August 17, 2003
Where Were You...?
I was in Stamford, CT, more than 50 miles from home, when the Big Blackout hit. I stayed overnight at the Stamford-Westin after a dinner of two margaritas. I awoke with the power restored, ordered a large breakfast and drove home to Long Island, keeping the hotel’s floor-length white robe as a memento of my “trouble.” Once home, I waited another 10 hours for power to return.
Now that (almost) all power is returned, what's next? The political, economic and public policy fallout and ramifications of an outage so widespread will likely be felt, and debated, for some time. The Carvel guy in my neigbhorhood claimed to have lost $13,000 worth of inventory. Multiply that by all the businesses affected from Montauk to Canton and pretty soon we're talking real money.
But it also says something about the communities affected - particularly in a city as diverse as NYC. I'm starting to think it's all the bad luck of Lili Sun, one young Canadian woman. You might have heard - she was mugged while visiting the Big Apple and at first refused offers to return in grand style. Well, she resisted for a few weeks and arrived Wednesday for her whirlwind, all-expense paid trip to Manhattan. Needless to say, I don't think she'll be returning any time soon. She was from Toronto so I don't think it was any better there. But once burned, shame on you - twice burned, shame on me as the saying goes.
As for New York, Hillary weighs in, Pataki demands an investigation, Mayor Mike can't win for losing (or can he?), NIMBY is again in the news and LIPA insists they did a much better job than LILCO could have done (the jury's still out on that one.) So politically, things are about the same in the Empire State. And just ask anyone from Buffalo - the FIRST thing you do is blame Canada. But it appears there is plenty of blame to go around - and should be evenly distributed among our elected officials - of both parties.
So I'm not sure what affect the Big Blackout had in other parts of the country. But here in New York's tri-state region, we know there are much worse things than no power for a few hours. Much worse. And we continue to grow up - and know, not just think, that life does go on. And a Carvel ice cream cone won't be too far behind. So where were you?
Posted by 9thwave at August 17, 2003 03:19 PMI have to disagree, this is a non-issue. As was noted on CNN’s Capital Gang and somewhat obvious empirically, most of the nation just doesn’t blame anyone. I don’t live in the blackout region so perhaps I am speaking out of turn, but the impression I am getting from newspapers and TV is that there is more of a puzzlement on the technical aspects of the failure than the political aspects.
At practically it is a zero-sum political game because though a. Bush’s energy plan was out there; b. it was a bad plan to begin with, at least that is how it has been presented, in the cradle of special interests groups it was conceived and in the lives of Alaskan caribou it will be enacted. So, while no one can blame Bush for not trying, neither will they blame Congress for not acting.
Posted by: Ry Rivard at August 17, 2003 07:36 PMI was near Seattle at work at 3:00 PM and I was wondering if we where all supposed to wear “I Heart NY” t-shirts in order to be “Patriotically Correct” again. I was glad that we have big dams and lots of nuke plants in Washington state. Also Enron had not raped this state power system before they went bust. By the way Ken Lay is still a free man! I mean I can understand Osama and Saddam but WE KNOW WHERE KEN LAY IS! We could fire a Tomahawk Strike on the compound in a decapitation strike and punish the evil doers of Enron.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at August 18, 2003 03:44 AMKen Lay, and all the other ex-Enron robber-barons live within the Texas Interconnect - the most stable electricity grid in the nation ( http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2051194 ). While almost 1 in 4 American’s lost power last week, Texan’s were enjoying Air Conditioning and energy surpluses. I guess we should be glad that Ken Lay and others at Enron decided to screw people outside the Texas Interconnect.
Posted by: Lefty at August 18, 2003 03:21 PMWow. I have a lot of anger and blame to go around. It *is* somebody’s fault that we had the blackout, and unlike liars in Bush admin, I believe heads should roll.
On a similar bent, when the Liar in Chief came on TV to say what happened, it was like the lies of 9/11 all over again.
Cover up? You bet.
Robbie
Posted by: Robbie D at August 19, 2003 10:21 AM“Ken Lay, and all the other ex-Enron robber-barons live within the Texas Interconnect - the most stable electricity grid in the nation”
You may want to look at why it is the most stable electricity grid in the nation. It certainly isn’t because of over-regulation.
Posted by: pete at August 19, 2003 02:51 PMPete wrote:
“You may want to look at why it is the most stable electricity grid in the nation. “
Esteemed Editor Pete,
What proof do you have of the above statement?
Robbie
Posted by: Robbie D at August 19, 2003 03:06 PMI’d also like to know how many tax payer $$ the Texas grid gets, what the consumer rates are, who foots the bill for improvements and maintenance, and a correct accounting of their financial worth, before I’d make any assumption of how “stable” the Texas grid is.
I’m sure there has to be some dirty Texas utility laundry with Dubya’s stains on them.
Posted by: Rick at August 19, 2003 07:49 PMRobbie: I am not esteemed so please refrain from calling me such things, I work for a living darn it!
Look up the proof for yourself. Look at the composition of the legislature there. Prove that what I said Isn’t true. Your language calling Bush
the “Liar in Chief” is a perfect indicator of where you are coming from. You sound like Ann Coulter. While you hate to hear that, it is true.
Where was I during the blackout? At work, thank goodness I don’t live there. Sorry for all of you that were affected by it.
Posted by: Pete at August 20, 2003 12:37 PM
