LA Mayor Has Concerns after Y2k Tests Fail --- See Drudge Report

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See the Drudge Report www.drudgereport.com

-- Lurker (not@this.time), June 17, 1999

Answers

Well, haven't the Pollies been telling us for a long time now that Y2k's just a bunch of shit? 8^)

-- Rich Miller (rmiller2@ix.netcom.com), June 17, 1999.

That's growing concerns. If I lived anywhere near LA my concerns would already be full grown and left the house.

-- a (a@a.a), June 17, 1999.

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 1999 22:55:22 ET XXXXX

LOS ANGELES MAYOR HAS GROWING CONCERN AFTER Y2K TESTS FAIL

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan has privately expressed his growing concern over the Y2K bug after a test at one the city's utility systems resulted in failure, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Publicly, Riordan has been offering nothing but assurances that the city's Y2K problems will be addressed.

But privately, according to knowledgable City Hall sources, the mayor has expressed total embarrassment after a series of high profile mishaps has raised questions about the city's ability to deal with Y2K.

The latest problem occurred early on Thursday morning, during a Y2K test of the emergency system at a city sanitation plant. A computer failure ended up pushing more than 4 million gallons of hazardous sewage into a nearby park -- a park the city was considering for an official Millennium New Year's Eve celebration!

Officials at the Donald Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in the city's San Fernando Valley had been testing a computer backup system, recreating a Y2K power outage, when something went terribly wrong. A park ranger was first to spot raw sewage gushing up from a manhole at nearby Woodley Park.

Officials have determined that a gate controlling a large pipeline was closed automatically by a computer during the Y2K test, forcing up millions of gallons of raw sewage to street level for about two hours.

The director of the city Sanitation Bureau quickly ordered a review of the computer programs for all gates throughout the city's sewer system.

The sewage nightmare comes just weeks after a Y2K drill at City Hall turned scary.

Late last month Mayor Riordan and other City Hall workers were plunged into darkness after an unplanned power outage hit during a Y2K disaster drill.

The mayor was forced to walk up nine floors of stairs to his office and descend 12 floors; Riordan was visibly upset when he walked into the Emergency Operation Center:

"That bothers me," Riordan said at the time. "If we can't take care of the elevators, what can we take care of in this city?"

The outage that hit City Hall was blamed on an unrelated power surge. But several City Council members remain convinced the outage and the Y2K drill were linked and have asked the General Services Department to investigate the episode.

-- a (a@a.a), June 17, 1999.


LA will be ash.

-- Randolph (dinosaur@williams-net.com), June 17, 1999.

L.A. in January???

BURN, BABY BURN!!!



-- K. Stevens (kstevens@come_January_the_infrastructure_will_fail.com), June 17, 1999.





-- cleaning crew (cle@n.up.time), June 18, 1999.




-- cleaning up (try@ga.in), June 18, 1999.

I'm sure you all saw "Chinatown". Water.

'Nuff said.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), June 18, 1999.


Ok, I am impressed that LA shit all over itself. But four million gallons of raw sewage in two hours through a MANHOLE? Don't think so. That's 33,000 gallons per minute, or 70 cubic feet per second. That's a small river. Hard to push it through a manhole that fast. Assuming that the manhole is two feet in diameter, the sewage would be spewing out at twenty-three feet per second. That's sixteen miles per hour. Someone is exaggerating, or else it was spilling out for maybe two or three days?

-- malcolm drake (jumpoff@echoweb.net), June 18, 1999.

Malcolm, I don't think that's what was meant, although I admit the article isn't very clear. It says:

"A park ranger was first to spot raw sewage gushing up from a manhole at nearby Woodley Park.

Officials have determined that a gate controlling a large pipeline was closed automatically by a computer during the Y2K test, forcing up millions of gallons of raw sewage to street level for about two hours."

I think what's meant is that a ranger spotted the sewage coming up through just one of several manholes as the sewage forced its way to street level. I suspect the park was the lowest spot around there. Lucky for them. When we have spills at our ancient and badly-run sewer plants here in Durham they affect residential areas and creeks feeding into the Eno River, our water supply. A four-million-gallon spill would cause a chain reaction that would empty the supermarket shelves of bottled water in about an hour.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), June 18, 1999.



Gack.

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), June 18, 1999.

"The latest problem occurred early on Thursday morning, during a Y2K test of the emergency system at a city sanitation plant. A computer failure ended up pushing more than 4 million gallons of hazardous sewage into a nearby park -- a park the city was considering for an official Millennium New Year's Eve celebration!"

Hey, they were just christening the park for Y2K, right?

-- Sandmann (Sandmann@alasbab.com), June 18, 1999.


ALL New Years revelers please bring hip boots !!

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), June 18, 1999.


Got TP?

-- J (jart5@bellsouth.net), June 18, 1999.

Can someone provide a URL to the newspaper account of these events? Thanks.

-- Rick (rick7@postmark.net), June 18, 1999.


Rick, several fascinating news articles on:

Y2K Test Fails - 4 million gallons of sewage escapes

xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 18, 1999.


Malcolm,

Have you ever lifted a manhole cover?

They're really heavy.

The sewage would have to be moving that quickly in order to build up enough pressure to push the manhole cover out of the way. I think the park ranger eye-witness cited above speaks volumes. "Gushing" euuwwww.

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), June 18, 1999.


The first point is, that a manhole is much larger under the street than it is on top. The smallest are 5' in Diameter at the base and can be from 4' to 30+ feet in depth. I have seen them as large as 8' in diameter, for large volume systems. LA probably qualifies. duh

Secondly, the diameter of the pipe coming into or out of the manhole varies, but can be up to 85% of the diameter of the manhole, and may have more than one inlet, ususally does. This would make it quite concievable for that amount of effulent to escape the system.

Thirdly, as we have discussed previously, the vast majority of sewer sytems are gravity flow. This means that the manhole next upline would be only a couple of feet higher than the one downline from it and would certainly overflow with minimal extra amount of excess volume that caused the previous MH to overflow. Generally manholes are spaced a maximum of 400' apart, so overflows normally ocur outside the buildings using it. The exceptions being buildings with deep basements, or ones that actually sit lower than a significant portion of the line that serves it. If you are concerned, call your local agency or the plumbing inspector and ask a few pungent questions.

Lastly, I did not hear in the report of any major backup problems within the structures feeding into the flooding system, ie houses business' etc. which means the buildings either had backflow prevention devices, the spill occured at the bottom elevation of that trunk, or as stated previously the overflow would keep increasing downline instead of flooding any adjacent structures.

PS. YUK!!!!!!

-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), June 18, 1999.


one damn whale of a blowhole

-- h (h@h.h), June 18, 1999.

Hey Ray--

In New York, LA, Chicago, etc that would be fins and snorkels COL

-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), June 19, 1999.


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