LA blackout

[Vashner]

The city of drugs.. I mean the city of Love is out of power...

LOS Lakerville no worky...

"Large Portion of Los Angeles Loses Power
By LAURA WIDES, Associated Press Writer


LOS ANGELES -- A large portion of Los Angeles was hit with a blackout Monday afternoon.

The city was investigating the cause and extent of the outage. But Sgt. Catherine Plows, a police spokeswoman, said terrorism was not suspected.

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Electrical power was knocked out shortly before 1 p.m. after two power surges, and traffic was snarled at intersections throughout the city when stop lights went dark. The lights also went out at downtown high-rises.

The Police Department went on "full tactical alert," meaning no officers were allowed to leave duty.

The blackout came a day after ABC aired a videotape of a purported al-Qaida member making terrorist threats against Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia, on the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Heavy usage on hot days can lead to blackouts. But the weather in Los Angeles was not unsually hot Monday"

[Marcus Bryant]

eh?

[Vashner]

News outlets are reporting major power outage in Los Angeles. Nothing really to link yet it's breaking news.

[Spurminator]

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/12/D8CIUFIO2.html

[sa_butta]

http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2005-09-12T202708Z_01_YUE273471_RTRIDST_0_USREPORT-ENERGY-LOSANGELES-DC.XML

[2Blonde]

They just broke in to programming with a report about it. They were talking about people being stuck in elevators. Man wouldn't it suck if you were one of the NO evacuees who got sent to CA and then got stuck in some elevator somewhere in CA today. Talk about bad luck. :shootme

[Vashner]

The temps where in the 80's today... hum. It could be mechanical (blown gear) or maybe Solar flare (there have been warnings issued recently)..

Or sabotage....

[Sportcamper]

LA City, County, Long Beach etc has brown outs & black outs every day...We are talking hundreds of square miles....And our news casters have a flair for the dramatic...

[boutons]

Latest al Quaida video tape said LA was next.

It's just a suitcase nuclear bomb.

No worries, FEMA will clean it all up .... eventually. :)

[SWC Bonfire]

LA City, County, Long Beach etc has brown outs & black outs every day...We are talking hundreds of square miles....And our news casters have a flair for the dramatic...Things are fine... :lol

Thank God we live in Texas and have our own independent power grid.:tu

[Trainwreck2100]

It was used to mask a jewelry/art heist.

[Vashner]

I still plan on buying a generator soon.. the problem with gasoline.. even with STA BIL it's only good 6 months..

[TOP-CHERRY]

The blackout came a day after ABC aired a videotape of a purported al-Qaida member making terrorist threats against Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia, on the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

How scary.

[Vashner]

I think it could be this... as I suspected earlier..


Major Flare Erupts
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 09 September 2005
10:33 pm ET


Updated 12:36 p.m. ET Sept. 11

An ongoing series of seven major solar flares, including two on Saturday, could disrupt communications on Earth and generate colorful sky shows for people at high northern latitudes for the next several days.

Already satellites have been affected. Even more serious effects are possible this week.

The spate of activity from the Sun is being generated by a large sunspot named 798. Sunspots are cooler and darker regions of pent-up magnetic activity. When they unleash their energy, it's a bit like the top coming off a shaken champagne bottle.

The sunspot is just rotating into view, so its energy has been directed sideways and not directly at Earth. In coming days, if more major flares erupt as forecasters expect, they'll head right at us and radio blackouts, cell phone dropouts and other communications disruptions are more likely, scientists said.

Solar flares send radiation to Earth in about 8 minutes. Hours later, clouds of charged particles can engulf the planet. If the magnetic field of a storm is oriented opposite to our planet's protective magnetic field, gaps are created and radiation leaks to the planet's surface, potentially threatening astronauts aboard the International Space Station, sometimes shorting out satellites, and even causing terrestrial power grids to trip.

Solar activity is at "very high levels," according to NOAA's Space Environment Center (SEC).

The SEC has reported that agencies have experienced problems with fluctuations in their
electric power systems due to the severe levels of geomagnetic activity. Spacecraft operations, high-frequency communications, and navigation systems such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) constellation of satellites "are also experiencing impacts due to the strong to severe solar activity."

