http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130911/METRO01/309110089/Areas-Detroit-may-remain-without-power-until-noon-Thursday?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
and.....
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-11/detroit-black-out-2013
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/11/2013 14:28 -0400
September 11, 2013 at 5:57 pm
Areas of Detroit may remain without power
until noon Thursday
Fire trucks sit outside Coleman A. Young Municipal Center after an apparent power outage in Detroit. (Robin Buckson / The Detroit News)
Detroit— Several of the city’s major institutions remain without power Wednesday evening after an outage caused the closure of several city buildings in downtown and Midtown, including City Hall, the People Mover and parts of Wayne State University.
City spokesman Bob Warfield said at about 5 p.m. crews were continuing to work on the problems. Chief Operating Officer Gary Brown said it could be around noon Thursday before power is fully restored.
Wednesday’s outage around 1 p.m., caused by an overloading of the city’s power grid, forced hundreds of city workers and students to leave early, stranded some on the People Mover and in elevators in buildings and delayed major court cases.
The outage highlighted the need to restore basic city services to acceptable levels in a city under emergency management and a bankruptcy filing.
“Everybody knows we have an old system, so you can expect this to happen unless you do a massive upgrade. But the real problem is not warning people,” said political analyst Steve Hood. “There shouldn’t be any cause for people to be stuck in an elevator. This can’t continue to happen.”
Early Wednesday, power was lost at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice and the courthouse was evacuated about 1:30 p.m., interrupting testimony during the preliminary exam for Robert Bashara, who is accused of hiring a hit man to kill his wife, Jane Bashara. At 1:50 p.m., court officials announced that courthouse would be closed for the remainder of the day.
It also caused the arraignment of Abraham Pearson, aka Derreck White, to be postponed. Pearson was the prisoner awaiting sentence, who police say brazenly escaped custody at the courthouse Monday, resulting in a daylong manhunt in Detroit before he was captured.
Just under half of the Wayne State campus was without power at 2 p.m. and the main campus closed at 3 p.m. for the remainder of the day, said Matt Lockwood, a Wayne State spokesman. The other part of campus with electricity is powered by DTE Energy.
Bill Nowling, a spokesman for Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, said the two main trunk lines that feed the city’s power grid went down at about 10 a.m. — likely because of the increased power load due to the hot temperatures during the past two days.
“We haven’t really had a hot day like this in a while,” he said. “It blew some main lines. To ensure that we don’t have a larger blackout in more parts of the city, we made a decision on the city side to power down some nonessential service areas.”
As a result, Nowling added, the city powered down the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center and Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, among other areas, around 1 p.m. The city, he added, wants to ensure it can maintain power for hospitals, nursing homes and other essential facilities.
Cobo Center did not lose power, said Phil Frame, a spokesman for the arena. However Department of Public Lighting officials asked Cobo to reduce its use of electricity to ease stress on the grid, he said.
The city has been attempting to contact grid customers to tell them to reduce unnecessary power usage as the city’s Public Lighting Department and DTE Energy work to repair the lines and restore service.
The outage has primarily affected the central business district downtown. All of the affected facilities are powered by the Detroit Public Lighting Department.
“At this point we don’t know how long the repair is going to take,” Nowling said, adding he hopes the power will be back up by later this afternoon. “But we want to make sure we get it repaired in a way that’s going to last.”
At about 3:30 p.m., Bing spokesman Warfield said power would be restored by 5 p.m.
DTE released a statement late Wednesday saying it is working with the Public Lighting Department to determine the cause of the equipment failure and to “bring service back up to the affected customers.” Repairs to the failed cable “are expected to take up to 24 hours.”
At Wayne State in the afternoon, students milled about campus while others stood around deciding what they’d do the rest of the day.
Sando Elia, a senior biology major, and Natasha Gandhi, a senior psychology major, said that when they arrived at Science Hall for a biology lab there was no power. While they waited by the door of the building, Gandhi received an email that the main campus was closed.
“I’m going to enjoy the rest of the day and deal with the consequences later,” Elia said smiling.
Dare Adewole, a senior in the social work graduate program, stood under the shade of a tree at the Old Main building with friends Sabreah Smith, a junior civil engineering major, and Tolani Akinnibosun, a senior business finance major.
The power outage didn’t bring immediate dismissal from class for Adewole and his classmates. The teacher kept teaching for another hour, he said.
“I was shocked at first,” he said of the outage. “I thought it was our class only.”
