Arrogant, Entitled, Pompous Windbags

[Gregmal]

Are New Yorkers....

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/14/con-edison-apologizes-for-manhattan-blackout-as-governor-orders-investigation.html

 

I lose power occasionally during storms for a short period of time; maybe 1-2 a year. Have had a few 12+ hour outages during incredibly bad weather spurts over the past decade. Shit happens, this sort of stuff is part of life and expected.

 

These tools lose power for 4 hours and now want an "investigation", to "hold all parties accountable", because losing power for a few hours is "unacceptable"? So glad I moved from that area.

 

And clueless De Blasio, out campaigning rather than doing his job despite having less than 1% of the lefties, blamed a manhole fire LOL

[BG2008]

Are New Yorkers....

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/14/con-edison-apologizes-for-manhattan-blackout-as-governor-orders-investigation.html

 

I lose power occasionally during storms for a short period of time; maybe 1-2 a year. Have had a few 12+ hour outages during incredibly bad weather spurts over the past decade. Shit happens, this sort of stuff is part of life and expected.

 

These tools lose power for 4 hours and now want an "investigation", to "hold all parties accountable", because losing power for a few hours is "unacceptable"? So glad I moved from that area.

 

And clueless De Blasio, out campaigning rather than doing his job despite having less than 1% of the lefties, blamed a manhole fire LOL

 

Greg,

 

I think you live in the burbs.  4 hours without AC in NYC in 90 degree weather can kill people.  There is no grass and you can just chill in the backyard.  You lose power and everyone's apartment becomes an oven. 

[Gregmal]

So my first post was kind of mocking this and being facetious, but in a more serious manner, if this is the case, and such a short period without power could cause mass harm, shouldn't there be contingency plans, back up power sources, etc? Like it really wouldn't take much for a foreign terrorist organization to knock out power for a day or two and cause something really, really bad, no?

 

Like yesterdays event seemed like a normal course of business event. A shit happens and that's to be expected situation. Transformers go all the time in most areas. NYC, from an infrastructural standpoint, needs to get its shit together.

[Guest cherzeca]

Con Edison is a bottleneck target for terrorists.  it makes no sense that the MTA cannot have an alternative (temporary) source of power for subways.  and why can't streetlights and stoplights have separate backup sources?  you are still going to have blackouts, but for essential services, why no backup contingencies?

[LC]

I think you live in the burbs.  4 hours without AC in NYC in 90 degree weather can kill people.  There is no grass and you can just chill in the backyard.  You lose power and everyone's apartment becomes an oven.

Bingo. The tri-state area is not the same "NY" as Flatbush Ave.

 

if this is the case, and such a short period without power could cause mass harm, shouldn't there be contingency plans, back up power sources, etc?

 

Yes, hence the:

 

"investigation", to "hold all parties accountable", because losing power for a few hours is "unacceptable"

[Gregmal]

I think you live in the burbs.  4 hours without AC in NYC in 90 degree weather can kill people.  There is no grass and you can just chill in the backyard.  You lose power and everyone's apartment becomes an oven.

Bingo. The tri-state area is not the same "NY" as Flatbush Ave.

 

if this is the case, and such a short period without power could cause mass harm, shouldn't there be contingency plans, back up power sources, etc?

 

Yes, hence the:

 

"investigation", to "hold all parties accountable", because losing power for a few hours is "unacceptable"

 

Except they already determined it was a blown transformer. They could be lying and it could be something more devious they are trying to keep under wraps, but most likely it isn't. So who is there to "hold accountable"? More likely just another politically motivation investigation, where they'll rail on the big bad corporation and utilize the talking points for political highlight reel material.

[John Hjorth]

Isn't the power grid in NYC area built with redundancy with regard to transformer stations? [Here, & nowadays, every time the power grid is expanded, and a new transformer station is built, its redundant & back-up transformer station is built simultaneously.]

