WEATHER: rolling blackouts along the East Coast

Wed Jul 7 05:15:26 UTC 1999

Let's not forget that a/c units in data centers, NOC's, and customer
service call centers have been running 24x7 as the night time temperatures
have not dropped below 80 in many cities on the east cost for days (it's
over 90 in DC at 1:00am).  Units in commercial office buildings
have shut down, and repair times are not good.  The consequences of a
failure are more obvious than the solutions for those running off of
building a/c units and/or smaller individual a/c systems.

Greg U

 On Tue, 6 Jul 1999, Sean Donelan wrote:

> 
> Due to the heat, high electric use, and the loss of some generators some
> east coast power companies are into their reserve limits, which means a loss
> of a generation plant will cause an indefinite blackhout.  Several utilities
> have started some rolling black outs in their service regions, voluntary
> and mandatory load dumping and voltage reductions.  Each 'planned' rolling
> black out is expected to last less than 20 minutes, but the electric companies
> are warning customers service may be interrupted up to four hours.
> 
> The heat is supposed to break this afternoon/evening.  However the front
> will bring a line of strong thunderstorms through the east coast, which
> creates its own problems.
> 
> All of our east coast POPs have stayed up, so far. But several of our
> customers have experienced power outages at their sites and some libraries
> have closed for the day.
> -- 
> Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
>   Affiliation given for identification not representation
> 
> 