You are currently browsing the Gas & Diesel Generators weblog archives for the day 14. July 2008.
14. July 2008 by admin.
VANCOUVER - A power failure that left downtown Vancouver in the dark Monday caused headaches across the World Wide Web.
The lights went out in a number of skyscrapers and buildings throughout the city’s downtown core Monday morning after a fire broke out in an underground vault near a Hydro substation, said Vancouver deputy fire Chief Tom McEwen.
Late Monday afternoon, the air quality was still too dangerous for BC Hydro crews to enter - even with respiratory equipment.
That means it could be a long time before power is restored to the many office buildings downtown that lost power Monday morning.
“This could go until tomorrow,” said McEwen. “I wouldn’t rule that out.”
Vancouver police Const. Don Duncan said police received a 911 call Monday morning reporting an explosion downtown.
“It came in as an explosion. I guess it popped and blew the manhole cover off,” said Duncan.
The city remained in gridlock throughout the day as street lights and public transportation were affected.
Several hundred Internet servers at Vancouver’s Harbour Centre also lost power, said Martin Robson of Robson Communications Inc. That means many corporate websites - including BC Ferries’ site - were down.
“We have over 200 servers located at Harbour Centre and they’re off-line as a result of the power outage,” Robson said. “A huge number of companies (are) off-line.”
Many of those organizations affected weren’t even located in Vancouver.
Worldwide Christian Schools, an organization based in Michigan, said its website had been affected by the power outage because its websites are hosted by a Vancouver-based Internet company.
“All three of our websites have been down for hours,” Emily Klooster, a spokeswoman with the organization, wrote in an e-mail.
“The effects of this power outage have gone far beyond Vancouver.”
Nancy Berton, owner of Gardecor Inc., a Colorado-based outdoor products company, said its websites were also down due to the Vancouver outage.
“This is a major economic loss for the day in sales as we are in our peak season,” Berton wrote in an e-mail.
BC Hydro said the outage is affecting about 4,400 customers. However, some of those customers are large office towers, so the number of offices affected was believed to be much greater.
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14. July 2008 by admin.
QUEBEC - Quebec City’s Jean Lesage airport was cancelling all flights after a power blackout was caused by fire to a transformer Sunday evening, airport officials said.
Hydro-Quebec utility teams were on location to deal with the situation after the fire was brought under control. An emergency power system kicked in right after the incident became known at 7:35 p.m.
Because few flights were scheduled during the evening airport officials said impact to operations would be minimal.
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