[Spekulatius]

Isn't the power grid in NYC area built with redundancy with regard to transformer stations? [Here, & nowadays, every time the power grid is expanded, and a new transformer station is built, its redundant & back-up transformer station is built simultaneously.]

 

Much if the US power grid is 2nd world standard at best. Wooden poles leaning over until they fall down, transformers that look they are from the 60’s and high voltage lines  strung and cobbled together are the norm. I list power last winter in an apartment I rented for a week.

 

However on the plus side,  electricity is fairly cheap compared to Europe when you get it. Most larger industrial facilities have multiple power connections for redundancy.

[John Hjorth]

It really reads weird to me, Spekulatius,

 

-Time for a US infrastructure reform!

[Liberty]

Are New Yorkers....

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/14/con-edison-apologizes-for-manhattan-blackout-as-governor-orders-investigation.html

 

I lose power occasionally during storms for a short period of time; maybe 1-2 a year. Have had a few 12+ hour outages during incredibly bad weather spurts over the past decade. Shit happens, this sort of stuff is part of life and expected.

 

These tools lose power for 4 hours and now want an "investigation", to "hold all parties accountable", because losing power for a few hours is "unacceptable"? So glad I moved from that area.

 

And clueless De Blasio, out campaigning rather than doing his job despite having less than 1% of the lefties, blamed a manhole fire LOL

 

Greg,

 

I think you live in the burbs.  4 hours without AC in NYC in 90 degree weather can kill people.  There is no grass and you can just chill in the backyard.  You lose power and everyone's apartment becomes an oven.

 

People also get stuck in elevators, the elderly have to walk up and down 30 floors to get home, etc.

 

Tall glass buildings without HVAC (even just airflow from fans) can turn into quite hostile places rather quickly too..

[TwoCitiesCapital]

Are New Yorkers....

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/14/con-edison-apologizes-for-manhattan-blackout-as-governor-orders-investigation.html

 

I lose power occasionally during storms for a short period of time; maybe 1-2 a year. Have had a few 12+ hour outages during incredibly bad weather spurts over the past decade. Shit happens, this sort of stuff is part of life and expected.

 

These tools lose power for 4 hours and now want an "investigation", to "hold all parties accountable", because losing power for a few hours is "unacceptable"? So glad I moved from that area.

 

And clueless De Blasio, out campaigning rather than doing his job despite having less than 1% of the lefties, blamed a manhole fire LOL

 

Greg,

 

I think you live in the burbs.  4 hours without AC in NYC in 90 degree weather can kill people.  There is no grass and you can just chill in the backyard.  You lose power and everyone's apartment becomes an oven.

 

People also get stuck in elevators, the elderly have to walk up and down 30 floors to get home, etc.

 

I used to live in NYC on the 26th floor of a 30 floor building. I remember a morning when 2 of the 3 elevators were out. After waiting 15 minutes for an elevator that I could get on (every time it came to my floor it was already full and I'm sure it was hitting every floor on the way down and again on the way up), I decided it was just easier to take the stairs down 26 flights so I could get to work.

 

I was 28 and able to do that fairly easily. Not sure how I would have felt about it at 82 or what the stairs would have looked like if ALL traffic, up and down, were diverted to them.

[Castanza]

Not to derail the topic, but I was talking with my Grandfather about this blackout (Who was a kid/teen during the depression). He raised the question of what would it look like in these cities or heavily developed areas if we truly hit another depression. People are so reliant on modern day tech, systems, and processes. How many people still grow gardens or have any type of fallback for things like this? I love visiting cities as much as the next person. But I'm certainly glad my wife and I recently purchased 10 acres to build a house on. I'll get off my soap box now  :P

 

NYC does need to get their infrastructure in check. And this is coming from a Pennsylvanian  :P

[rukawa]

I think you live in the burbs.  4 hours without AC in NYC in 90 degree weather can kill people.  There is no grass and you can just chill in the backyard.  You lose power and everyone's apartment becomes an oven.

