And Then the Lights Went Out

Last Thursday, at 3:27 PM an electrical worker at the North Gila electrical substation, outside of Yuma, Arizona, switched out a series capacitor, which is a voltage regulating device the size of a small car. Something went wrong and a power outage occurred which cascaded 10 minutes later into all of San Diego and southern Orange counties in California and SD power outageinto Baja, Mexico. It was more than 12 hours before most of San Diego county had power again and a full 48 hours before the San Diego Gas & Electric company could declare with reasonable confidence that power had been fully restored to all of it 1.9 million customers.

The incident is under investigation and the cost of the economic damage from this event is still being calculated. Most supermarkets had to dispose of any fresh food which required refrigeration. Area airports closed. Water pumping stations failed and drinking water was contaminated. Gas stations were closed with no way to dispense gasoline. Fortunately, when you live in an earthquake zone, you learn to have an earthquake kit and most county residents didn’t hesitate to dip into theirs. So, most had stored drinking water, matches, flashlights and batteries, canned goods, etc. If you had a gas stove you could still cook otherwise, you could cook on your outdoor charcoal or propane grill.

As for me, my most significant other and I spent the evening playing cards and board games until it got too dark in the house to do so. I note with less joy that  she beat me at the games more times than I think a “truly faithful companion” really should. I note with more joy that all of my computers and the home server were on UPS and properly shut themselves down when the power went off which occurred while we were both out of the house. We retired for the evening by 8 PM  and by the time we awoke power had been restored. There was no significant damage to my household (other than a major inconvenience), but this event begs the question: If one person could do this by accident, what could a group of people do on purpose? I hope we never have to find out the answer to that question.