A severe geomagnetic storm produced aurora sightings along the northern tier of the United States, and even as far south as Arizona. Aurora are colorful sky lights triggered when charged particles excite molecules in the atmosphere.

According to one eyewitness from British Columbia, Canada, the solar storm is lighting up the sky. "It is 10 p.m. and the northern sky here is aglow, as if there were a major league night game at the nearby school," local resident of Cortes Island, John Sprungman, told SPACE.com. He reported no special effects at this moment other than the bright night sky.

There have been seven major flares in recent days, including a tremendous X-17 eruption Wednesday. An event Friday evening was an X-6. On Saturday, an X-1 and an X-2 erupted. Even an X-1 can cause severe disruptions.

The largest flare in modern times was recorded in November 2003 and was estimated to be an X-40. It, too, was on the limb of the Sun and so its full impact was not felt on Earth. That flare was part of an unprecedented series of 10 major flares within two weeks; at least one Earth-orbiting satellite was disabled and one instrument aboard a Mars-orbiting craft was knocked offline.

This week's series is the most impressive since then.

Each storm is different, and often solar activity goes unnoticed on Earth, depending on whether a storm hits us square or makes a glancing blow and what the magnetic orientation is.

If enough storms erupt, the odds go up that there will be effects here. And the likelihood of Earth taking one directly on the chin goes up with each passing day as the sunspot takes aim.

There is a 75 percent chance of more X-class flares each day through Tuesday, the SEC says.

On Friday, a space radiation storm was captured in an image from the SOHO spacecraft, which monitors the Sun.

The Sun is currently at a low point in its 11-year cycle of activity. While sunspots and flares are less common now, astronomers say they can pack plenty of punch when they do occur.

A movie revealing some of the flare activity through Friday is available here.

Another movie [Mpeg version / Large Quicktime Version] shows four moderate flares and two major flares from Friday, as seen by NASA's Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) spacecraft. The images, taken in the extreme ultraviolet range, show radiation from plasma at 1 million to 2 million degrees. Loops extending out from the Sun are the result of plasma confined to travel along the coronal magnetic field which has emerged from below the photosphere, explained Jonathan Cirtain of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

SPACE.com's Leonard David contributed to this report.

[Trainwreck2100]

I think it could be this... as I suspected earlier..



Major Flare Erupts
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 09 September 2005
10:33 pm ET


Updated 12:36 p.m. ET Sept. 11

An ongoing series of seven major solar flares, including two on Saturday, could disrupt communications on Earth and generate colorful sky shows for people at high northern latitudes for the next several days.

Already satellites have been affected. Even more serious effects are possible this week.

The spate of activity from the Sun is being generated by a large sunspot named 798. Sunspots are cooler and darker regions of pent-up magnetic activity. When they unleash their energy, it's a bit like the top coming off a shaken champagne bottle.

The sunspot is just rotating into view, so its energy has been directed sideways and not directly at Earth. In coming days, if more major flares erupt as forecasters expect, they'll head right at us and radio blackouts, cell phone dropouts and other communications disruptions are more likely, scientists said.

Solar flares send radiation to Earth in about 8 minutes. Hours later, clouds of charged particles can engulf the planet. If the magnetic field of a storm is oriented opposite to our planet's protective magnetic field, gaps are created and radiation leaks to the planet's surface, potentially threatening astronauts aboard the International Space Station, sometimes shorting out satellites, and even causing terrestrial power grids to trip.

Solar activity is at "very high levels," according to NOAA's Space Environment Center (SEC).

The SEC has reported that agencies have experienced problems with fluctuations in their
electric power systems due to the severe levels of geomagnetic activity. Spacecraft operations, high-frequency communications, and navigation systems such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) constellation of satellites "are also experiencing impacts due to the strong to severe solar activity."

A severe geomagnetic storm produced aurora sightings along the northern tier of the United States, and even as far south as Arizona. Aurora are colorful sky lights triggered when charged particles excite molecules in the atmosphere.

According to one eyewitness from British Columbia, Canada, the solar storm is lighting up the sky. "It is 10 p.m. and the northern sky here is aglow, as if there were a major league night game at the nearby school," local resident of Cortes Island, John Sprungman, told SPACE.com. He reported no special effects at this moment other than the bright night sky.