Bingo. The tri-state area is not the same "NY" as Flatbush Ave.

 

if this is the case, and such a short period without power could cause mass harm, shouldn't there be contingency plans, back up power sources, etc?

 

Yes, hence the:

 

"investigation", to "hold all parties accountable", because losing power for a few hours is "unacceptable"

 

This should be in the politics section.

 

Anyways New Yorkers should not really worry about this...they should celebrate. This is what their future will look like once the AOC's GND is fully implemented :) Think of how much greenhouse gas emissions were reduced as a result of this blackout...the planet will thank them.

[John Hjorth]

You may be right, rukawa,

 

But if you read Greg's post #3, it is actually quite clear, at least to me, that Greg just wanted a non-political discussion of a "living condition", understood as :

 

We all have to distinguish between:

 

1. An "issue" [understood as something that you can actually do something about to change - to the better, if rationality vindicates everything else],

2. A "condition" [understood as something - hard or perhaps even impossible - to make a change about, as an individual].

 

Furthermore,

 

"Issues" can mentally be divided into "problems" or "tasks" [the properties of "problems" are that they bug you, or - one way or another, goes under your skin/affects you mentally, while "tasks" you just "fix", where "fixing" even may imply that you just wait for the damn thing to go away/disappear.]

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

From that angle, I think this topic is actually interesting, because it covers an element of daily-day life around the world, here power-outages in the US and other places.

 

To me, it's educational to read such stuff, actually. [ : - ) ]

[LC]

Another interesting thing to note is that, the US electric grid was cobbled together piece-meal. In terms of things like national security and such, apparently this is beneficial in that the lack of inter-connectivity ensures there are little to no critical bottlenecks that could become terrorism targets.

 

In terms of NYC, Con Ed is a mess but it is not really their fault. This was not a modern, planned city. It has evolved over centuries. Look at the history of how the city was built and how these buildings get heat and such. I mean, they are still using steam for temperature control! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system

 

So while it is understandable that old technology will suffer unreliabilities (or not if you look at it from a survivorship bias perspective), it is much more expensive for NYC to lose power, than say Bergen County. In terms of the people living and their health as DTEJ mentioned and also in terms of productivity. Banks, corporations, etc. going down for 24 hrs is much costlier than if Joe's Bakery can't make some pastries for a day. And, residents pay very high city taxes comparatively, partly to prevent this sort of thing. So an investigation is certainly warranted. Perhaps we should involve Bob Mueller?  ;D

[Castanza]

Another interesting thing to note is that, the US electric grid was cobbled together piece-meal. In terms of things like national security and such, apparently this is beneficial in that the lack of inter-connectivity ensures there are little to no critical bottlenecks that could become terrorism targets.

 

In terms of NYC, Con Ed is a mess but it is not really their fault. This was not a modern, planned city. It has evolved over centuries. Look at the history of how the city was built and how these buildings get heat and such. I mean, they are still using steam for temperature control! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system

 

So while it is understandable that old technology will suffer unreliabilities (or not if you look at it from a survivorship bias perspective), it is much more expensive for NYC to lose power, than say Bergen County. In terms of the people living and their health as DTEJ mentioned and also in terms of productivity. Banks, corporations, etc. going down for 24 hrs is much costlier than if Joe's Bakery can't make some pastries for a day. And, residents pay very high city taxes comparatively, partly to prevent this sort of thing. So an investigation is certainly warranted. Perhaps we should involve Bob Mueller?  ;D

 

Yup the older cities in the US certainly have more issues. Especially as population grows. Philly is also a mess.

[Castanza]

Not to derail the topic, but I was talking with my Grandfather about this blackout (Who was a kid/teen during the depression). He raised the question of what would it look like in these cities or heavily developed areas if we truly hit another depression. People are so reliant on modern day tech, systems, and processes. How many people still grow gardens or have any type of fallback for things like this? I love visiting cities as much as the next person. But I'm certainly glad my wife and I recently purchased 10 acres to build a house on. I'll get off my soap box now  :P

 

NYC does need to get their infrastructure in check. And this is coming from a Pennsylvanian  :P

 

One of my favorite episodes of twilight zone is The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street and it hits on this theme.  I have a home in the mountains so Im kinda use to prepping for things like this for longer times than normal as its not uncommon to have roads be block for extended amounts of time.

