Major Outages in NY and Ontario, Canada

[Trampbag]

Does anyone know what is going on with the lengthy outages happening in Queens, NY and in Ontario, Canada? Is this just due to lack of maintenance or something else?

[topgroove]

Call for Queens to be declared disaster zone
Ongoing power failure leads community leaders to petition N.Y. governor
The Associated Press

Updated: 7:40 p.m. ET July 23, 2006
NEW YORK - A group of political leaders urged Gov. George Pataki on Sunday to designate a section of the city suffering from a prolonged power failure a disaster area, making it eligible for federal aid.
“Anywhere else it would be,” Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., said at a news conference in the borough of Queens, which officials often complain is overlooked. “If this were an area of 100,000 people in upstate New York, the governor would have declared it a disaster area.
A spokeswoman for Pataki, Joanna Rose, said the governor has spoken with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and offered any assistance necessary. The utility whose damaged lines are causing the trouble, Consolidated Edison, also bears a burden, she said.
“We believe that it is Con Ed that should make restitution to those who have suffered,” she said.
Bloomberg said electricity has been restored to 13,000 of an estimated 25,000 Consolidated Edison customers who lost power during last week’s heat wave and that Con Ed workers were laboring to restore power to the rest. “Are we satisfied with the progress?” he asked. “It is what it is.”
Speaking at a news conference, Bloomberg urged residents to put aside their frustrations over the power failure and thank the workers trying to correct it.
“The Con Ed workers are working an enormous number of hours. I don’t think anyone should be satisfied, but the city’s response has been as good as it could be,” he said.
State Assemblyman Michael Gianaris, a Democrat whose constituents bore the brunt of the power outage, told reporters that Con Edison officials should be held criminally responsible.
“How can anyone believe anything Con Ed says?” he said. “I think what they did was criminal, and I hope to see some people who work at Con Ed in handcuffs before this is over.”
Bloomberg said there was still no indication when all power would be re-established, or why Queens suffered while the rest of the city did not. He said Con Ed promised a report within two weeks.
Other officials said the city planned to reimburse small businesses for up to $7,000 in perishable losses and that an emergency loan fund would be announced within a few days. Nine senior citizen centers with air conditioning and meals remained open Sunday.

[topgroove]

NEW YORK — The misery of a blackout that darkened large swaths of the borough of Queens during the hottest week of the year stretched into its sixth day today, a day after Con Edison revealed that the outage was 10 times larger than previously reported.
The development drew a furious response from some residents and city leaders.
"I'm very angry. I'm really mad,'' said Koi Getbam, who estimated that her food market has lost $30,000 since the power went out earlier in the week.
Con Edison originally said the blackout affected 2,500 customers, but provided a new estimate of 25,000 on Friday, saying the initial figure was based only on the number of customers who called to complain.
The number dipped slightly during the day, but increased to 26,000 customers late Friday. The utility said it did not yet know cause of the increase.
The new estimate stunned Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said "we might have thrown more resources into the area'' had he known so many people were affected.
Others had harsher words for the utility.
"Con Edison's behavior has crossed the line from reprehensible to criminal,'' said Assemblyman Michael Gianaris, who called for a criminal investigation.
Con Edison spokesman Chris Olert said the company will "cooperate with everyone's inquiries.'' Another spokesman, Alfonso Quiroz, said the utility hopes "the bulk of the customers that are out will be back on Sunday.''
The utility said its revised number followed a block-by-block cable inspection in northwest Queens on Thursday night.
The wild variations in the numbers raised questions about why City Hall was relying on a private company's estimates rather than compiling its own. City officials said an independent count was not conducted because the focus in the first few days was on preventing the blackouts from spreading.
The mayor demanded the utility deliver within two weeks a report on the still unknown cause of the outage.
A series of heavy-duty circuits supplying the area began to fail Monday evening, hours after the sweltering state set a record for electricity use. As temperatures rose to 100 degrees, more circuits failed Tuesday. The same happened Wednesday, even after the heat wave ended and power demand plummeted.
Why heat would have triggered a problem in Queens, but not elsewhere, was unclear.
On Friday, the sight of Con Edison workers fixing power lines heartened some Queens residents.
"Everyone's trying to point fingers,'' Kevin Wilkins said. "You got guys working on it. What are you going to do?''

[Trampbag]

Sounds like the lying B******s are at it still. How can a utility not know the difference between 2,500 and 25,000 customers interrupted?

Hope someone finally realizes what the power utilities are doing to the nation, what a disservice they are pulling.

[mscheuerer]

Sounds like the lying B******s are at it still. How can a utility not know the difference between 2,500 and 25,000 customers interrupted?

Tramp, you got that right!, our local heard rumor that 10 out of 22 URD feeders in queens failed within a 10 block area. Let me guess.... they were all put in at the same time and due to "lack of maintenace" failed right??? I can't wait to hear CE's PR boys on this one!

[topgroove]

from what little I Know of network cable systems is that many times the cables are tied together and when one cable fails the others pick up the load. The other cables become overloaded and fail like dominoes. Kinda like tying the secondary side of a station together like they do in some parts of FPL teritory.

[Trampbag]

When will it come to light that this is the cost of cutting the linemen’s throats back in the ‘80’s. Too bad rotten Ronnie Reagan isn’t still with us to see his legacy. His VP is and so is the VP’s son. I wonder if it will dawn on anyone???

[hifihaxor]

topgroove.. youre absolutly right. as far as i know the only network in FPL's system is the downtown miami network. i have very little experience with it but im absolutly fascinated by it. the network used to encompass all of down town, but some years ago, half of downtown was split off to radially fed vaults and there was no secondary network. now theres the remaining network and several small "spot" networks.

basically, if a ckt fails, it takes away the primary for several transformers. since the secondarys of all networked transformers are tied, the extremely high available secondary current can feed back through the transformer and keep feeding the primary fault. so we use network protectors... im not sure exactly how they work, but theyll sense an over current on the secondary side and open the transformer from that vaults secondary bus, which is ties to the network.

there is a 120y208 and a 277y480 network... theres still a LOT of pilc there... some of the old vaults are absolutly beautiful.. i wish the original transformers were still in place... but they were all upgraded when the system voltage changed.

how is new yorks system run? ive only been there passing thru and never got a chance to see it. where are the subs? is it all networked? pilc, poly?? whats the system voltage?

[a78jumper]

Not quite sure what shortages/outages you are referring to here in Ontario, but there were a lot of outages resulting from severe weather about a week ago that are just being put right...My cousin on Manitoulin Island was without power for three days after a severe damaging storm eight days ago.