There have been seven major flares in recent days, including a tremendous X-17 eruption Wednesday. An event Friday evening was an X-6. On Saturday, an X-1 and an X-2 erupted. Even an X-1 can cause severe disruptions.

The largest flare in modern times was recorded in November 2003 and was estimated to be an X-40. It, too, was on the limb of the Sun and so its full impact was not felt on Earth. That flare was part of an unprecedented series of 10 major flares within two weeks; at least one Earth-orbiting satellite was disabled and one instrument aboard a Mars-orbiting craft was knocked offline.

This week's series is the most impressive since then.

Each storm is different, and often solar activity goes unnoticed on Earth, depending on whether a storm hits us square or makes a glancing blow and what the magnetic orientation is.

If enough storms erupt, the odds go up that there will be effects here. And the likelihood of Earth taking one directly on the chin goes up with each passing day as the sunspot takes aim.

There is a 75 percent chance of more X-class flares each day through Tuesday, the SEC says.

On Friday, a space radiation storm was captured in an image from the SOHO spacecraft, which monitors the Sun.

The Sun is currently at a low point in its 11-year cycle of activity. While sunspots and flares are less common now, astronomers say they can pack plenty of punch when they do occur.

A movie revealing some of the flare activity through Friday is available here.

Another movie [Mpeg version / Large Quicktime Version] shows four moderate flares and two major flares from Friday, as seen by NASA's Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) spacecraft. The images, taken in the extreme ultraviolet range, show radiation from plasma at 1 million to 2 million degrees. Loops extending out from the Sun are the result of plasma confined to travel along the coronal magnetic field which has emerged from below the photosphere, explained Jonathan Cirtain of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

SPACE.com's Leonard David contributed to this report.





The government has been in contact with this man

http://www.kinoweb.de/film2000/Frequency/pix/fqd.jpg

[MajicMan]

Seems kind of fishy to me that recently they showed new Al Queda tapes and now we have a massive power outage in L.A. Scare tactics anyone? Seems like someone is trying to divert attention away from the Katrina Hurricane issue. Seeing what we have seen from the Bush administration this theory would not be far off.

[spurs=bling]

Thank God we live in Texas and have our own independent power grid.:tu
:rolleyes :D

[Dos]

the question we should be asking is; where's kobe?

[mookie2001]

how is nick cannon gonna be hilarious?

[tlongII]

NO! You cannot divert any more power from the Pacific Northwest to SoCal! Deal with it!

[MaNuMaNiAc]

lol, people are so paranoid! I bet if a middle eastern looking man farted, everyone in America would be screaming "THEY'RE GASSING US! ITS THE TERRORIST! ITS A CHEMICAL STRIKE! EVERYONE TAKE COVER!" http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif

[Vashner]

Ok i'll admit.. I listen to Art Bell....

[samikeyp]

lol, people are so paranoid! I bet if a middle eastern looking man farted, everyone in America would be screaming "THEY'RE GASSING US! ITS THE TERRORIST! ITS A CHEMICAL STRIKE! EVERYONE TAKE COVER!"

:rolleyes nice ignorant blanket statment.

[MaNuMaNiAc]

:rolleyes nice ignorant blanket statment.
it was a joke sami, sorry I forgot to put the laughing smile next to it. I guess I should add overly sensitive next to paranoid... http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smispin.gif j/k

[TOP-CHERRY]

lol, people are so paranoid! I bet if a middle eastern looking man farted, everyone in America would be screaming "THEY'RE GASSING US! ITS THE TERRORIST! ITS A CHEMICAL STRIKE! EVERYONE TAKE COVER!"
You're an asshole.

Didn't you see the Al-Qaida video the day before talking about doing something to LA?

Moron.

[MaNuMaNiAc]

You're an asshole.

Didn't you see the AlQueida video the day before talking about doing something to LA?

Moron.
jesus... ok I'm sorry people! I didn't mean to strike a nerve. It was joke!

[samikeyp]

it was a joke sami, sorry I forgot to put the laughing smile next to it. I guess I should add overly sensitive next to paranoid...

not a matter of being sensitive...its a matter of not being paranoid.

