Florida DUers what's the real story with

[malaise]

that massive power cut?

What lies are they spewing this time?

[Midlodemocrat]

1. Dude. If they have no electricity, chances are they aren't online.

:rofl:

[SoFlaJet]

3. you never heard of laptops

with batteries Mid?

[Midlodemocrat]

4. I was just joking.

[idovoodoo]

7. Not every piece of the internet is on battery backup, though

:shrug:

[nashville_brook]

11. yeah, but routers aren't battery operated. (east Orlando has power, btw)

[Dorian Gray]

25. But internet connections

are usually PLUGGED into the walls. So, yeah... most won't be online right now.

[MonkeyFunk]

34. LOL

I have a laptop with a battery. I can't get online during a power outage.

[SoFlaJet]

2. all I know is I can't use my A/C right now

they have this feature that we get a cut in our FPL bill for allowing it where if there IS a power shortage like now they can turn our air off

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. This might be a good time

to consider investing in solar panels. Just a suggestion, and not just for Florida.

[DJ13]

6. Nuke plant shutdown cuts power in Fla.

5 minutes ago

MIAMI - A nuclear reactor owned by Florida's largest electric company automatically shut down Tuesday, causing sporadic power outages throughout the state that affected 3 million people. Authorities did not specify the cause of the shutdown but say there were no safety concerns.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that the two Florida Power & Light nuclear reactors at its Turkey Point power point 30 miles south of Miami automatically shut down. Two other power plants farther north in the state, the Crystal River reactor and St. Lucie twin reactors, continued to operate, although officials at those two facilities noticed the grid disturbance.

"We don't know whether the grid disturbance caused the units to shut down or that their shut down caused the grid disturbance," said Kenneth Clark, a spokesman at the NRC regional office in Atlanta. He said the two reactors were automatically shut down.

"There are no safety concerns. The reactors shut down as designed," said Clark in a telephone interview. He said both reactors continued to have offsite electric power. He said two coal-burning power plants at Turkey Point also shut down.

FPL estimated power should be restored by 6 p.m. A spokeswoman who spoke briefly to a reporter in the lobby of the company's Juno Beach headquarters did not have any additional information.

Outages appear to be concentrated in the southeast portion of the state, including Miami, but were also reported in along the southwest coast and northeastern part of the state as well as in the Florida Keys. The outages began shortly after 1 p.m. EST, though power in some affected areas had been restored an hour later.

In Collier County in the southwestern portion of the state, sheriff's spokeswoman Karie Partington said officials were working to determine the extent of the outages.

"We really don't have a good picture of it," sheriff's spokeswoman Karie Partington said. "It's not any one location."

In central Florida, the Orange and Volusia county sheriff's offices confirmed power outages at traffic signals across their jurisdictions.

"I don't have a handle on whether we're experiencing residential or commercial outages," said Gary Davidson, Volusia sheriff's spokesman. "I know we're receiving reports of traffic lights out virtually throughout the county, from Deland, Deltona, Ormond Beach, South Daytona to Debary."

Jaime Hernandez, a spokesman for Miami-Dade County Department of Emergency Management, said the county is partially activating its emergency operations center. He said no injuries have been reported so far.

By 2 p.m., most of northern downtown Miami appeared to be back to normal operation, including a campus of Miami Dade College and numerous stores and businesses. Traffic lights were out for a short time but appeared to be back in regular operation. In the Florida Keys, spokesman Andy Newman said areas were without power for about 15 minutes, but it was back up as well.

An official at the Miami International Airport says the facility is working on a generator backup but that no airline delays were reported.

In Collier County in the southwestern portion of the state, sheriff's spokeswoman Karie Partington said officials were working to determine the extent of the outages.

"We really don't have a good picture of it," sheriff's spokeswoman Karie Partington said. "It's not any one location."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080226/ap_on_re_us/florida_outages

[Mojorabbit]

10. They found a hole drilled into a pipe

in the reactor according to the nyt. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/us/02plant.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[nashville_brook]

12. that's from 2006

[Mojorabbit]

17. Whoops

thanks.

[nashville_brook]

27. hope that didn't sound nanny-ie. i remember when that happened, b/c it seemed

at the time to be hush-hush...like, shouldn't DHS have freaked out and raised the terror level to "scream bloody murder"?

[Mojorabbit]

32. No, I thank you

I didn't check the date which is unusual for me and I appreciate you catching it.

