At 4:23, August 14 2003, Sky Net became self-aware.It was blamed on an overload in New York, a lightning hit at Niagara Falls, and the MS Blast virus. But the cascade of power failures today really began when a Canadian grid operator, reacting to the excessive air conditioner use, strung too many power strips together.
I’m presently still at work. I learned that our diesel backup generators should have kicked in immediately, but while they need four circuits to trip before activating, only three did so. It wasn’t till 6:10 PM that the generators kicked in, but even so only certain critical systems were operational. More systems have been brought back up (including the computer network — Hi everybody!), so the room I’m in is fully up and running now. I’m just hanging out to make sure everything’s stable, as well as to wait for the other buildings to come online.
The power remains out at home, sadly, so I can’t say I’m in that much hurry to leave. But don’t tell my bosses. They’re supposed to think I’m dedicated.
Most everyone has been saying the outage occurred at 4:11 EDT. But 4:23 was the time our LED clock was stuck at, so that’s what I’m sticking to too.