PowerSwitch

A good example of just how dependent people are on electricity - I wonder how many people there will be buying torches, batteries and candles after that? And how did people who live in skyscrapers manage?

Anecdote time - a couple of years my own town (Lancaster) lost power for a couple of days and it was a real shock to everyone - no lights, no electric heat, no electric cooking, no mobile phone network, no money machines etc

It is a good thing, that those island dwellers get a little taste of how the world looks to plenty of other people when it gets dark out.

I say take away all the oil and gas supplies they pretend they can do without, for just a day or two, and see how things work out next.

The recent failure in Manhattan was relatively brief at about 5 hours and limited in geographical area.

New York has however suffered longer lasting and more extensive failures than this one, which underlines the importance of always being prepared.

Most high rise buildings in New York have a generator to supply critical systems such as one elevator, exit route lighting, fire alarm, domestic water, and fire pumps.

This is less common in the UK. Reliability of standby generators is not impressive in either country.

ReserveGrowthRulz wrote:It is a good thing, that those island dwellers get a little taste of how the world looks to plenty of other people when it gets dark out.

I say take away all the oil and gas supplies they pretend they can do without, for just a day or two, and see how things work out next.

You seem quite pleased that those in Manhattan have experienced a power cut. If my interpretation is correct, care to explain why the pleasure?

Another reminder, if one was needed, that everyone should 'prep' for a degree of infrastructure breakdown. Everyone should be able to hunker down in their residence for, say, five days without suffering serious hardship.

This means, food, water, energy etc, not a vast amount, not a huge investment in money or space etc.

boisdevie wrote:

ReserveGrowthRulz wrote:It is a good thing, that those island dwellers get a little taste of how the world looks to plenty of other people when it gets dark out.

I say take away all the oil and gas supplies they pretend they can do without, for just a day or two, and see how things work out next.

You seem quite pleased that those in Manhattan have experienced a power cut. If my interpretation is correct, care to explain why the pleasure?

Practice makes perfect. Large parts of the world deal with brownouts and maybe even scheduled blackouts. America is too pampered, the left coast and urban elites being top of the list.

It would do us good as a country saying to everyone..."we are going to have civil emergency drills on an irregular basis, and everyone in the country should be prepared for an unannounced 24 hours power, fuel and energy source cuts...because we are going to do 48 tests of this idea once a month for the foreseeable future".

Talk about making a more resilient country! Other countries can suffer this kind of outage without breaking stride, it is about time that America learned how again. We could do it when I was a kid, it is just a lost skills is all. Practice will bring it back.

So call it a guilty pleasure of building back in some of what America has forgotten. Worked for everyone I knew as a kid, maybe it is about time we learned how to do some things old school? The younglings could use a little dose of old school I think.

I think if you had monthly blackouts you will have a lot of extra fires in the first few sessions, when incompetent people miss the filling spout on the generator then drop the match they were using in order to see what they were doing. Then there will be fires caused by cheap camping stoves, and fires caused by candles setting light to curtains. It has happened before.

woodburner wrote:I think if you had monthly blackouts you will have a lot of extra fires in the first few sessions, when incompetent people miss the filling spout on the generator then drop the match they were using in order to see what they were doing.

Sure. And when the military forces begin live fire exercises, people get hurt and killed because when you do it for real, for the first time, you discover why you need to be careful and pay attention! Takes some bodies to put a point on it.

woodburner wrote: Then there will be fires caused by cheap camping stoves, and fires caused by candles setting light to curtains. It has happened before.

Sure. Might burn down entire forests! But the practice is needed for a reason, your examples being just a few.

woodburner wrote:I think if you had monthly blackouts you will have a lot of extra fires in the first few sessions, when incompetent people miss the filling spout on the generator then drop the match they were using in order to see what they were doing. Then there will be fires caused by cheap camping stoves, and fires caused by candles setting light to curtains. It has happened before.

Yes, I recall visiting a pub in the great Dartford blackout a few years ago.
I cringed when watching the petrol generator being fueled whilst running, by someone with fag in mouth, and also intoxicated.
Generator also connected via a suicide lead.

woodburner wrote:I think if you had monthly blackouts you will have a lot of extra fires in the first few sessions, when incompetent people miss the filling spout on the generator then drop the match they were using in order to see what they were doing. Then there will be fires caused by cheap camping stoves, and fires caused by candles setting light to curtains. It has happened before.

Of course you will have some of that. We have a few every day without any blackout or other emergency as cause.
But I don't think the millennial's are quite as helpless as you seem to think they are. Most have parents and even grand parents they can call on for advice and even older coworkers and supervisors can be called on in a pinch if they can swallow their pride and ask.
Real multi-day emergency and they will hunker down with family if distance permits and with their significant other in tow and muddle through just like every generation before them.

I hear that a Jennifer Lopez concert was also cancelled as a consequence of this blackout.

adam2 wrote: via a suicide lead.

What's that Adam?

stumuz1 wrote:

adam2 wrote: via a suicide lead.

What's that Adam?

An extension lead or other cable with a male plug on BOTH ends.
Plug one end into the generator and the other end into the fixed installation of a building.
Having hopefully isolated the incoming mains supply to the building !
Popular for connecting portable generators, especially in America but are catching on over here.
Also popular for connecting burger vans to an external mains supply.

Variants exist for connecting Dave's dodgy disco equipment, and for carpet cleaning machines.
These versions consist of audio or lighting equipment with TWO INTERCONNECTED mains inlets, or of leads with TWO male plugs connected to a single female socket of a greater capacity.

adam2 wrote:

stumuz1 wrote:

adam2 wrote: via a suicide lead.

What's that Adam?

An extension lead or other cable with a male plug on BOTH ends.
Plug one end into the generator and the other end into the fixed installation of a building.
Having hopefully isolated the incoming mains supply to the building !
Popular for connecting portable generators, especially in America

Hardly. The popular thing now is a standby generator that self starts the moment the mains supply cuts off. It is connected via a double pole double throw switch that can't feed back into the mains.
For example.
http://www.generac.com/all-products/gen ... 17&cat=249

I was thinking of the lower end of the market, not those with a properly installed generator.

Those with a portable generator used perhaps for power tools on a construction site, or for camping, who are then faced with a power cut at home.