[flyarm]

8. 3 million customers without power.chemical failure at Turkey point

nuke power plant they just said on our local news..( i think it was Turkey point what they just said)

Miami has it worse..but we had some outages in my county Pinellas ..but they are back on..and there were outages all the way up to the panhandle..
this is what our local news just said.

fly

[cloudbase]

9. The Heat will do anything

to get out of playing another game.

[timtom]

13. Palm Beach County, here!

Haven't suffered any power outage at all.

[monmouth]

26. I'm in West Palm, subways still runn.....oops sorry..forgot where I was...n/t

[underpants]

14. Same as with the massive blackout of 2003-lack of regulation and oversight

The Ohio- NYC blackout was caused by a tree limb in Ohio and a chain of events there after. Why did the limb fall and knock out power? Because the utilities aren't required to do normal maintenance anymore so they do as little as possible to save money.

[Synnical]

15. Significant Equipment Failure, not routine

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sfl-226power,0,7392346.story

A nuclear reactor south of Miami experienced "a significant equipment failure'' Tuesday afternoon, triggering an emergency shutdown that left nearly a million people without power from Key West as far north as Daytona Beach and Tampa.

A spokesman for Florida Power & Light said the problems at the Turkey Point reactor were followed by an automatic shutdown for safety reasons. Spokeswoman Aletha Player estimated 700,000 customers were affected, adding that most will have power restored no later than 5:30 p.m.

"This is not a routine event, it's not routine at all,'' Player said at a 4 p.m. press conference at the Miami-Dade Emergency Operations Center. "We are still investigating ... we don't have all the details of what caused (the outage).''

[Divernan]

16. More detail from the Times/AP story.

FLORIDA CITY, Fla., April 1 (AP) — Officials inspecting a nuclear reactor at the Turkey Point plant here found a small hole drilled into a pipe that helps maintain pressure, and investigators were trying to determine why it was there, Florida Power and Light, the plant's operator, said Saturday.

The one-eighth-inch hole was discovered late Thursday during a series of inspections and tests performed before bringing the reactor back online, the utility said.

A spokeswoman for the utility, Rachel Scott, said the plant was not in danger. The reactor, one of two at the plant, in Miami-Dade County, had been shut down for a routine refueling, Ms. Scott said.

The utility repaired the damaged piping and, though the company's investigation continues, plans to bring the unit back into service in about a week, she said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are also investigating.

[Synnical]

18. I think that's from 2006 n/t

[Truth2Tell]

19. "We don't know what happened,

but we are absolutely SURE there are NO safety issues. We promise."

[demo dutch]

20. We were out for 3 1/2 hours in Miami- Power outages were caused by nuke plant shutdown

the Turkey point plant
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sfl-226power,0,7392346.story

Some areas are still not up

[better tomorrow]

21. sounds like out of the playbook of Derek Peterson

He was the guy in NE Florida who was caught trying to blow up the power grid with a bomb and got off scot free when the ARMY came and picked him up and said that he was just "playing Reconnasance (sp)" and shipped him back to his platoon. Nary a word was ever heard about it again....or him.....but "I" saved all the files.....

[A HERETIC I AM]

22. Power just came back on here in Ft. Myers an hour ago.

It had been off for most of the afternoon. No idea the cause. Been sitting in the office in the dark playing Brick Breaker on my Blackberry!

[better tomorrow]

23. 2003 reminded me of the satire poem

The Night That The Lights Went Out In The Northeast by Mommyerma
(based loosely on the song, "Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia")

He was on his way home from Washington, Been two months gone and he thought he'd stop
At his ranch and have him a drink 'fore he went home Laura,
Richard Cheney said "Hello"
And he said "Hi, what'cha doin', Dubya?"
"Prez, sit down, I got some bad news, it's gonna hurt"
He said "I'm your best friend and you know that's right"
"But your wallet's empty in your pants tonight"
"Since you been gone, drillin' in the Arctic has stopped, sir,

Well, Dubya got mad 'n' he saw red and Cheney said "Boy, don'tcha lose your head"
" 'cause to tell ya the truth, I been thinkin' that myself."

That's the night that the lights went out in the Northeast
That's the night that they fooled some innocent men,

Well, don't trust your lights to no backwoods Texas Pres'dent,

'cause the guy in DC's got oil stains on his hand.

Well, Dubya was disgusted and left the bar
Walkin' on home 'cause he didn't live far
See, Cheney didn't have many friends but he just made one,

Brother thought the Congress was a stallin'
So he went home and finally found
The only thing Papa had left him, and that was the "SWITCH".