The class opened the blinds for light and kept the door closed to keep the cool air in, he said. After some pressing from the students, the teacher dismissed the class, Adewole said.
The streetlights around the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center and Cobo Center are also not working. But Detroit Institute of Arts spokeswoman Pamela Marcil said the Midtown museum never lost power, contrary to an earlier statement from the mayor’s office.
Police officials said the power outage has not caused the Detroit Police Department any major crime problems.
“We’ve gotten calls for help, no criminal activity. But, for instance, there were people stuck on the People Mover platform that needed help,” said Detroit Police Sgt. Michael Woody.
Woody said thedepartment's 911 and emergency communications dispatch system was not affected,nor was the Detroit Public Safety headquarters. The department's internal phone system was down Wednesday afternoon.
Police were busy Wednesday scrambling to deploy patrol officers downtown at busy intersections where traffic signals were out to direct rush hour traffic.
Rod Liggons, who is on City Council member James Tate’s staff, called the power loss frustrating because it cut short his day.
“This just puts a major hiccup in this process,” Liggons said. “We definitely know some changes need to be made. This is not the first time. Hopefully, something will be done so there can be a closer look at the lighting service here.”
Detroit’s lighting system becomes vulnerable during extreme heat. In 2011, a major power outage hit downtown and Midtown, prompting the evacuation of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, shutdown of the People Mover and closing of several other buildings.
At the time, the city said the power loss also was caused by extreme power demand from air conditioners after two days when temperatures were 90 degrees or above.
There have been five major power outages in Detroit related to Detroit Public Lighting Department problems since 2000, including one in June 2000, considered the largest such outage in the city's history.
Wednesday’s power outage comes as major changes are coming for the lighting department.
The city signed an agreement with DTE Energy that will move Detroit away from providing electricity to customers. During the next five to seven years, Detroit will be completely out of providing electricity to about 115 large nonresidential customers at 1,400 sites throughout Metro Detroit.
DTE will take on the city’s customers, which include Wayne State University, the Detroit Public Schools, Joe Louis Arena, Cobo Center and the DIA. DTE will expand its system to handle the extra load, and the lighting department will decommission its equipment. DTE agreed in principle to reimburse the city for operation costs.
The outage comes a month after former Public Lighting director was stripped of his position as part of the city’s sweeping reforms under Orr.
Corri Worfford, a staffer for council member Andre Spivey, said she was returning from lunch when she saw some lights flickering in the Coleman Young Municipal Center.
“You could tell something was about to happen,” Worfford said.
Worfford adds she’s not frustrated, but relieved everyone is fine.
“I understand how on such a hot day this can happen,” she said.
But City Council Liaison Adam Hollier was less sympathetic, arguing the city “has not done enough to ensure serious outages on the city’s electrical grid do not occur.”
“A decade ago, a tree caused a blackout that knocked out a large portion of northeast (Detroit),” said Hollier, who is running for a City Council seat. “This is just one more example of the need to make investment in our infrastructure.”
and.....
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-11/detroit-black-out-2013
Detroit Black-Out 2013
10 years ago last month, Detroit (along with most of the North-East) suffered a major blackout. It seems, in an awkward anniversary remembrance, two main electrical lines have failed in downtown Detroit. As WXYZ reports,some of Detroit’s municipal buildings as well as downtown traffic lights and the People Mover are without power. Parts of the Wayne State University campus in midtown also have no electricity. Power went out just after 1:00 p.m. Only a few more hours until dark... justbeware the packs of rabid dogs...
City crews and DTE Energy are working to fix two main electrical lines to the city grid, according to Bill Nowling, a spokesman for emergency manager Keyn Orr. Nowling tells 7 Action News the outage was done as a precautionary measure.The City of Detroit Public Lighting Department provides electrical power to these sites. DTE Energy tells 7 Action News they are assisting in the effort to bring electrical service back online.DTE says a cable failure occurred at 12:45 p.m.The Mayor’s office confirmed knowledge of the outage to 7 Action News.The Detroit Transportation Corporation who operates the People Mover issued a statement saying they had, "Suspended People Mover service effective immediately, due to a reduction of available power for the system."A tweet from Wayne State University confirmed that some of the university's buildings are also without power.At the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, lights went out in the courtroom just a few minutes after Bob Bashara's former mistress had taken the stand in his preliminary hearing in the First Degree Murder case of his wife, Jane. The court building was quickly evacuated.
No comments:
Post a Comment