Electric woes in Kansas - Has it already started?

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The Wichita Eagle, our local rag, has an article on the back page of the front section today - "Blast destroys part of KC electric plant".

A massive explosion ripped through an 11-story boiler building at the Kansas City Power & Light Hawthorne generating plant. "There was an 11-story building there, now it is just five stories", fire dept spokesman Brad Humston said. "the rest is just a shell of twisted steel".

The explosion happened at about 12:30 am Wednesday. A KCPL spokesman said that the plant, which produces 15% of the utility's electricity, had been shut down for regular maintenance and the explosion caused no service interruption to customers. This was the second such explosion at the plant in less than a year.

END paraphrasing -

This is bad news for the regional grid, folks. If they have to take down Wolfe Creek nuclear plant in July, that means another 15% of generating capacity gone. If the other "hot spares" cannot make up the difference, this could have a national impact (talk about the domino effect!).

I read last week of another generating plant boiler room explosion a couple of weeks ago in Michigan (the Ford motor plant).

This may be a stretch, but does this smell like a Y2K remediation project gone bad? I don't recall reading about explosions of this type in recent years. Does anybody know if these things happen with any regularity?

My wife just told me that the major hospitals here have gone on back-up generators three time in the last two weeks. She has been involved in medical work here for 15 years and cannot recall any other time when this has happened so frequently.

Rick Cowles' explanation of how the power grid "dances on the rim" has achieved substantial reality for me today.

Mike.

-- Michael H. Cumbie (Mikecumbie@aol.com), February 18, 1999

Answers

Thank you for an excellent post & questions, Mike, and welcome! Since there are several Mikes, if you sign your post "Mike Cumbie," then those of us receiving the Forum via eMail will know which Mike you are :)

Did your wife say how long the hospitals were on the generators?
The hospital we worked in had red outlets that signified generator plug-ins. There weren't enough of them to support all the medical devices we used for patient care. How did the hospitals do?

Ashton & Leska in Cascadia, glad to be away from Hospital slave misery

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), February 18, 1999.


Interesting question Mike. I've heard of other kinds of explosions in the news as well, pipe line and gas explosions and I too wonder if they're related to y2k. A couple of days ago, two large tankers were adrift unable to power themselves. Verrrry odd, all happening within a coupld of days of each other. It may sound like a strrreeetcchhhh, but has anyone else made this connection?

shadow */*

-- shadow (foo@foo.com), February 18, 1999.


Leska,

Pleased to meet you, also!

My wife said that these interruptions caused no real damage, nor did they place anyone in danger. We both just have the jitters here, as I explained in a previous post tonight.

My wife is a career RN with 25 year's experience in surgery and private practice. We are worried about the possible effect that power outages may have on outlying and smaller hospitals that don't have generators. She works in a level I trauma center, and I speculated tonight that the National Gauard would probably move in their generators to keep it functioning, however, the prospect of caring for three or four times the normal patient load is disconcerting for both of us.

Thanks for your comments - we both feel like slaves at the moment.

Mike Cumbie

-- Michael H. Cumbie (Mikecumbie@aol.com), February 18, 1999.


Shadow, yes indeed, we made the connection, on the thread about the Oregon Oil Ship Disaster. Have read a report that there have been more than the three well-publicized ships foundering within those two weeks along Washington & Oregon. Naturally, the wondering ssttRETCHes.

Mike Cumbie, very glad the interruptions caused no harm. All the best strength and courage to your wife and her concerns. In Cascadia, the medical facilities by and large are treating Y2K with brush-off arrogance and scorn. We expect home care, our field, to boom if it's between a 1-5. Higher, no: death of the ill will be rampant, and ppl will not pay for caregiving.

What do you both envision at this point?

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), February 18, 1999.


Hi Mike, and welcome to the club! We're all stuck in the twilight zone untill next year. Much good info here, if you ignore the BS. Later. <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), February 18, 1999.


Leska,

I've been in the IT/computer industry as a programmer/analyst/systems manager/designer/consultant/and geek all of my adult life. Spent the first eighteen years on a farm, then two in Vietnam, then 31 years on systems.

We are scared, more than a little depressed, and angry about what we see and know.