 

The thing that scares me most about society today is the general lack of kindness or willingness to help. People during the depression for the most part tried to be respectable and held each other accountable. People back then seemed to work more for the collective. Sure, selfishness has always been a general theme of humanity, but today people are me me me me me. And we get small glimpses of this during natural disasters.

[Guest cherzeca]

@castanza

 

since you are costanza, I will costanza by taking the opposite

 

there is a lot of division and animosity on social media.  but I see a lot of courtesy and mutual respect in daily life.  my prayer is that the former absorbs the hate so that the latter can continue to thrive

[Cigarbutt]

@castanza

 

since you are costanza, I will costanza by taking the opposite

 

there is a lot of division and animosity on social media.  but I see a lot of courtesy and mutual respect in daily life.  my prayer is that the former absorbs the hate so that the latter can continue to thrive

I share your long-term enthusiasm given the evolutionary (and cooperative) nature of humanity, despite the negativity and divisiveness that often oozes from online exchanges.

The other day, I was discussing with my daughter (studies software engineering) and she was explaining how it was becoming possible to detect when an exchange was about to become abusive (previous behaviors, nature of the exchange, words used). This is quite similar to discussions around the dinner table but online exchanges lack non-verbal and other cues. Some people have tried to use bots during Twitter exchanges that would introduce empathic comments at opportune times and it seems to work quite well :) Also, in-group discipline and posts leading by example seem to be helpful.

 

Back on topic, what is perhaps surprising is the relative low frequency of power outages given that the City That Never Sleeps sits on the oldest and largest underground network of electrical wiring and connections in the world with some of equipment (5 to 10%) dating from the 1880's, at a time when Edison himself was 'playing' with electricity and contributing to the debate about the direct and alternate current. Maybe the timing is good with ultra-low interest rates for major infrastructure upgrades but progress is being made as, a few years ago, Con Edison moved from reactive maintenance to preemptive or preventative maintenance using modern statistical tools and even machine learning in order to, for instance, predict where and when the next manhole fire or explosion will occur. But more work needs to be done.

An interesting feature about the redundancy principle is the fact that the City of New York is presently negotiating a long-term electricity supply contract coming from hydro power in my jurisdiction. Of course, the political message is centered on the 'clean' energy aspect but diversification of inputs may also be helpful for secondary prevention of power outages and help the grid be great again.

[LC]

An interesting feature about the redundancy principle is the fact that the City of New York is presently negotiating a long-term electricity supply contract coming from hydro power in my jurisdiction.

Are you talking about QC? No need to answer of course, but NYS has been purchasing from HydroQuebec for decades.

http://www.hydroquebec.com/international/en/exports/markets/new-york.html

 

On the topic of human divisiveness, while I too share the concern I would argue that in times of real, in-your-face catastrophes, people do band together. It is human instinct, we increase our odds of survival when we work together. In NYC I saw this first hand with 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy. My hope in humanity is not dead yet  ;D

[Castanza]

@castanza

 

since you are costanza, I will costanza by taking the opposite

 

there is a lot of division and animosity on social media.  but I see a lot of courtesy and mutual respect in daily life.  my prayer is that the former absorbs the hate so that the latter can continue to thrive

 

I did spell it that way on purpose on case anyone was wondering :P But you are probably right. Media definitely exaggerates real life.  But there certainly are differences. However some of those differences are for the better (racism). I think humanity and our ability to communicate in personal ways is going downhill. It seems like most people don't even know their neighbors.

