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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical POWER: San Mateo/San Francisco power outage report
Howdy, I'm back from vacation. By popular demand, a summary of the San Francisco/San Mateo power outage on December 8, 1998. At 8:15am workers making changes to 115-kilovolt lines at the San Mateo substation failed to properly ground the system. When they turned on the power, it caused a low frequency condition and tripped protective breakers on the substation. It also caused a cascade effect, tripping the Hunters Point and Potrero power plants. This isolated San Mateo County and northward to parts of San Francisco City from the electrical grid primary power sources. Aside from the human error, the system worked "as designed to protect the rest of the grid." Approximately 375,000 customers were without power, including San Francisco Airport (SFO), the Pacific Stock Exchange, traffic lights, and cable cars. BART (subway) used emergency power to bring trains to the next station, and then shutdown. Since the electrical grid was isolated, PG&E had to "blackstart" the system on a circuit by circuit basis. The SFO airport power was restored at 9:10AM. The San Francisco Office of Emergency Services was activated at 9:22AM according to EDIS. At 1:00PM about 200,000 customers were still without power. PG&E estimated that full restoration would be completed by 2:15PM, but some customers were still without power through the afternoon. No major injuries have been reported directly attributable to the power failure. No major Internet provider reported any network problems directly attributable to the power failure. Since this outage was caused by a PG&E error, customers may make claims for some types of damages. Other damages may be covered by private insurance. http://www.pge.com/resources/claim_form/claim_form.html In other news: On December 7, 1998 PG&E donated $87,000 to San Fransico's Emergency Services Communications Center to install extra back up electrical facilities for the center. The new facility will work with PG&E during major service interruptions to establish restoration priorities. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation
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