My impression is that this is going to get way out of hand, and Y2K is only a catalyst. This society does not have the moral courage to save its own backside. Daily, we witness outrageous acts by our fellow man - religious and political polarity like I have never seen - downright rudeness and lack of common courtesy are the rule - A woman gave me the finger as she entered the freeway from an on-ramp the other day, even though she had a "yield to oncoming traffic" sign in front of her and I was boxed in on the left by another driver who did not display the common courtesy of slowing down so I could ease over and give the (not a lady) room to enter. Last month, four young men bailed out their cars at a major intersection and had a knock- down, drag-out fight.

The stench from the White house is so great, we can smell it all the way down here.

What floors me is, we COULD have solved the Y2K problem. All of the old-timers that I know have been talking about the problem for years. We just couldn't get anyone to listen.

Thanks for asking - what about you and yours? I need involvement. Mike Cumbie.

-- Michael H. Cumbie (Mikecumbie@aol.com), February 18, 1999.


I'm a nurse in a 200 bed hospital in Northwestern Mo. Recently we also had three periods of having to go on back up generators and we never received any explanations regarding the problems. We have daily problems with our computers without even dealing with y2k difficulties. Get ready!

-- nurse (rtf5653@ccp.com), February 19, 1999.

Nurse, same here! Would take too long to list all the equipment that regularly went blinkers. Dynamaps always going haywire, pulseox's blueing, alarms shrieking, computers freezing, IV pumps locking up, epis refusing to deliver, etc. etc. Ever in the middle of a full code, sending the blood-gas sample to the lab stat, and it gets lost as the pneumatic tubing shuts down yet again? Been there, done that, split stat :) The hospital still doesn't have a clue, plus they have an attitude about the whole thing when it is even brought up. "It's not our problem." Back to home care :)

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), February 19, 1999.


Mike Cumbie, you have come to the right place for involvement! We're feeling very much like you. We did ignore the White House stuff, until some of the military threads made us think more re roles with Y2K. This Forum has been a monumental education curve for us. We've been hermits for many years, doing 24/7 hospice care in pt's homes. This Forum has been the only public interaction we've had in @ 26 years -- aside from our work which is isolated, and various short-term College jobs, and that hellish 7-month stint in a large prestigious imploding academic Hospital. We do have a wide variety of work experience, but always chose settings that were sparse on people so we could concentrate within on the Lord. However, strangely enough, we're not end-times folks, and approached Y2K purely from the computer-ripple-infrastructure angle, which then affected everything else. Naturally, the many prophesies and other viewpoints on this and other Forums have captured our interest, but we haven't had time to give them enough thought. I'm going with an intuitive feeling that this is a very strange time that is not going in the best direction, to put it mildly.

Would write more, but had a strenous day-long encounter with a patient who is a nice old gent but incredibly messy, and gotta get packed for another hospice pt, so am not exactly coherent ;)

We are looking forward to your continued presence and posting on this Yourdynamite Asylum :-)

Ashton & Leska in Cascadia, hermits whose most frequent outside visitor is the Angel of Death, steadily coming closer to the astral/causal inner circle

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), February 19, 1999.


Mike,

You touched on a subject that has been on my mind a lot lately: recent explosions at power plants, refineries, gas plants, and chemical plants. I keep trying to get more info on these events, from the Chemical Safety Board website, news clips, etc - but am finding very little. Some of these could be Y2K related: bad remediation, unknown computer problems. Where did you get your information about the Ford Plant? I have seen very sketchy details on that one. The Chemical Safety Board website showed some gory pictures of the Anacortes, WA refinery explosion. Makes you wonder.

Gary North posted a news item about the Scottish nuclear plant that had a big problem starting up their emergency generators after a winter storm (garynorth.com - Topic: Power Grid).

Have you read the audit results for the Wolfe Creek nuclear plant, released on the NRC website? It's not too incouraging. Notice the lack of emphasis on contingency planning in the event of external power loss. The NIRS (nirs.org) has petitioned the NRC on this issue: emergency backup power, and is calling for comment. I'm "downstream" of the Wolfe Creek plant, even though we have NO nuclear plants in Oklahoma (thanks to Carrie Dickerson, AKA Aunt Carrie) so I'm pretty concerned too.

I'm glad to see this topic online!

Sheila sheilabj@hotmail.com Chelsea, Ok

-- Sheila Bjeletich (sheilabj@hotmail.cm), February 19, 1999.



Mike:

I could not agree with you more!

-- Sub-Mit (lurking@ofcourse.com), February 19, 1999.


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