 

cAstanza

[Castanza]

@castanza

 

since you are costanza, I will costanza by taking the opposite

 

there is a lot of division and animosity on social media.  but I see a lot of courtesy and mutual respect in daily life.  my prayer is that the former absorbs the hate so that the latter can continue to thrive

I share your long-term enthusiasm given the evolutionary (and cooperative) nature of humanity, despite the negativity and divisiveness that often oozes from online exchanges.

The other day, I was discussing with my daughter (studies software engineering) and she was explaining how it was becoming possible to detect when an exchange was about to become abusive (previous behaviors, nature of the exchange, words used). This is quite similar to discussions around the dinner table but online exchanges lack non-verbal and other cues. Some people have tried to use bots during Twitter exchanges that would introduce empathic comments at opportune times and it seems to work quite well :) Also, in-group discipline and posts leading by example seem to be helpful.

 

Back on topic, what is perhaps surprising is the relative low frequency of power outages given that the City That Never Sleeps sits on the oldest and largest underground network of electrical wiring and connections in the world with some of equipment (5 to 10%) dating from the 1880's, at a time when Edison himself was 'playing' with electricity and contributing to the debate about the direct and alternate current. Maybe the timing is good with ultra-low interest rates for major infrastructure upgrades but progress is being made as, a few years ago, Con Edison moved from reactive maintenance to preemptive or preventative maintenance using modern statistical tools and even machine learning in order to, for instance, predict where and when the next manhole fire or explosion will occur. But more work needs to be done.

An interesting feature about the redundancy principle is the fact that the City of New York is presently negotiating a long-term electricity supply contract coming from hydro power in my jurisdiction. Of course, the political message is centered on the 'clean' energy aspect but diversification of inputs may also be helpful for secondary prevention of power outages and help the grid be great again.

 

How does the frequency of outages NYC compare to other large cities? I guess it depends on how you look at the situation. If you're a civil engineer you're probably thinking "These people have no idea how messed up this system is and difficult it is to keep this city running." but the citizen is thinking. "Why can't the power company just do their job!"

 

[pau_]

Politics please so I don't have to see it. Signed, an arrogant, entitled, pompous windbag!

[Cigarbutt]

An interesting feature about the redundancy principle is the fact that the City of New York is presently negotiating a long-term electricity supply contract coming from hydro power in my jurisdiction.

Are you talking about QC? No need to answer of course, but NYS has been purchasing from HydroQuebec for decades.

http://www.hydroquebec.com/international/en/exports/markets/new-york.html

Last April, there was an announcement by the NY mayor to reactivate discussions (the project is essentially ready to go, what was lacking was the impetus by leaders) for a significant project involving a new distribution line (eight terawatt hours of electricity).

How does the frequency of outages NYC compare to other large cities? I guess it depends on how you look at the situation. If you're a civil engineer you're probably thinking "These people have no idea how messed up this system is and difficult it is to keep this city running." but the citizen is thinking. "Why can't the power company just do their job!"

The post was mostly based on a superficial impression but, if in a position of power, outside of the mumbo jumbo dedicated for the citizen, a reasonable response would have been to consult the city department responsible for the grid supervision and regulation and order an investigation if appropriate. Wasn't this the gist of the thread?

I understand that the Jennifer Lopez show was cancelled at the Madison Square Garden but the outage seemed to raise other relevant security and safety issues.

[meiroy]

Isn't the power grid in NYC area built with redundancy with regard to transformer stations? [Here, & nowadays, every time the power grid is expanded, and a new transformer station is built, its redundant & back-up transformer station is built simultaneously.]

 

Much if the US power grid is 2nd world standard at best. Wooden poles leaning over until they fall down, transformers that look they are from the 60’s and high voltage lines  strung and cobbled together are the norm. I list power last winter in an apartment I rented for a week.

 

However on the plus side,  electricity is fairly cheap compared to Europe when you get it. Most larger industrial facilities have multiple power connections for redundancy.

 

Which just goes to show how massive infrastructure projects could easily increase productivity.  Would be such an amazing positive economic investment.