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Eastern U.S. power outage - Here in west Toledo, we had a strange power drain and outage at about 4:15 pm. The local AM radio stations, 1230, 1370, 1470, went off the air, and at 4:50 they are still off. Some of the local TV stations had blackout messages on their screens. Power came back up here in West Toledo right away. I made the fatal mistake of tuning my battery-powered radio to FM CKLW or something like that. It's a country station and it's not saying a damn thing. After 20 minutes or more of no information, I changed to K100 and they were giving the news about the incident. It's not a terrorist act. It seems it's a natural power outage due to load. There is still power out in places in Toledo. Traffic in Toledo is, of course, slow. There are power outages throughout the northeast U.S.
posted by jr to news at 3:56 P.M. EST     (6 Comments)

Comments ...

It's not CKLW. That's an AM station in Windsor. The loser, suck-ass, worthless station that provided no information about the rolling power outage is WCKY. I don't know anything about this station, but I get the feeling it runs on auto-pilot.

K-100 interrupted normal service and gave local and national news about the incident.
posted by jr at 04:07 P.M. EST on Thu Aug 14, 2003     #

The power outage tested Toledo's post 9/11 emergency response plan. "In a way, planning after 9/11 put us in pretty good shape. We called in our countywide team, and things are going pretty smoothly," Toledo Police Chief Mike Navarre said.
posted by jr at 09:31 P.M. EST on Sat Aug 16, 2003     #

Russ Lemmon reports on how the local media covered the event Thursday evening.

"WNWO-TV, Channel 24, was the first station to break into regular programming. Toledo’s No. 1-rated radio station, WKKO-FM (99.9), provided the most comprehensive coverage. Harvey J. Steele did a masterful job of juggling local reports compiled by Craig Snyder and London Mitchell, inserting national feeds from ABC and CNN, and airborne traffic reports from Mike Lindeman."
posted by jr at 09:34 P.M. EST on Sat Aug 16, 2003     #

Looks like FirstEnergy could be blamed for the blackout. FirstEnergy is now in "save-our-ass" mode.

[FirstEnergy] admitted that an alarm system that would have alerted the utility to greater problems was not working. The alarm system could have helped identify voltage irregularities and other problems on its transmission system. "Yes, we were aware it was out," Ralph DiNicola, the utility’s public relations director, said. He refused to say how long or why it was out. "I’m not going to play that game. That’s part of the investigation," he said.

What game? It's two simple, logical questions. Are the lawyers lining up to sue First Energy? How long until we hear about the first lawsuit?

First Energy is strategizing, probably how best to deflect the blame away from themselves.

FirstEnergy officials said the company was in no way admitting responsibility for the outage. With records of events leading up to the outage becoming widely circulated in the media [Saturday], FirstEnergy executives huddled privately to determine the utility’s next moves. Lunches were taken in to the company’s headquarters in Akron. Entry to the building was strictly controlled.

Yeah, FirstEnergy knows they are in trouble. When the lawsuits come, will FirstEnergy pay for the claims by raising our rates?
posted by jr at 09:24 P.M. EST on Sun Aug 17, 2003     #

Strange is not the word for it, and its not the first time this has happened. Anybody here ever hear of Times Beach Missouri?
posted by Guest at 09:59 A.M. EST on Mon Aug 18, 2003     #

FirstEnery stock dropped 9 percent Monday. Their recent problems: "In the past two years, FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron has discovered a gaping hole in the nuclear reactor at its Davis-Besse power plant, lost a lawsuit brought by the Environmental Protection Agency and announced plans to restate its earnings to correct mistakes in its accounting."
posted by jr at 09:08 A.M. EST on Tue Aug 19, 2003     #

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