Monday, September 12, 2005

Monday Bloody Monday AKA The day the power went out...

Howdy folks! Blogging from work as our power is back on, but our servers aren't so I've got just internet.

Monday has kicked off to a great start. Half of LA was downed this afternoon around 1pm when the DWP reported a cut line that spanned from Brentwood to Hollywood. I knew I should have stayed in bed. What a Monday!

****UPDATE****

2:36 PM PDT, September 12, 2005 latimes.com

Large Portion of Los Angeles Loses Power
By Sharon Bernstein, Times Staff Writer


A wide-ranging power outage, set off when a cable was accidentally cut, darkened large sections of downtown Los Angeles and many parts of the San Fernando Valley shortly after noon today, authorities said.

Lee Sapaden, a spokesman for the county's Office of Emergency Management, said the massive power failure was caused after an employee "inadvertently cut a power cable" at a DWP substation in West L.A.

The outage dimmed much of downtown Los Angeles and other parts of the city, including the southeast San Fernando Valley, Sapaden said. Ron Deaton, head of the city Department of Water and Power, said at one point three of the city's four power generating stations in the Los Angeles Basin had shut down.

Deaton said two stations that receive power from the generators malfunctioned, causing the power plants to shut down in Wilmington-Seal Beach and Playa del Rey. When the remaining plant could not keep up with demand, power shut down to large swaths of the city.

Other areas were also impacted, including Burbank and Glendale. "There is no estimate of when the power will be restored," said Lt. David Gabriel. "We've been told nothing."

Police were put on full tactical alert, with numerous reports of traffic accidents because of streetlights being out. As a result, slow traffic was seen on some major thoroughfares.

LAPD headquarters and City Hall in downtown were without power at first but backup generators kicked in later. Elevators went out in high rises along Wilshire Boulevard, where some workers reported getting stuck until backup generators came on.

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