Don’t cross those wires - Los Angeles power outage
The electric power went off in Los Angeles during lunch time today, which is why this site (among many others) has been offline. I’ll put together some notes here and post when the server comes back up.
The electricity was knocked out shortly before 1 p.m. after two power surges, and outages were reported from downtown to the coast and north into the San Fernando Valley, an area encompassing hundreds of thousands of residents and thousands of businesses.
Heavy power usage can lead to blackouts. But the weather in Los Angeles was not unsually hot Monday.
The emergency status page at Dreamhost shows:
Serious electricity problems in the Los Angeles area have taken our entire network off-line.
We have no information about when power will be restored or what the status of our servers or network will be when power is restored.
Last Updated: Monday, 12-Sep-2005 13:39:23 PDT
An update from NBC4 news in Los Angeles at 2:17pm PDT: (they obviously have working backup power)
The Office of Emergency Management said power officials told the agency that the outage was linked to the accidental cutting of a cable.
A major portion of the San Fernando Valley reported outages, but power was being restored in some areas at just before 2 p.m.
Update from Dreamhost at 3:34pm PDT:
We now expect to begin turning all of our equipment back in within 45 to 90 minutes. Barring any complications, your websites and email will be fully operational again shortly afterwards.
Last Updated: Monday, 12-Sep-2005 15:34:47 PDT
Another update from NBC4 at 3:54pm PDT:
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power officials said the outage was linked to human error at a receiving station near Burbank. Workers connected the wrong wires, causing a surge of power that led to shutdowns at three power generating stations, according to officials.
Update from Dreamhost at 4:06pm PDT:
Power to our data center has now been restored and our network is back up. Our servers and equipment are being powered on gradually to avoid potentially damaging power spikes. Barring any complications, your websites and email will be fully operational again very soon.
Last Updated: Monday, 12-Sep-2005 16:06:03 PDT
…and the site is back online at 4:37pm PDT…
Update 09-12-2005 18:15 PDT: More from the L.A. Times, CNN, BoingBoing
Tags: los angeles, power, dreamhost