[hussker]

Man, those lights went out in, like 0.4 seconds! It will probably take them a whole year to get over it. Some may never get over it, but the true LA population will be back to normal by tomorrow, like it never happenned. But, many will hang onto it forever.

[samikeyp]

haven't they had problems with rolling blackouts for a few years now?

[MaNuMaNiAc]

not a matter of being sensitive...its a matter of not being paranoid.
umm... not about being sensitive huh...


You're an asshole.

Didn't you see the Al-Qaida video the day before talking about doing something to LA?

Moron.
yeah, he's not sensitive to the subject..http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smirolleyes.gif

[Vashner]

I lived in California for a few months when I was 8 years old.. after feeling a few minor quakes I was like "mommy this place sucks"...

We moved back home to SA.

[TOP-CHERRY]

yeah, he's not sensitive to the subject..
She just happens to find your comment completely unnecessary and idiotic.

[hussker]

I lived in California for a few months when I was 8 years old.. after feeling a few minor quakes I was like "mommy this place sucks"...

We moved back home to SA.

Vashner, Call her and let her know it still sucks.

[MaNuMaNiAc]

She just happens to find your comment completely unnecessary and idiotic.
Sorry about the he thing. The comment was a joke, and frankly I thought it wasn't a disrespectful one, or at least I didn't mean it like that. You have to admit though, that the terrorist attack scenario is getting played quite a lot lately. I mean, people in the states are paranoid, there is no question about that. They have good reason to be, that's for sure, but they are still paranoid. Either way, it was meant as a joke, no disrespect intended.

[TOP-CHERRY]

You have to admit though, that the terrorist attack scenario is getting played quite a lot lately. I mean, people in the states are paranoid, there is no question about that. They have good reason to be, that's for sure, but they are still paranoid. Either way, it was meant as a joke, no disrespect intended.
I know, but you can't blame us, and especially the people of LA of being just a teeny bit paranoid after they get a threat specifically aimed at THEIR city then all of a sudden get a blackout.

I hardly think the first thing in their mind would be something other than an attack.

[baseline bum]

Man, traffic was crazy. 101 was pure gridlock, and the city streets were worse with no traffic lights.

[samikeyp]

umm... not about being sensitive huh...

no...not sensitive...just, like Cherry said, didn't agree with the comment. but if you said it was a joke, fair enough.

[KewlKat00]

Man, traffic was crazy. 101 was pure gridlock, and the city streets were worse with no traffic lights.

it was still bad at 6. it took my 20 minutes to go one mile. normally takes me 3 minutes since it is straight down a side street. funny thing was that it wasn't even in one of the areas that was down for long.

[KewlKat00]

a stupid mistake caused the problem. but there are definitely other problems. in the past year i have lost my power for 10-12 hours twice, 1-3 hours about 6 times, and had it go off for about 5 minutes another 5 or so times. last week in one night it was out for 5 minutes, then a little flicker, then out for an hour. ugh. but those times, it is usually just my little block (about 1 square mile). somehow i missed this one, but it was very widespread.

LA times article (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-power13sep13,0,1192306.story?coll=la-home-headlines)


A wide-ranging power outage, set off when a cable was accidentally cut, darkened large sections of downtown Los Angeles and many parts of the San Fernando Valley for a couple hours shortly after noon, authorities said.

Two million customers were affected before most power was restored about 2 p.m. During the blackout, elevators stalled, traffic lights either went out or burned steadily green, and teachers tried to soothe worried schoolchildren.

Ron Deaton, head of the city Department of Water and Power, said at one point two of the city's four power generating stations in the Los Angeles Basin had shut down.

Deaton said two stations that receive power from the generators malfunctioned as a result of the severed cable.

Results then cascaded throughout DWP's massive system, automatically shutting down the plants.

The outage hit about 12:45 p.m. Lee Sapaden, a spokesman for the county's Office of Emergency Management, said the massive power failure was caused after an employee "inadvertently cut a power cable" at a DWP substation in West L.A.

Both of the generating plants were restarted by 2 p.m., leaving workers to fan out across the city and restore power in individual neighborhoods. City officials said power was restored for 90% of those who lost it about 2 p.m.

