate with people... My neighborhood is desolate most times and last night there was people all over the place talking to each other... Funny how that works.

Lisa

08-15-03, 11:02 AM

Our food made it fine, didn't open the freezer and stuff we would have put in the fridge got eaten, so no leftovers.

thankfully it was late afternoon so it didn't get too hot in the herproom

reptilez

08-15-03, 11:14 AM

I got hit pretty bad aswell. My power didnt come back on till about 4:20 A.M.
Thankfully my Rats were still frozen, i had like 50 in there. I was so worried all night that my house would reak of rat.
Good Luck too anyone else with no power,
-Reptilez
P.S. Does anyone have Cable working for them?? Im going Crazy, i have power but no Cable!!!

alan

08-15-03, 12:08 PM

Wow, what an experience. I was at work when the power went off at approx. 4:15pm. Like hudson, my dad works in Ontario Hydro and I told everyone to leave because my mom called and told me it's gonna be long. Took me 1.5 hrs to get back home from a normally 30min rush hr drive. I had boiled meat and cup noodles for dinner (my gf's parents used the bbq grill to boiled water), which wasn't that nice. Kudos to the volunteers who directed traffic in the major intersections though. I've only saw one accident which isn't that bad at all. :D

lanalizard

08-15-03, 12:10 PM

here in kitchener, it was soooo dead quiet, i think i actually heard a pin dropping!!!!

jncoclub

08-15-03, 01:07 PM

Groton, CT got hit around 4:30 PM. The majority of the town was out except a couple areas. All my neighbors gave me cash and I went to the grocery store that still had electricity and bought $50 work of BBQ food. By the time I got back (around 7:30 pm) everything was back on. It was one hell of a good BBQ though. (I’m eating leftovers right now for lunch)

Jeff is right- we ate which a bunch of neighbors who we really don’t talk to often. We haven’t really communicated with our neighbors since we got hit with blizzards in the winter. We all met digging each other’s cars out.

Andy_G

08-15-03, 01:38 PM

That was so very fun. We got out power back around 5ish in the morning and then it went off at 10:00 until 11:30AM. I'm just glad my IJ didn't throw up because I gave him a huge meal yesterday.

SerpentLust

08-15-03, 01:48 PM

Yeah it was out here too. From last night until about 11:00am this morning!

Jenn

Matt_K

08-15-03, 01:54 PM

Just came back on here. Went out yesterday at 4 and came back at about 1 here. Cable just came back on. There's planning rolling blackouts for the whole weekend though. They said it wont be back to normal until Monday, should be fun. Ahwell, i have the internet and beer, what more could i ask for? ;)

Matt_K

08-15-03, 02:04 PM

Just talked to a friend in Brampton that was at a gas station earlier. Apparently one of the customers wasnt happy about the line up and went on a rampage. Broke out a car window. Also, the A&P (grocery store) in Brampton is having problems with customers. They're running around taking bottled water, batteries and loafs of bread out of other customers shopping carts..

AHHHHHH , its Armageddon..

Lisa

08-15-03, 02:20 PM

and we thought y2k was going to be bad

Samba

08-15-03, 02:23 PM

If I were Dale Gribble, (King of the Hill), I'd say it was terrorist-related, then claim the government was covering up the conspiracy!

Freaky news, isn't it??? I hope everyone who has been effected by this event comes out of it unscathed and no worse for the wear!

MartinW

08-15-03, 02:55 PM

I enjoyed the power outage. First I had a bbq with some friends, then went to the beach, and when night came we walked along the river and then we sat on a bench in the commercial area of westboro village in Ottawa with a friend. It looked like a ghost town or something in a movie after some disaster! It was so cool! There was also more stars than usual, but still not as much as I expected. I also found a stuffed leopard toy on the street, I named him Tumstocksvagen. I don't know what that means but it's on his label. Apparently he's swedish. Fortunately it wasn't winter so I didn't have to worry about my pets.

Martin

Wrath

08-15-03, 03:21 PM

I'm sorry, but I think we are a sad bunch. If we can't handle the power being out for a day, we are going to be so SOL when something REALLY serious happens to us.

