Am I being Overly Paranoid? Florida Power Outtages....

reply to post by gunner36


Well I believe you should always question everything. I just tend to overly analyze things when they happen in my backyard. Here's hoping.

That is normal to wonder, to over think something, last week my wife and I were coming home, and there was a blocked off road and you could see a hazmat truck. Now a days hazmat gets called for any little thing, but I couldnt rest until I knew what was happening. It was just a semi that crashed and spilled a little fuel, but you never know. Yesterday to stealth fighters flew over, I am still wondering why they were so low, as the nearest base is some miles away. Probably nothing, but you never know, better to be aware of the what ifs, if they become real, then you will possibly be more prepared then the average joe.

Alright I think I'm going to log for the time being. I'll probably be back after I watch the 5PM local news cast.

Catch you guys in a bit.

Ah, as for the guy breaking his ribs at the airport:
h ttp://www.israelforum.com/blog_article.php?aid=1294865
This link alleges he has ties to Hezbollah.

I live in Tampa and so far I've not been affected by this but I know one thing for sure it was a wake up call to me.
I'm going out and stock up on water, food , plastic, tape , masks and anything else I can find, oh! I forgot one thing a can opener.
I'm serious about this.........it is scary!
Has anyone ever thought about how difficult it would be to evacuvate to the north from south and central florida?

reply to post by MagicaRose


it would be near impossible to have a mass exodus from South Florida up through the state. I-95 and the Turnpike would be totally overwhelmed. I would prefer to stay put in my home in lockdown mode unless I had several days of advance notice before anybody else and could get out.

and yep, this is good nudge to people to be prepared for anything and always have food and water on hand.

Understanding the nature of modern media, I'm not sure if I should be more or less concerned that there is very little mentioned about the outage except for the state of Miami traffic. Anyhow my worries have subsided some.... as far as it being a wake up call... everyone in Florida should be prepared with bottled water and canned goods throughout the year for obvious reasons. Trying to escape Florida would be nigh impossible if everyone decided to leave. Right now the paranoia has subsided to some degree... but I am still extremely concerned.

Alright now the story is that it was a fire at the substation that caused problems in the grid and Turkey Point and other plants automatically shut themselves down. It looks like it might clear up and everything will be cool.... here's hoping... again.

reply to post by Osiris1953


Hey Osiris, great post but I do think your being a little paranoid. I could go into details on way but I'll mainly focus on your employee registration act; I've tryed to find anything on this and I can't seem to, could this be a simple process that is simply being blown out of proportion?

I hate to add to the paranoia, but on Coast to Coast last night they were discussing the outtage, and a couple of people spoke about seeing UFO's BEFORE and AFTER the event all over South Florida.

Could this be true? They were talking about it for quite awhile and i just wonder if any of you saw anything??

These things are fairly routine and every 'system black' as we call it in the business helps to provide information on how to make the system more robust in future so they're getting less common all the time but it still happens as electrical demand grows. Say there's a fault like a lightning strike on a critically loaded transmission line and tripping it off removes a large amount of generation from the system, the remaining generation can't match the load so they trip off in the classic domino style until an entire area is 'islanded' and all this happens in seconds.

It can take many hours or even days to slowly put the whole system back together a piece at a time, matching applied load to available generation.

CNN said it Wasn't terrorist, and most of Florida does have it's power.

Fear Mongering anyone?

My lights flashed and I went to take a bath. Then the wind started howling and copters and jets started flying by. I thought, Hmmm something's up. Didn't even hear about the power outages until I came out the tub.

I thought hmmm again. I go thru downtown every night and they have been doing construction downtown forever. They should be done by now but no. I say that because when I left los angeles, one of the things I saw was strange looking people doing construction, going underground all times of day and night. The strange thing was these people took your profieles as you walked by...at 2 am. Not too long after I had a vision of LA going up in flames, and I had a friend who was very sensitive in that nature, and she had a way more intense vision than I did. Now she wants the beach. I used to have visions of the beach and a giant wave coming. I haven't had a vision of miami in a long time, but it was a tsunami. It was a long time ago I had forgotten until right now. Latest vision was a flyover, so who knows.

