February 4, 2013

"It was a good 15 minutes into the 34-minute game delay before anything was announced."

"And what was that was said to the worried masses? I have no idea. Charlie Brown’s teacher would have been more coherent, waawaawaa–waawaawaaa. Everyone around me laughed at the absurdity. Ten minutes later, another announcement. Was everything ok? Did we need to evacuate? Waawaawaa-waawaawaa. The only thing we were missing was the FEMA trailers."

29 comments:

john said...

So what did cause the blackout?

rhhardin said...

There wasn’t one of the 71,024 fans in attendance whom, at that moment, didn’t ponder the events of 2005.

That's the note of austerity and dignity whom.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Sitting there in the dark must have been like that situation where you're waiting for someone, and they're so late you figure they'll never show, but you're afraid to leave because they might show up any second, but you have to leave sometime, but you don't want to miss them when they eventually show up.

No, wait. I guess cell phones did away with that problem.

PROGRESS!!!!!!!!111!!!!

SJ said...

Proposal for next year's Super Bowl halftime show:

A surprise appearance by The Baha Men, singing a new version of their famous song.

Instead of "Who Let the Dogs Out?", it should be "Who Turned the Lights Out?"

test said...

A joint statement from Entergy New Orleans, which provides power to the stadium, and Superdome operator SMG shed some light on the chain of events, which apparently started at the spot where Entergy feeds power into the stadium's lines. The problem occurred shortly after Beyonce put on a halftime show that featured extravagant lighting and video effects.

"A piece of equipment that is designed to monitor electrical load sensed an abnormality in the system," the statement said. "Once the issue was detected, the sensing equipment operated as designed and opened a breaker, causing power to be partially cut to the Superdome in order to isolate the issue. ... Entergy and SMG will continue to investigate the root cause of the abnormality."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-400_162-57567385/super-bowl-power-outage-what-went-wrong/

edutcher said...

Somebody's gonna get sued; how many people could have, well, take your best guess...

You can be sure Big Sis and the crowd at DHS were taking notes...

As was AQ.

David said...

Some of the lights went off. Then they went on again.

Just what should have been announced?

Anonymous said...

One of the "features" of a green environment is an attempt to eliminate overcapacity in the powergrid. The result is that changes in demand can ripple through the system and affect large consumers of power like the Superdome. The lack of capacity to handle peaks is expensive to maintain and typically handled by coal and gas plants that can be brought on-line quickly. The more we go green, the fewer of these we have.

We can see the effects of the inability to increase supply in the preference for households over businesses. Businesses can be impacted disproportionately and their internal circuits can shut down due to lack of available power.

It's interesting how this happened just after half-time - there can be any number of reasons why a whole lot of households started consuming power very differently. Maybe a lot of appliances fired up at the same time, maybe all those large-screen TVs were shut off during halftime, but came back on when play began.

In interesting consequence of "green" policies.

dbp said...

Half the lights never went out. The author makes is sound like a Heart of Darkness or Thunderdome situation. It was really more like a typical flight delay--they tell you nothing and you wait a while.

test said...

It's interesting how this happened just after half-time - there can be any number of reasons why a whole lot of households started consuming power very differently. Maybe a lot of appliances fired up at the same time, maybe all those large-screen TVs were shut off during halftime, but came back on when play began.

It's more likely due to power arrangements for the halftime show.

Carol said...

the note of austerity and dignity whom.

It's especially apparent when so misused.

campy said...

Incorrect use of whom is the worst grammatical error of all.

Bryan C said...

So we can thank Beyonce and her lame halftime show.

It seemed like everyone kept their cool, though. From the TV images it actually looked like there was still plenty of light. Even enough to resume play, if they'd been unable to turn them back on.

"Once the issue was detected, the sensing equipment operated as designed and opened a breaker, causing power to be partially cut to the Superdome in order to isolate the issue."

So it's a safety system that's designed to simply turn off power to large portions of a crowded stadium. That's a pretty stupid design. At very least the emergency lighting should be on a separate circuit.

Anonymous said...

I suspect there was a drop in current levels to the Superdome about the time the second half started and circuits shut down at the stadium to balance power usage with power availability. The real question is why power supplied to the stadium dropped. The half-time show would have only increased demand on power by the stadium. As the half-time show went on successfully, there didn't seem to be a lack of power then.

Again, this could be blamed on an overly aggressive effort to fine-tune performance on the grid and that behavior elsewhere in the system drained power and made less available to the stadium just about when the second half got under way. Considering that current flows through the system like water and cause and effect can be delayed by several minutes.

Again, I'm thinking there are elements of "green" policy that may be related to making the powergrid less able to respond to changes in demand.

3john2 said...

Ray Nagin was in charge of getting back-up power to the Super Dome.

Levi Starks said...

It would be a lot easier to place blame if Bush were president.

Seeing Red said...

Why did I visualize Airplane? The plug pulled and a maniacal laugh.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Fortunately, we had already saved up about 40 minutes of time on our DVR, so we could skip through the half time show and NOT have to watch Beyonce. The power outage was over for us in about 2 minutes.

I was amazed. They can't play football without their electronic equipment. My God....how did they ever do it in the past.


Automatic_Wing said...

Chris Christie just called to say that Obama did an amazing job of responding to this crisis. Unlike some presidents of the recent past.

john said...

Incorrect use of whom is the easiest grammatical error of all.

There, fixed.

McTriumph said...

Cyber attack demonstration by Anonymous or the NORKs or China or a porn site in Russia?.

Aridog said...

Maguro ...so Christie popped his head up from fellating Obamessiah, eh?

Me, personally, myself and I, who watches only one game in entirety per year, watched the game delay in abject horror. I was terrified they'd repeat the half time howl-o-rama with bubble ass dancers who think their crotch is their sole strong point.

Craig said...

The second half kick-off return should have been called back on account of darkness and replayed after adequate lighting was restored.

Aridog said...

The other major horror of the Super Bowl was the draft dodger Bar Refaeli kissing a nerd bit. Bar Refaeli? Really? No Americans available, so hire an Israelis draft dodger?

Bar Refaeli on dodging the Israeli IDF conscription:

"I don't regret not enlisting, because it paid off big time. That's just the way it is, celebrities have other needs"



From Inwood said...

This Blackout last night is worthy of a Third-World Country. But wait, New Orleans….I mean where’s Borat when we need him?

I’m concerned with the crony capitalist propaganda I get about Going Green even on my e-mail threads & more important that the low-information folks get via the Lamestream Media.

From Inwood said...

Sid Caesar to Imogene: "Who ya talkin' to?"

Imogene: "To whom are you talking,"

Caesar: "To youm."

Icepick said...

Of course no one panicked, it's not like it was a serious situation. It's not like they ran out of beer.

CWJ said...

Icepick,

True enough since it was in the third quarter. But had this happened in the fourth once the taps had been turned off . . . Oh, the humanity!!

Anonymous said...

bpm4532 said:
"I suspect there was a drop in current levels to the Superdome about the "


Sorry, but, reading your posts, you don't know what the hell you are talking about in any manner way, shape or form.