The power plants that shut down were in Seal Beach and Playa del Rey. When the remaining plant could not keep up with demand, power automatically shut down to large swaths of the city, Deaton said..

Other areas were also impacted, including Burbank and Glendale.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the city "responded very well and quickly," restoring most power within two hours.

"I intend to find out exactly how this happened, and whether this was preventable," Villaraigosa said.

LAPD headquarters and City Hall in downtown were also without power at times this afternoon.

Elevators went reported stalled in high rises along Wilshire Boulevard, where some workers reported getting stuck until backup generators came on.

About 150 public schools lost power for a few seconds to nearly 45 minutes, but the power outage appeared to cause little disruption to the school day.

At the Downtown Business Magnet campus on Temple Street, the nearly 700 students were evacuated when the lights went out about 1:00 p.m.

Los Angeles Police Lt. Paul Vernon said the outage involved "no terrorism or foul play."

He added that for the LAPD, "the main issue is traffic control."

At the Jewelry District in downtown Los Angeles, home to 5,000 jewelers and millions of dollars in precious stones and metals, the blackout caused havoc. Security systems automatically called police, buildings were locked down, metal gates trapped customers inside stores, and security guards went into "battle mode," said Peter Boyadjian, owner of Gemspot.

"All the security alarms go off," he said. "It triggers chaos."

Hospitals across Los Angeles reported power outages but all said their emergency generators immediately kicked in. Patient care was not disrupted.

Kaiser Permanente said four of its hospitals — South Bay, West Los Angeles, Panorama City and Los Angeles — lost power. Two people were rescued from elevators, but there was no impact on surgeries, spokesman Jim Anderson said.

Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys called a code yellow, as it would during an earthquake or plane crash, and set up a command center. Robert C. Bills, president of the 380-bed hospital, said backup power worked appropriately, as did hospital staff. Bills said the response was "reassuring."

"You're always concerned that things aren't going to work the way they should," Bills said. "We do this enough during the year with disaster preparedness drills that we were pretty sure we were in good shape — and we were."

The outage forced the abrupt shutdown of five oil refineries in the Harbor area, leading to heavy smoke and flames visible for miles. Refinery officials said the shutdowns were temporary and were not expected to affect Southern California gasoline supplies or prices.

By 3 p.m., regional air regulators had received 25 complaints of smoke and stack-top flames from residents in Wilmington, Harbor City, Long Beach and other areas in southern Los Angeles County, said Sam Atwood, spokesman at the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

At the Civic Center Red Line station, trains were running. One eyewitness said some of the lights went out briefly but not all power was lost. There was no panic, but people were frustrated about the delays.

"When you are down here, you don't know what is going on up there," he said.

Kiyoshi Parker, 26, of Hollywood said he was heading downtown to work as a cashier. He said his train was delayed about 10 minutes during the outage.

The power outage hit the area over the lunch hour, a time when traffic can be heavy on highways and major surface streets in business districts and downtown areas.

The blackout did not cause any serious traffic collisions nor a noticeable increase in accidents, said Officer Tariq Johnson, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation reported that the majority of the city's 4,300 traffic signals were affected.

"The blackout affected most of the streets in the city," said John Fischer, assistant general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation. "I assume it was rather chaotic in the city about noontime."

Once power was restored, Fischer said the department dispatched crews to reset the affected signals. He estimated that by late afternoon, about 90% of the signals were operating properly.

Some rail service was briefly disrupted as some trains were ordered to stop at the nearest station as a precaution, officials said.

Southern California Edison spokesman Tom Boyd said Edison service was "unaffected" by the DWP power outage.

At the 60-story Aon building in downtown Los Angeles, Wells Fargo employee Sean Maddox waited through an hour-long power outage and nearly two hours without cell phone service.

"The office blackened, but the worst thing was it got hot real quick in here," Maddox said.

Workers huddled around an emergency radio to learn that the blackout was not isolated to their building. Some chose to leave work early, navigating the seven-story walk down the stairs, while others watched city streets from above.

"There was no real panic, but some just wanted out," Maddox said. "There's worry about whether the subway or Metrolink is working, and if we'll be able to get home."

