I stole this from another forum. Taz

America Offline?

asked in the Electric Utilities and Y2K Q&A Forum ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

Call me crazy (it's okay), but I'd like to know if this would work. Not that it will ever happen, and not that it's my idea (I read it who knows where? a long time ago), but I'm curious. What if...

We all agreed to take a couple weeks off during the beginning of January, and we just sort of shut America way down to minimal maintenance mode until everyone had a grip on what was happening powerwise?

The malls, office buildings, shops, factories, bowling alleys, theatres - the you-name-its - turn most of their lights off, set their thermostats to 45 or 50 degrees (whatever the safe minimum is), and just lock everything up until it was "their turn" to come back online...

Full power goes to people's homes and the infrastructure, as usual, but that's pretty much it. Or that's the starting point. If that all holds up, the "next tier" on the priority list is brought back up, etc., in some kind of order that can be monitored and backed off of if there's trouble at any stage...

Again: Not that that would ever happen (how could we possibly get through a week of life in America without the office, the mall, the bowling alley, the bar? "You mean we'd have to stay HOME!?"), and this notion may have already been beaten to death several times that I missed. But still, I'm curious. Would something like that work if the power companies were way in on it..? If an organization like NERC or the DOE "orchestrated the plan"?

-- Bill (billdale@lakesnet.net), April 04, 1999

-- Taz (Tassie@aol.com), April 04, 1999

Answers

Standard answer: If it couldn't be fixed in x number of YEARS before the event, why do you think it will be fixed in y number of DAYS after the event?

Too much to do in too little time.

You can't violate the laws of "software nature".

Jolly tests software among other things.

-- Jollyprez (jolly@prez.com), April 04, 1999.

Oh, come on. We can do anything here in America. Don't you watch the movies? It works especially well when we hire people from other countries and pay them much, much less to fix things.

sarcasm intended...

-- d (d@dgi.old), April 04, 1999.

Hello, out there !! The name of the game is MAX $ . Think about how many stock holders would vote for reduced dividends . Not this year !! Eagle

-- Harold Walker (e999eagle@freewwweb.com), April 04, 1999.