POWER: Chicago, IL power problems

Thu Aug 12 21:31:15 UTC 1999

Commonwealth Edison now estimates it will be 18-22 hours before the power
is restored.  The blackout area has already expanded once, and CE may have
to shutdown more areas to complete repairs.  The affected area is bound by
Adams Street on the north, Roosevelt Road on the South, Dearborn Street on
the West and Michicgan Avenue on the east.

ISP/Telco infrastructure affected:  Currently ISPs are reporting that
Ameritech ISDN service center can't test any ISDN lines.  Two major
CLEC/IXC facilities are in the blackout area, and are on backup power.
Several smaller CLEC/ISPs also report they are on backup power.

If you get out your Mapquest, the Chicago NAP is outside the current
blackout area, and is currently unaffected.   It has its own backup
generator just in case (see, some good things do come from Y2K :-)

Since the 18-22 hour estimate exceeds the normal 4-8 battery life telco's
use on equipment in non-CO office buildings, there may be some additional
outages as muxes and equipment in out-of-the-way places run out of power.
-- 
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
  Affiliation given for identification not representation