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August 15, 2003
Hello and Goodbye, Twelve Hour Outage
I hardly knew ye.
So where was I when the lights went out? Sitting in my office at work. However, unlike most folks, I was aware of the scope of the situation within minutes. My good buddy from Gallucci's called to tell me that both CEI and Cleveland Public Power were offline. We both knew what meant: something big was happening.
I quickly packed up my laptop, finished shutting down the computers that were on battery backup, and got the heck out. When I got in my car and turned on the radio, I was even more alarmed: the outage had also affected New York, Toronto and Detroit.
But I was ready. Within twenty minutes of the outage, I was at home with a bath tub full of fresh water, two pots boiling, my boogy-bag located within arms reach, pistol locked and loaded, and enjoying a cold drink from the fridge while listening to the windup radio.
The rolling brownouts as the power came back on made my neighbors air conditioner squeak and squeal. I guess he didn't have the good sense to turn it off.
Update:
I just read a report that says the power problem may have originated here in Northeast Ohio. With that in mind, maybe it would be worth my time to note here exactly what happened as I remember it. Yes, it was around 4:15 PM. But the power didn't just go out. First it blipped off with a brown out and then came back on within a few seconds. (quickly enough that Matt Melis's PC didn't reboot.) Then the power stayed on long enough for Matt Melis to walk down to my office, which would be around 20-30 seconds, rough estimate. Then everything went off again, for good.
So there it is, for what it's worth
Posted by crandal at August 15, 2003 09:58 AM