One man apparently attempted to take advantage of the outage by robbing a Citibank branch in downtown, LAPD Lt. Paul Vernon said.

The man, armed with what turned out to be a replica handgun and a samurai sword style knife, fled with cash from the facility at 9th Street and Broadway. Pursuing police shot and wounded the man and recovered a large quantity of cash at 11th Street and Broadway.

[Vashner]

I think Bush should evacuate everything west of the San Andreas....

Or else he's gonna just get blamed if there is a big one ....

[TheWriter]

How does an entire city go black because ONE little wire was cut? That makes no sense.

[T Park]

but they are still paranoid

You get that way when your buddy the middle easterners drive planes into two large buildings, a defense building, and potentially the house that houses the president.

You seem to GET that way.

"Paranoid"

We apologize for our condition.

3 thousand people obliterated in a matter of hours, tends to also tug at the heart strings.

[KewlKat00]

How does an entire city go black because ONE little wire was cut? That makes no sense.

perhaps the domino effect in a weak system...

a few parts from another LA Times article (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-power13sep13,0,1192306.story?coll=la-home-headlines)


The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the city-owned utility, said the outage occurred when workers cut through wires while installing a monitoring system at an electrical transmitting station in Toluca Lake.

The mistake rippled through the electrical grid, threatening to overload another transmission station and two electrical generating plants: the Scattergood generating station south of Los Angeles International Airport and the Haynes generating station near Long Beach.

The DWP shut down the generating facilities to avoid damage, sharply reducing the amount of power available to the city. That caused blackouts in neighborhoods across the city, with heavy concentrations in parts of the San Fernando Valley, South Los Angeles and the downtown area. All of Burbank's 52,000 customers and half of Glendale's 80,000 also lost power. Both cities' electrical systems are linked to the DWP.

"This strikes me as something under the category of unbelievably bad luck, where you cut one line and have that kind of cascading effect," said Bob Finkelstein, executive director of the Utility Reform Network in San Francisco, a consumer advocacy group.

"One DWP worker is going to feel really, really bad for a long time."

The automated system workers were installing was meant to detect surges or drops in voltage, said Ed Miller, the DWP's director of power systems, operations and maintenance.

"They cut a bundle of wires," Miller said. "The supposition is that by cutting them together, they created a short that triggered the circuit breakers." Miller said cutting wires one by one might have avoided an electrical short.

Ironically, the system the work crew was trying to install would have identified the power problem much more quickly, Miller said. It would be able to "decipher just what had happened." As it happened, DWP engineers needed an hour to determine where in the system the outage began.

An official with the union that represents DWP workers charged that, regardless of whether lines were cut, the real cause of the outage was the DWP's decision to test the new relay system in the middle of the day, rather than at night when power loads would have been lower — but costs would have been higher because of overtime.

"They are too cheap to pay overtime, so they are testing on a full load at 1 in the afternoon," said Brian D'Arcy, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 18.

"You clearly don't test the relay at one in the afternoon. If you are cheap and stupid, this is what happens."

The DWP said such work is routinely conducted during the day.


"The system is not fragile," he added. "We have a very strong system."

Others were less sanguine

"As an engineer, it's unnerving that one individual act can cut power to hundreds of thousands of customers," said Los Angeles City Councilman Tony Cardenas, chairman of a panel overseeing the DWP.

Cardenas, who was stuck in traffic on Van Nuys Boulevard when traffic signals went out, said he would demand to know whether the outage betrayed a broader vulnerability for the city's electrical system.

I've been told over and over that this kind of vulnerability doesn't exist," Cardenas said.


And a spokeswoman for Cal-ISO, the independent organization that oversees the statewide electrical grid, said the incident was "disconcerting." Stephanie McCorkle criticized officials of the DWP, which is independent of Cal-ISO's system, for not being more forthcoming with information about the outage, saying the DWP did not officially alert the rest of the statewide grid until 3:45 p.m., more than three hours after the outage began.

"There was no coordination, and that concerns us," she said.


State officials have been pushing cities to install low-power stoplights that can be equipped with backup power to prevent outages. So far, San Francisco has adopted the lights, but Los Angeles has not because of the cost, said Rob Schlichting of the state energy commission.