So, he went off to Cheney's house
A'skippin' through the backwoods quiet as a mouse
Came upon some tracks Cheney was too dumb to make
He looked through that 'lectric plant with beady eyes

And he saw Cheney lyin' on the floor
In a puddle of oil and he started to shake.

Well, the Canadian Patrol was a'makin' their rounds
So he threw the "SWITCH" just to bog 'em down
And a big-bellied Toronto Mayor said "why'dya do it?"
And the people said "Guilty" in a make-believe trial
And slapped the Mayor on the back with a smile
Said' supper's waitin' at home, how'm I gonna get to it?"

That's the night that the lights went out in the Northeast
That's the night that they fooled some innocent men
Well, don't trust your lights to no backwoods Texas Pres'dent

'cause the guy in DC's got oil stains on his hand.

Well, they hung old Cheney before I could say
The tracks he saw while on his way
To Cheney's house and back that night were Dubya's

And his money had never left town
And that's one mystery that'll never be found
See, Dick Cheney don't miss when he aims his gun.


That's the night that the lights went out in the Northeast, oh oh oh

That's the night that they fooled some innocent men, ah-huh-huh
Well, don't trust your lights to no backwoods Texas Pres'dent
FADE
'cause the guy in DC's got oil stains on his hands.

[valerief]

24. Son of Enron is trading energy again. nt

[RainDog]

28. Ala. will do anything to stop that 60 min. program... :)

[ThomWV]

29. Florida is an "Island" electrically

Very simplified version of what happens:

Control equipment for Generators generally cause them to trip out of the system if they wonder off the grid's cycle by just a couple percent, 3 I think it is. The way Florida is wired the state has little interconnection with neighboring states but very much interconnection within the state. That means that what happens in Florida stays in Florida, but when it happens in Florida it has the potential to take out more than one part of the state.

So what happens is if one generating facility gets a bit out of wack with the rest of the grid it pops off line. That sends a shock down the line in that the rest of the grid has to immediately take up the slack resulting from the lost source. Sometimes the shock itself trips off more generators and when that happens blackouts spread. That's about it. Not so very complicated. Once they pop out for whatever reason it takes a while to get them all synchronized to bring them back on line. It certainly helps if loads are kept to a minimum while that is going on.

[sce56]

36. I don't mean to be rude but that is not posible.

When you sync with the grid you are magnetically locked into the grid, if you can not keep up with the speed your unit is pulled along with the grid this is called "Motoring" and it is bad for the machine as it will possibly pull the rotors bars apart. If you can not keep up magnetically with the voltage you will pull in KVAR or reactive power the magnetizing power that makes up the revolving filed that creates the electricity then you will be "Leading" If your are the base loaded unit and are set to zero speed droop then you are considered the Isochronous machine and set the bus frequency all other machines follow your lead. In those cases where you are being pulled along by the buss (nmotoring) your 32 device (Directional Power Relay)will take you out some units use the 67 Device (AC Directional Overcurrent Relay)to do this, and if you are leading normally the 55 Device (Power Factor Relay) takes you out. You can look up the ANSI device numbers here. http://www.kilowattclassroom.com/Archive/DevNos.pdf

Hope that helps as I have to unplug and get some off grid time and rest my node to get back to work at the power plant tomorrow!

[conscious evolution]

30. I am surprised it doesn't happen more often.

[malaise]

31. Thanks all n/t

[Eurobabe]

33. Land of the Free, Home of Crumbling Infrastructure

But we're winning that SURGE in Iraq.

:rofl: :rofl:

Sorry Florida. Stay safe.

[malaise]

40. Ding, ding

We have a winner.

A Roosevelt type infrastructure program must be the second item on a Democratic Administration. The first is the restoration of Habeas Corpus.

[SoCalDem]

35. Smart ass squirrel? n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

37. The rw christian where I work

thinks it is a sign of the end times.

[bedazzled]

38. they don't know what caused it, but they're sure it wasn't terrorism

100% sure! isn't that comforting?

[eowyn_of_rohan]

39. "don't know" what caused a malfunction in a nuclear power plant

no explanation of what that malfunction was either... may have been a near meltdown but at least it wasn't "terrorism"!

[Thothmes]

41. From what I heard this morning on the news

problem did not start at the nuke plant. Substation had a fire and was disconnected from grid. This caused an overload condition at the Power plant.
The steam turbine generators shut them selves down on overload.