How's everyone doing? Fired up the ol' generators yet? My power never went out. Think the cities will riot? I don't think so, everyone seems to be pulling together. Cleavland looks a little iffy, though.

So, the main power lines are down. What services are still running?
Can calls be made from regular (non-cell) phone lines?

What about buildings/companies which use digital phone service?

Are all internet providers down, or do some/all have some form of battery/generator backups?

How are people getting news? Is shortwave radio the only source?

How long was water available in the taller buildings before the lines were drained?

What about small towns in the middle of nowhere? Are their phone lines up? Do they have any other way of getting news?

My job makes me travel a lot, luckily this website has really helped me be prepared. I'm ready for just about any class-4 or smaller huricane to hit my home here in Houston, but I never considered a situation like this blackout. I carry water, trailmix, flashlight(s), a small shortwave radio, FSK, and an Altoids PSK when I travel. But it never occured to me that I wouldn't be able to get into my hotel room because the power-locks were dead in a blackout!

Some cell service will work, it depends if the local tower is operational or not.

Digital phone service still requires a line with working equipment.

Most internet equipment is on UPS's, then some with generators. The ups holds the equipment untill the gen starts up if there is one, but then they usually can't support all the equipment and the heating and cooling systems required for them and they don't have a limitless power source. Big companies with the $$$ will have their equipment in seperate locations in hopes that both don't go down at once.

Yep, be lucky you were as prepared as you were so you could work around any problems that you weren't prepared for.

My town was the only one I know of that wasn't knocked out. Strangly, my internet source, which is based in a town south of here (city actually) stayed online. Our lights did flicker occasionally.

People seem to be getting the news by word of mouth. The newspeople tried their best to dispell any fear of terrorism by saying it wasn't the cause within 5 minutes of the blackout. Those with battery powered radios, etc, could get news from there. The subways were evacuated.

In some cities, the water is stored in towers, so as long as the water in the towers was there, the force of gravity could be used to keep anyone below the waterline hydrated.

Small towns tend to have people who asre a bit more prepared than larger townies, so I'm sure they could make do.

My wife was here in Connecticut for the blackout while
I was in New Hampshire on business. Oddities noted were as follows:

1. She was able to get to our ISP's website (Earthlink) from a PC on emergency power but it would not recognize her user name/password for HTML email access. My father-in-law had the same experience with the same ISP from te same PC.

2. Cell service was apparently still operating but I did not get a one of my voicemails from Friday until today (Saturday). Although I did receive ones from late Thrsday and Friday night almost instantly.

Chris

Cordless phones won't work. Despite their battery, the base station needs AC power to work. I keep an old cord phone in my closet. During blackouts it usually works because the phone works on the phone companies lines. Not sure if they use generators or because outages are usually local and they are outside of the blackout area. Anybody know if phone companies have their own backup power?

///Anybody know if phone companies have their own backup power? ///

Yes we do. Sort of.

Commercial AC coming in is rectified to 52.08VDC. The voltage is "stored" in the central office in battery strings of 24 cells. The number of strings varies by the size of the office. In the event of a commercial power failure backup generators automatically kick in. All of our offices with in house generators have a minimum of 72 hours worth of deisel on site. The batteries hold the office during the cutover and, in the event the generator fails, can hold the office for about 8 hours.

This is true for just about all offices in the cities. When you start getting into smaller, rural areas it's a different story. We have one trailer mounted generator that supports 7 "remote" offices scattered over 3 counties. Obviously someone's phones are going down unless we could come up with more power. In a typical situation (not the last few days) Edison has the power back on before we even get on site with a generator.

Ed

My wife and I were out section hiking the AT for 6 days when the blackout happened. We caught a ride into town for a hotel stay because we needed showers, etc. If we put it off, we'd have barely known about it.

First we stopped in rural Unionville, NY. We didn't realize there was no power outside of that town. They still had manual cash registers at the deli so we could buy drinks from the coolers. That town had no lodgings (just one of the less attractive hiker hostels), so it was off to Port Jervis.

We got dropped off in front of the Comfort Inn at about 5pm. They almost seemed to be trying to convince us not to stay, but were willing once we insisted we didn't mind the outage (got a nice discount for it too <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />). No power at all in the hotel other than the emergency lights, which failed by 7:30 or so, including most of the exit signs. There was no water service.

The internal digital phone system was dead. There was reportedly an operating pay-phone on the premises. About 50% of cell users seemed to be able to get calls through, our Verizon service worked fine. We had no radio with us, but the radio in the minivan we got a ride in was picking up stations.

The restaurant in the hotel was closed, but since we were carrying 35-45 lbs on our backs, we were pretty well prepared.Not that we wouldn't be normally, just more than usual. We set up the white gas stove out by the pool and prepared one of our dehydrated meals. I burned myself with boiling water in the dark before switching on the lantern, dark creeps in that way sometimes. I realized our hiking FAK was pretty lacking in the burn treatment department. It was just a bad first degree burn on one finger and minor first degree burns on 3 others on that hand, but I was ok for the next day, even with trekking poles.

The hotel card locks worked just fine. According to an employee they are battery operated, not attached to the AC at all. Makes sense once you realize that they are set in the door, not the frame. This might only apply to retrofits? I'm not sure. The card lock for the back door of the hotel was not operating at all. It was mounted on the wall, not the door. It was unlocked until the power came back on around 10pm. I guessed it failed open, but I suppose an employee could have unlocked it when the power went out.

Our power back home in coastal south Jersey never even blipped according to relatives, and the fact that no clocks needed to be reset.