Im in Sydney, Australia and we had a substation explode which brought down the CBD and two nearby suburbs. My company server room went from noisyng environmentaly controled hum to weird silence in a heart beat.

Very strange, nobody really reacted at all. We IT folk made a run for the servers to see how our babies were. Everybody else just stood around waiting for the power to come back on. After about thirty mintes it started to get hot and stuffy with no air con. Thats when people went looking for food/drink. Emergency generators came on and failed in three minutes with a small fire. That left 71 stories with no aircon or lifts and people started leaving big time.

Once outside people milled around waiting for news and about 45 min latter started going home.

City slowly coming back online and the traffic is flowing again.

I will not be in any city building after this on rollover after this.

Final note: Film crews came to the building to film the crowd and security chased them off. No pictures, no pictures. One guard actually threw a film crew out physically.

-- praxis (fake@oz.com.au), October 12, 1999

Answers

spooky. My condolences. I hope that all turns out well there.

As for the building, If i remember correctly, there is no way to "just open a window" to get some fresh air. The more people, the less O2. I agree with your decision.

-- DavePrime (the-tv-guy@hotmail.com), October 12, 1999.

Wow! Talk about synchronicity. Go read my response to your previous post about the escalator. I was typing that while this was happening to you! Next year is going to be quite an adventure.

-- @ (@@@.@), October 12, 1999.

Li nk to Online Article

-- Simon Richards (simon@wair.com.au), October 12, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

During the power outage in the "Bay Area" last month, I happened to go to the bank because that was already part of my plans for that day, and also because my lunch plans since foiled when none of the restaurants were functional. I was in the middle of a discussion about why I could only withdraw $300 instead of the $600 that I had requested, when the power came back on. What immediately struck me was how noisy everything was.

I left with just $100, because it was going to be another hour before they would get their computers back up. The reason they gave me for not allowing me to withdraw $600 was that they had no way of checking whether my account had that much money. This is the treatment I got, even though every teller and manager in the bank knows that I have carried a healthy balance there for a decade.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), October 12, 1999.

Dancr, don't blame the bank. I am a former bank auditor and you would be amazed at how many people will defraud the bank in the situation you've recounted for us. Too many people know that when very little info (such as no balance)is printed on your paper receipt from an ATM, it's a clear sign the computers are down, and every yokel with a $20 balance can now get $100. Believe me, they do it!

-- Tom G. (tgray48747@aol.com), October 12, 1999.

"Emergency generators came on and failed in three minutes with a small fire."

If there's one constant in the accounts we've been reading for over a year, it's
THAT THE BACK-UP GENERATORS FAIL !!!

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), October 12, 1999.

Ashton & Leska.

So, what's your point?

Oh, you mean the generators at nuke plants that keep the core cool in case of the grid going down?

-bg-

thank

-- greg (walshbros1@aol.com), October 12, 1999.