I don't think that people are being overly paranoid because many factors go into that. Think about all the distractions we have around us every day. Imagine if all that stuff were to go silent. I can almost guarantee if the tech goes out, the motion stops, and that hold is softened, human nature will take place. The scroll at the bottom of the screen on the news had such an absurd fearmongering tone. More distractions

The UFO thing is an interesting link because I've read of these types of disturbances before. IT would confirm the jets and copters. I must have just missed it if it did happen,but I did look in the sky before I took a bath like ALright, lets get this show on the road...





[edit on 2/27/2008 by acegotflows]

reply to post by Pilgrum


Basin Electric Power Company was speaking about Florida's blackout with local news way up here in North Dakota. It's strange because the power made here goes north west, not to Florida if I remember correctly. But anyhow, they were talking about it being 7 to 9 days for a nuke power plant to go back online. Thats a lot of power and money that has to be brought in (and purchased) from somewhere else . The whole eastern US would be in a pickle if we had another mass block out North East USA.

On a side note, the two beginning Florida people that were questioning being paranoid. I do not think your crazy. Self survival is one of the strongest instincts people have left. There is usualy some reason for a person to feel that way, even if it isn't the big T, if you are inclind to prepare, button down or even leave then do what feels right. After all Florida people are some of the toughest surviors I have ever met and you don't get that way by second guessing yourselves.

I posted this in anther thread on the same topic. Just thought it might help clarify things.

Originally posted by Hurricane James
hello everyone, I don't post to often, but this is something I am intamently familiar with, seeing as I work for the power company controlling their transmission and generation dispatching.

Florida is unique in the US in that it is not surrounded by land but water. This means that we are only connected to Georgia via two 500KV power lines. Those lines are known as the backbone of the state's power grid because if there are any faults alontg these lines it will cause voltage problems throughout the state. These voltage problems could lead to blackouts like the one in this thread.

These two power lines terminate at Turkey point substation. A fault at that substation will take out both 500kv power lines in south Florida. That fault will also cause both Turkey point nuclear plant to go offline. This is by design to prevent damage to the plants.

The turkey point generating stations combined produce nearly 3000 megawatts of power. This time of yaer the normal power requirements(load) for the entire state of Florida is about 30,000 mw's. by loosins the turkey point substation, the state lost 10% of the power generation for the state. This will lead to lower voltages throughout the areas nearest the fault. Automatic protective schemes will open breakers nearest the fault to reduce load, by blacking out customes until the voltages return to normal bands. This is done to preserve the entire electrical power grid in the state.

If these schemes did not operate, the entire state could potentially lose power. This could cascade to affect the entire eastern seaboard.

The 2003 blackout that affected the midwest and northeast was caused by a tree that had grown into a power line and causing a ground that tripped the line out.

Another factor that probally made this worse is that this is the time of the year the power companies do most of their maintenace because of the lower loads from the cooler weather. Therefore there are fewer alternate paths for the power to flow whenever a line is lost. When was the last time you remember a major outage such as this one during the summer. I'm talking about 3 million customers without power in August that wasn't caused by a Hurricane. This is because every line is in during the summer months to provide as many alternate paths for power in case of a contingency in which a line is lost.

The power companies do a such a great job of keeping the lights on that it only makes news when they have a catastrophic failure. Equipment fails sometimes, enjoy the quiet and have some fun outside. Just be happy it isn't 95 degrees outside.

reply to post by Osiris1953


Ok FP&L have some explaining to do cause the power outages from the storms explanation is bull dunk. This is a part of the country that gets hit frequently by hurricanes but the grid is all messed up right now. I work at a convienence store and when the power got turned back on we also shared in brownouts.

Florida gets not only Hurricanes but it also receives more than it's fair share of lightning. I don't buy this power outage for one moment as they tell us it was.

(by the way exactly how many ATS members live in Florida? Weird)

im in Tampa, nothing unusual here besides a windy, rainy, cold thunderstorm from the north yesterday. Great post by the way will keep my eyes and ears open.

reply to post by Osiris1953


How's it going today in Florida?

Things are fine here now... luckily I was being overly paranoid. I'm glad that in this instance my suppositions were wrong. I thank everyone that has posted in this thread. Both to those who said yes I was being too paranoid, and to those that said that some paranoia is healthy. Either way, Florida is doing just fine as far as I can tell. So..... thanks again guys.

[edit on 28-2-2008 by Osiris1953]