Listen to me. I was sitting in my air conditioned work yesterday, watching from the sidelines, <i>so I should just just stay out of it</I>, but here I go anyway. I'm sure it was horrible for some people, but the looting and rampaging is a bit much. I hope that no one had anything serious happen to them. Imagine the people who are on life support or something, but I'm sure they have backup power units. God bless the human race. :-D

Oh and of course our herps. Thankfully it's not winter. ;)

Batdad

08-15-03, 04:13 PM

Yes power outages are no fun, we had the power go out last Thursday for about 9 hours. Turns out some idiots were out drinking and decided to shoot out some insulators off the power poles coming into town (rumors say as many as 60 of them). Apparently the RC’s found beer cans and empty shell casings, with the purchase receipt :dumb:. The scary part is that they started a brush fire around the poles and I don’t know if any of you have seen the fires going on in southern BC but if is almost as dry in the bush around here This happened less than 5 mi. out of town. As SCR said in another post some people are idiots, I hope the cops nail them. :)

Bruce

PS-One thing to consider is if you have a lot of money tied up in things that require power is to by a small generator. You can actually wire it in to your house circuit on a temporary bases on short notice to provided power for the bare essentials, run the freezer or maybe the furnace depending on the time of year. Sorry ladies the hair dryer is out. ;)

Lisa

08-15-03, 04:14 PM

In winter i don't think i'd be so worried, there are many methods of heat, how ever in the heat of summer there are few ways to keep food cold.

asphyxia

08-15-03, 04:38 PM

It was out in newmarket from 4:15 yesterda till 5:00 today. The coldest enclosure went down 75 so not much to worry about.
We all had a great time went for walks, played monopoly, and bbq a lot including a awsome mushroom omlet complete with toasted english muffens, yummy.

Linds

08-15-03, 05:09 PM

Originally posted by Wrath
Imagine the people who are on life support or something, but I'm sure they have backup power units.

LOL don't have to imagine it. When the power went out, I wasn't in my town, I was sitting in the emergency room (re: chicken bone) of one of the ones that was in the affected grid. Let me tell ya, I hate the hospital when I can see everything, I hate it on so many more levels when its pitch dark and all the doors slam shut and lock! :eek: All hospitals have generators, however they don't power everything (they don't use it for a/c), and the stinkin thing took a long time to kick in... I'm sure a few people suffered from that! They wouldn't even let us keep lights on unless the doctor was in with us, they were trying to both conserve enegery and keep it cool since it was pretty stinkin hot out. Got home and found out my house wasn't affected. Grrrr... for some strage reason today though they intentionally shut our power off, even though we weren't affected. So little you can do without power! I got bored and went out back and burned marshamallowes in the gazebo while it rained :D

Removed_2815

08-15-03, 05:30 PM

I was in both NYC and Toronto yesterday so I was treated to quite the spectacle. I was in the Lincoln Tunnel when the power went out and there was a little bit of panic. I spent the next 9 hours slowly working my way back to Toronto. It sure is weird driving when there are no lights in the city. I decided to splurge and take the 407 toll route (sort of hoping the cameras didn't get me, I am sure they have plenty of stored electricity for that though :)
Anyway, if history is any indication we should see plenty of babies next May!
Cheers,
RMB

Zoe

08-15-03, 06:22 PM

Hey you guys are all lucky! I was in the subway when the power went out (fun), and it stayed out until I left today at about noon. I don't know if its back up yet, either. Worst though, is I was allll alone, had no cash and even if I wanted to go outside and get food to eat I'd need to climb down and back up 20 floors in pitch black stairwells. I tell you, that was NOT an amusing night. I slept fitfully for 3 hours and spent the rest of the time listening to a crappy radio and reading in the walls which stayed lit till about 4am (I guess the generator lasts 12 hours). I had power in my APT for a few hours, from plugging into the outlets in the halls (which are powere by the generator), but like I said it didn't last long.
damned government, this better not happen again! :P

Zoe

katev17

08-15-03, 08:11 PM

I was at work not 15 minutes before it went out... We had to stay until about 6:30 though, they wanted to keep everyone there until 9:00. All our backup lights went out after 30 mins, and so we pulled a basketball net and basketballs out into the parking lot and played for a bit. I walked to one of the other cashier's houses where we had a barbecue (only 30 mins, it was my 'break') and came back and played cards. The manager got bored so he sent us all home...

Today only 3 or 4 stores were open in the mall, and , of course Sport Chek was one of them. I went into work and not 30 mins went by , then the power went out! I'm quite the charm, eh ? They just sent us home, cuz there's no point in staying. Anyway, my power keeps going off and on.

PEOPLE: TURN OFF YOUR AIR CONDITIONERS (HEATHER) lol ..... half of Orleans keeps going on and off and of and off while the other half sits there with their power and air conditioning !!! :| :(

Well I open tomorrow morning, so I guess we'll see if (HOPEFULLY) the power goes out again ;) ... I like not working and still getting paid.....

When we got out today, some guy drove by in a panic saying "ARE YOU GUYS OPEN ?!?!?!?!?!"
I guess some people think that power outage = an urgent need for sporting equipment...

