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

[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.

[timecanwait.livejournal.com]

Interesting stuff, I'm reading about them now. Thanks for the idea. I remember that in Ocean's Eleven!