LA POWER FAILURE SHUTS DOWN ELM WEB SITE

How Los Angeles Lost Power

The Associated Press
Tuesday, September 13, 2005; 12:03 AM

LOS ANGELES -- The power outage that affected more than 2 million people in and around Los Angeles on Monday was triggered by an unlikely source: A utility crew installing a system upgrade.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power workers cut several cables incorrectly, slicing the thin wires as a group, rather than one at a time, said Ed Miller, director of Power System Operations and Maintenance for the department. That triggered a short and tripped circuit breakers.

The surge in electricity to the remaining lines overloaded the system and caused a shutdown at the power receiving station where the DWP employees were working. The station converts high voltage power from area generating stations to low voltage power used by businesses and residents.

The systemwide alert prompted two generating stations and other receiving stations to shut down as well. As a result, the department began "shedding" customers, cutting power to people across the city to stabilize lines.

Media Temple announced that their back-up power also failed due to "operator error" and this shut down their entire server. Many other server companies has similar problems.

Co-incidental threats of attacks on LA and Melbourne by Al Qaeda have been declared unrelated by US security officials.