I don't know if any of the other Ottawanians (??) heard this on the radio last night, but one woman was like , "I work for security and have to work inthe morning but I don't know if I can wake up in time, so I think all the people with generators should start a wake up service to call us people with no power in the morning!"

She was serious....:rolleyes:

Oh well, Heather's right, it's nice to see the stars :) I saw a shooting one last night while going to pick my mum up from work at 1:30 :rolleyes:

Kate

Andy_G

08-15-03, 08:28 PM

The people in Ottawa and close vicinity had to deal with ice storm '98...no power for about three weeks...I take pride in that, seeing that people put up a huge fuss without power for a day or two lol. Don't get me wrong, it was unexpected and it is something to moan about and it's a major niusance, but at least it wasn't a huge ice storm in the middle of August :).

Dozer

08-15-03, 08:42 PM

I wouldn't mind bein' stuck in the subway with some chicks... hmmm... I think I'm gonna be usin' the subways more often now :D

I cant complain...

I've had power for a while now.... since this mornin'... :)

Melly18

08-15-03, 08:58 PM

Well I’m back on finally!!! I was at the theater going to watch S.W.A.T.....the guy about to shoot someone...then BOOM! No more power. At first we thought it was only the theater, then one of the workers come in and tell us it's the whole mall and that it may be a fire... so turns out it was a blackout! (Duh!)

We lost power at around 4:00pm or 4:15 yesterday and people in my area (Scarborough) just got it now at 10pm. It wasn't THAT bad but it was pretty annoying and super hot. It's true that we take things for granted, I’ll admit I do... but I’m also used to having at least a fan to sleep and water to bathe in!. Oh well it's over (for now :S) and I’m really grateful to have my sweeeeet electricity back! :D

Oh and we got vouchers for missing our movie which is good so as soon as we can go see it were going to go watch it! :D

Solid Snake

08-15-03, 09:28 PM

i loved the black out, i was in my break at a pet shop buying feeder rats and mice, then the lights shut, and we all got sent home whoooo!

Linds

08-15-03, 09:58 PM

Originally posted by katev17
PEOPLE: TURN OFF YOUR AIR CONDITIONERS (HEATHER) lol ..... half of Orleans keeps going on and off and of and off while the other half sits there with their power and air conditioning !!! :| :(

Ack! I know! My town wasn't even in the affected grid, but we were sharing our power (like we even have much of it with all couple thousand of us :rolleyes: ) with the surrounding areas. Well they are being greedy as hell and now our power is getting shut down every so often for hours at a time :mad: Ugh! And my boyfriends boss runs the car wash and insists on keeping that open!!! People are supposed to be minimizing everything, and here he is on borrowed hydro running the wash! :eek: :mad: :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Andy_G
Don't get me wrong, it was unexpected and it is something to moan about and it's a major niusance,

More than a nuissance if you have animals that can't tolerate the conditions and end up dying... :( or animals that end up puking up there food and sick from the improper, unstable conditions..... :(

Andy_G

08-15-03, 11:14 PM

Like I said, i'm glad my IJ didn't barf! :)

RaVeNo888o

08-16-03, 10:24 AM

I was in the elevator when the power went out..kinda freaky..it jolted to a sudden stop and the lights went out..
we didnt have any power for about 27 hours (went out 4ish thursday? and we got it back like 6 friday night)...it was so boring.

i had already thawed a mouse for my cal king but the temps dropped to like 70 and he wouldnt eat so taht sucked (he ate today though) .,..and my crestie didnt care..temps were normal for him.

RaVeNo888o

08-16-03, 10:27 AM

Originally posted by Andy_G
The people in Ottawa and close vicinity had to deal with ice storm '98...no power for about three weeks...I take pride in that, seeing that people put up a huge fuss without power for a day or two lol. Don't get me wrong, it was unexpected and it is something to moan about and it's a major niusance, but at least it wasn't a huge ice storm in the middle of August :).

my dad works for bell and he was one of the guys working to get everything back up after the ice storm..he didnt go to it but did the work back here that needed to be done for it to work..i remember he wasnt home for a week or so..he has this shirt that says ice storm '98 or somthing lol

alan

08-16-03, 01:10 PM

haha, yea, I went on the 407 too just to see if they're gonna charge me or not. It was jammed like everywhere else but safer and faster without traffic lights and intersections. Normally I wouldn't go on it but this time I got kinda bored on the road and I let curiousity took over. :D

RaVeNo888o

08-16-03, 03:51 PM

also, it wasnt too fun not being able to eat very much. We didnt have too much food at my house cause i had been at my dads for the month b4..and what we did have went bad. On thursday, all i had was a yogurt cup and some chicken on 2 slices of bread. and on friday i had a tomato sandwhich, and my mom bbq'd what was left of the chicken and we had that.