Power Outages

[timecanwait.livejournal.com]

I don't know how to go about researching this without getting on a terrorist watch list, haha.

I'm trying to write a mass power outage into my story.  But I need to know:

• Would outages happen on a city by city basis, or could something happen to make an entire state lose electricity?
• If said outage were to happen, what could cause it?
• I'm sure this depends on the cause of the outage, but worst case scenario, how long would people be without power?
• What types of buildings have backup generators to insure they will still have power in case of emergency?  Hospitals and jails, I'm sure, but what else?  Would a bank have a backup generator to keep the alarms going and the safe locked if the power's out?

The story is taking place in the USA.  I Googled "National Grid USA" and found that there's a company by that name that manages just a few states.  So am I correct in assuming there is no large-scale utility authority that manages the entire country?  That's fine, it just makes my job harder, because I will have to write in several smaller outages instead of just POOFing everyone's electricity, haha.

Comments

[janenx01.livejournal.com]

My husband works for the local electric company, I'll ask him your questions if you want.

In the meantime, there is this timeline of the large outage in 2003:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/poweroutage/timeline.html

ETA: Oh, this one's better:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_2003

How big do you want the outage?

[jtptan.livejournal.com]

You want to knock out the grid, I'm thinking. That looks like some good info jancpb's got.

I just wanted to add the idea that there is a specific kind of bomb that knocks out electronics and nothing else. I don't actually know anything about it, really, other than it's called an electromagnetic pulse.

They used one in Ocean's Eleven... and a big one was the cause of the semi post-apocalyptic environment in the show Dark Angel.

[nyxgoldstone.livejournal.com]

I'll be honest, I'm no expert, but I do remember a few things.

Outages happen on a grid-to-grid basis. Depending on the size of the city, a power grid could be a whole city, or a few blocks. I remember having outages in Montebello, CA (average drive time from one end of the city border to the other would be about 15-20 minutes) where my parents' place would be out and my grandma across the street still had power.

A mass power outage that would span a whole city if not more? The surest way of that happening is a malfunction in the power plant itself, I'd think.

Brown-outs used to last a few hours in the LA area. I think the longest I've experienced an actual power outage is 24 hours, roughly.

Hospitals and jails, yes, definitely. I actually can't be sure about banks. If the power's out, there wouldn't BE an alarm system to go off, I'd think, unless they thought of the backup generator idea. The power plant itself might also have one to get the computer systems up and running to FIX whatever caused an outage. Police and fire departments probably have one. Any government buildings would probably have one, too.

Again, I'm no expert. My knowledge is based off questions I'd ask when things happened and what I remember of the answers. Everything beyond that is just me applying logic LoL

[agent-tomato.livejournal.com]

Weather is the easiest way to knock out power in a large area. Thunderstorms, snowstorms, or even really strong wind can knock over power and phone lines and cause substantial outages.
A good chunk of New England lost power in last winter's ice storm. Never mind cities; whole states lost power, and some people didn't get it back for two weeks. Isolated places are usually the last to get power back.

[bottleimp.livejournal.com]

You could always take the computer virus way out. There have been stories about upgrading the nation's electricity to a "smart grid" that would reallocate power as needed. So why couldn't a virus targeting that, or even targeting power station control systems, take a bunch of them out?

[camelia.livejournal.com]

All I really know is what I've experienced myself.

Once a few years back the power went out pretty much right across my county for a week. But when we went to the city most of them have back-up generators, surprisingly. I'm pretty sure the superstore had a generator, but it was only used to keep the frozen stuff semi-cold. As far as I know the bank didn't have power during that time, but there were cops all over.

Another time was up at my cottage, a twister knocked down a major power line and the power was out for a good two weeks. I only mention this because of the cause. The power went out gradually, from what I'd guess because the remaining electricity in the lines still had to get to the houses. Oh, I should mention that this happened up away from most of civilization. About an hour from any hospitals and such.

I hope I was of some help. :/

[in_excelsis_dea.livejournal.com]

Wasn't there a huge power outage that took out pretty much everything in Lethal Weapon 4? There was some facility or something that got taken out and somehow that made the power go out. Anyways, you could always try watching the movie or Googling to find out what they did there.

[onceiwasaturtle.livejournal.com]

It's strange that power outages happen so often, and yet most people don't think about them.

Heh. I lived in Alaska for a good chunk of my life, so I'm very familiar with them! They'd be caused by wind, snow, ice, avalanches, or it simply being too cold. (Seriously.) The local electric company was amazing, though, and the longest we were without power at my house was 8 hours (on Thanksgiving, of course!). (Why is that amazing? The area they had to cover was divided into two areas by mountains, and the one that we lived in was the size of West Virginia!)

Of course, the first winter we spent in Alaska, my brother and his family were renting our Upstate NY house from us (this would have been ... 1994?) and they had a MASSIVE ice storm that knocked out power for days....

Where I live now, in Western Washington, I guess the power gets knocked out quite a bit by wind storms. I've experienced the power at my work flickering out; not sure for how long, though, as the emergency generators kick in after about 10-20 seconds. (Major corporation with several office buildings.) I've heard that some neighborhoods (mostly in the big city) can be without power for days. Also, there were some power outages caused by a simple snow storm last December. (Ok, so it was really an insane snow storm for this area, but considering where I've lived, I laughed the whole way through it.)

Oh, and when I lived in Michigan, there'd be summer time outages caused by the insane thunders storms that came roaring through. Not sure if it was the wind, lightning, or twisters, but.... (Oooh, I miss those storms!)

[jenesisdark.livejournal.com]

Out in Sacramento... I beleive it was '99, the power to a good portion of the west coast went out (PG&E I believe) I don't think it would be a state to state, but either county or area (west coast, pacific north west, etc). Also, we have rolling blackouts as well (When it's too intense in the summer and EVERYONE has thier AC on, nice discount though!)
Sorry I couldn't help more

[sings-off-key.livejournal.com]

Most factories I've worked in have pretty big diesel generators to run fire pumps, emergency lighting, and safety related controls. Of course, if these aren't tested regularly, they may not actually work in a real emergency. Places where the power gets knocked out regularly (like here in FL during hurricane season) there are folks that have gas powered generators in their homes. It's always weird to see lights on at one house in the block, LOL.

[shad0wg8.livejournal.com]

Places that also often have generators are grocery stores and nursing home/assisted living homes and restaurants. Some churches may have them too, depending on what area you're in. I'm in Kentucky so a lot of the churches here have generators because they're used for tornado shelters etc. WalMart and big chain stores also usually have generators.

We had a really bad wind storm a year or so ago, and it knocked the power out through most of the city for about 2 weeks if not longer in some places. If going for weather or something similar to knock the power out, you should check up on what city it's in. Some of the newer homes have the power lines underground to prevent power loss from ice and wind.

Hope some of this helps!

[imaginepageant.livejournal.com]

There was a massive blackout over a large part of Canada and some of the states in 2003. Since it was awhile ago, I don't remember the technical details of how and why, but if you Google "Blackout 2003" you'd probably find the answers to most of your questions.

Oh, but I do remember that my particular area was without power for approximately... 16 hours. Other areas went more than 24 hours.

Also having worked in a couple of different retail stores during blackouts, I can also tell you that most of them will have backup generators for lights, but that's it.