Sunday, February 17, 2013
Cause of Super Bowl blackout was installed to prevent Super Bowl blackout
Ars Technica: Entergy New Orleans, the utility that provides power to the Mercedes SuperDome in New Orleans, announced today that its technicians had determined the cause of the partial blackout during the Super Bowl last Sunday: an electrical relay the company had installed to prevent blackouts.
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The original article that I read on the black out said that the system they installed to prevent black outs detected a strange fluctuation in the power and cut power to prevent an entire blackout. So are they now saying that the system misread and did not react properly or was there an actual abnormality and the system did not respond as it was supposed to. If it had responded as it was supposed to then would there have been no power loss at all?
Talk about ironic. Something about best laid plans... In all seriousness, it's crazy how we can plan as many contingencies as we want for various emergency situations, but there's always something that can and will go wrong at exactly the wrong moment. That seems to be the norm, at least. As Sean is, I'm a bit confused as to what actually happened, as it sounds like if the relay tripped it would switch to an alternate power source.
I know when I was watching the superbowl and the power went out, I thought that this stadium was not going to get any business after this game if the power does not come back on. About a half hour later the 49ers actually had a shot. I dont really understand what went wrong at the stadium, because like Sean, ive heard/read different things. If the stadium can not pin point exactly what happened then no one will want to play there again.
HA. It's pretty hilarious that the blackout occurred because there was no blackout, but what I like more is that they anticipated a blackout following Beyonce's performance. In fact, it may be in everyone's best PR interest to make a statement saying that it really was Beyonce's "blowout" performance that caused a 20 minute delay and blacked out the entire Superbowl Stadium. It's less embarrassing than the actually story...
So the moral is, don't try to CYA? Or maybe just that you should double check your relays...
What a perfect example of dramatic irony. Its timing was also hilarious right at the end of the concert. Most people I think immediately assumed it was related to the concert. A similar thing happened in my high school once. We were putting on a production of Grease and right at the finishing note of teen angel Lightning hit the building and took out all the power. There was also a loud rumbling as part of the building was destroyed. The audience cheered like nothing else though, thinking it was just part of the show, you know some really good effects. Everyone back stage was panicking but the power came back just in time for the next scene and all ended well. I wonder what Beyonce thought when the lights went out.?
Equipment malfunctions all the time and sometimes there's nothing you can do about it, and in most cases there is little or no way to prevent it. This equipment can fail for a number of reasons: general failure to operate(duh), manufacturer's defect, an exceeded duty cycle, operator error....you name it, there's a scenario--nothing is perfectly made and no system is perfectly redundant no matter what you do. In this case I would assume that some confusion has been cause because Entergy's initial assumption of the reason for failure ended up contradicting the actual cause after further analysis--these things happen...no big deal right? The point is that they are taking the proper course of action to try and prevent another 'blackout' (the question will eventually become, do they choose a new type of relay, different vendor, or build a new system (with a back-up for the back-up)). I guess we'll have to wait and see...
The other thing that I think should be noted is that they actually solved the problem and got the power re-touted in decent time when consider the situation in full from their end. Also, I'd bet that those tungsten-halogen fixtures or something similar (to what we have in the shop) that takes X-amount of time to 'turn on' and that also played it's own part in getting the power up and running again.
This articole is very interesting. i rememeber when it happened that everyone was specilating all kinds of different things, the most common being thar beyince jsd donr it. its interesting to find out that it wAS caused by a a preventative measure.
I wonder if the blackout could have been avoided if they switched out the fuse, because it sounds like it was used for quite a few events prior to the blackout. Is the fused they used recently developed? Did they factor when it needed to be replaced or replace it just in case for one of the biggest, if not the biggest sporting events in America.
So that just sucks for those two companies. People will always remember the black out and will remember those companies. I do enjoy the irony in the situation and that really stinks. No one wants to be on the end of that phone call, saying you are postponing the Super Bowl. I do wonder why the black out preventer was necessary in the first place, was the power company truly concerned that a black out might happen. Was the Superdome pulling that much power? The thought of the Superdome pulling that much power and then we not having enough kind of makes me wonder about the lack of electricity. Well thankfully we did not go black with the Super Bowl.
The first thought that went through my head when the lights went out at the Super Bowl was, "How long 'til Boevers puts this on the Green Page?" Just a couple of hours under two weeks, it turns out. Anyway, I, like any other rational person, blame Beyonce. It's clear that the difference between the Super Bowl and the other events that went off without a hitch at this venue was one thing: Beyonce. Of course this poor little relay was simply overpowered by her devious use of projection and her LED stage floor. And how could one little relay be expected to manage awesome pyrotechnics display and spark-throwing guitar? It was just too hot for the little guy.
This just goes to remind everyone that as Joe also stated machinery and equipment can malfunction/fail without warning. Those two companies will definitely suffer from this and that's sad.
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