Capital building evacuated

****************************News Flash**************************
****************************************************************

As of a news flash @9:16 AM Pacific Stanard Time, The capital has been evacuated due to a power failure.


Ok, I can believe that a power failure could occur, HOWEVER!!!!, are you trying to tell me that there is no back up system? No gas/oil backup generators? Systems like that are designed to comeonline instantly.

It just seems a little fishy to me.

No internet links yet, it was a bit on Cnn on tv.

watching this too, and it seems ONLY the Capitol Building is without power, everything else in the area seems to be okay.

I know the East coast was to have severe weather today, maybe a lightning strike caused the failure??

can they not survive a while without lights or heating? we had to at school when our power failed years ago (and at work).

perhaps they should check for hidden bugs around the place when they all are allowed back.

...or explosives

CNN link.

They just said the power has been restored to the Capitol building. No cause for the "mysterious" outage as of yet.

Must be gremlins.

Originally posted by justyc
can they not survive a while without lights or heating?

That's not the point. The metal detectors use electricity to work. No metal detectors=no security.

I am very sure the security is on a different power station than eg. the public lighting equipment in buildings like the U.S. Capitol

[edit on 3-4-2006 by Riwka]

I wouldn't bet on it. I had jury duty the other week. The power went out and the reason why they sent us home was because the security couldn't let anyone in the building because of the metal detectors. Granted it wasn't the capitol. Why would the metal detectors be on a different grid?

Edit: quote is directly above this, so no need to quote it.

[edit on 3-4-2006 by Griff]

So the capital building doesn't have a backup power generator?
not likely...

if they didn't have triple redundancy, i would be surprised...
every other government building that i know of, has some sort of backup power source.

The reasons that all electricity could be lost (and backups not employed):
to evacuate the building with logical "non terror" reason (in case of threat)

to remove the chance that a computer system could be hacked, or hijacked...

to remove the chance for an electronic signal to set off a remote bomb...
(jammers used to prevent signal, would also cause electrical problems...

Yes, i could be wrong...
but could i be right?

The thing that doesn't make sense, is that the people should hardly of noticed an electrical problem... the backup should have kicked on immediately, and the situation should have remained normal.

Does anyone else think that it is very wierd, that the capital, doesn't have backups (or chose not to use them)?

Do you think this may have been a terrorist attack that they don’t want you to know?

Something to the effect that the government wants to control what is and isn't a terrorist attack. They only allow the ones they want to be known.


[edit on 3-4-2006 by Anfro]

Sorry, that trips my BS meter. Most large buildings I've worked in have their own generators and even Uninteruptable Power Supplies (power conditioners with battery banks) so that any essential services keep running until the generators are running up to speed and take over the load. You don't even know when the power switches from mains supply in a failure, it's that seamless.

There's no way the Capitol Building doesn't have it's own power generation equipment. This is just a cover story.

Originally posted by Griff
Why would the metal detectors be on a different grid?

They're not on a separate grid per se.
The grid is the whole electrical system as pertains to the high voltage end of it.
115kv, 230kv & up.
Multi-state interconnections etc.

Distribution voltages run from 4kv to 33kv in most cases.

The Capital more than likely has 2-3 distribution level lines serving the buildings so some parts of it would stay on line if the grid proper isn't down.

As far as emergency generators go, some are arranged to come on line automatically, but most are set to be manually started and once up to speed they are switched over to the system they will carry.

Since emergency generators are out of sight and out of mind in many cases, they tend to get ignored.
Then, when they're needed they don't start for a number of reasons, dead batteries being the usual ones.

The emergency generators are probably arranged to carry key components of the building and the not too important areas will be left in the dark.

Keep in mind the media's tendency to exaggerate . . . and perhaps blame G W Bush for this problem.

Uh oh. Is the Israeli Mossad up to their usual tricks again?

Incase some of you don't know the New Jersey police actually reported that they arrested 5 Israeli Mossad agents in connection with the 9/11 attacks on that day. It was actually reported that people saw these people filming and cheering the attack even as the first plane hit. Thats why NJ police were called in.

Too bad they disappeared in custody mysteriously.

Someone mentioned cover story a few posts back. Check this out, clicky. Listen to yesterday's broadcast, 4/5/06. I'm really not to sure about the validity of this guy's claims, but non the less this is a conspiricy site. This wingnut is basically claiming that the power outage was a diversion to sneak in stuff, for the next 9/11. Bear with me, he points out that the capitol building is on it's own power grid. Which it is, check it out, here.

The Capitol Power Plant began providing electricity in 1910; today, it provides steam for heating and chilled water for cooling buildings within the Capitol Complex.

source

This is where things get interesting. Check out this article from the Chicago Tribune. Here's the beef:

Mary-Beth Hutchinson, a spokeswoman for Potomac Electric Power Co., said the electricity shut off automatically after there was "a momentary drop in voltage due to customer operations up the lines" away from the Capitol.

Nearby office buildings were not affected by the outage.

Now, there is a possibility that PEPCO is the current owner of the capitol power plant, but I have not been able to find any sources stating so. Can anyone help me prove this one way or another?


EDIT: I'd like to add that the guy talking on the webcast is a true sensationalist. He claims that the Ukraine DID sell warheads to Iran. There is no proof for this, non at all currently. Personaly I think this guy is full of donkey dung, but I felt that this should get out there. As far as I know there are no current disscusions on ATS about this webcast.




EDIT 2: Nothing to see here, no worries guys. I got all worked up over nothing. If you look at the first external quote from the gov site, you will see that all the Capitol Power Plant only provides steam and cooled water. Which mostlikely means that PEPCO does supply power to the Capitol Complex.

[edit on 4/6/2006 by ReginalBigsby]

[edit on 4/6/2006 by ReginalBigsby]

Originally posted by LazarusTheLong

if they didn't have triple redundancy, i would be surprised...
every other government building that i know of, has some sort of backup power source.

I can see were you are coming from, but remember a court house is a government building. I'm refering to my previous post. BTW, the courthouse I was at is located in DC. So, why didn't they have a backup system?

I will accept that NOT all government buildings have backups...
but the capital building? uhmmm

I would hope, that our country couldn't be made vulnerable due to a simple power outage...

plus it didn't seem to affect the rest of the buildings close by...

We have brownouts all the time in the summer, and i can tell you, you usually see signs of a high power demand well before a blackout... even on a building level (this is presupposing that the capital doesn't have some sort of power kick off to prevent brownouts- why would they?)

If something goes off in the capital building anytime soon, I would be looking for a very smelly fish somewhere...

Yeah, I agree. The capitol building shouldn't be that vulnerable to a blackout. Has anyone heard anymore info on this? I live in DC and other than this thread, I haven't even heard one word about it. Granted, I don't watch much news. Why should I when I get the news from this site days before mainstream. Take care.

ask and ye shall recieve
new thread, on the very concern that we discussed...
bomb plot on capital hill?