I live in Thousand Oaks, in Ventura County, CA. I went to the supermarket, which is located in a shopping plaza, at about 4:45 this afternoon. The sun was setting and it was dusk. The first thing I noticed was that all the stores were dark, and Ralphs (supermarket) was closed. I went to another nearby shopping plaza to Vons. Most of the stores in this plaza were also dark, but Vons had lights, and was crowded with people who had gone to Ralphs and found it closed. I asked if they had an emergency generator, and the manager said yes. Others in the checkout stand said the power failure was a computer glitch. I purchased a few items and left. Just as I was leaving the parking area, the lights came on. I want back to Ralphs, as I wanted to place an order for a birthday cake. Even though the lights were on, the doors to the supermarket were locked. Another customer said that when the power was restored, all the computers in the store were blue screen.....no data, and the store wasn't going to open soon. I went home. My daughter called and said she heard about the power failure on the news on the radio on her way home. The news reported the power failure was more wide spread than I thought. If this is reported in tomorrow's local newspaper, I'll report back.

-- Linda (lindasue1@earthlink.net), January 08, 2000

Answers

JUST VERIFIED THOUSAND OAKS POWER OUTAGE ON FRIDAY, JAN.7TH...

After reading Linda's posting at 3:30 today, Jan 8th, I was a little confused as it is still light out...I live in the same town and so I called Ralphs and verified that there was a power outage on Friday, January 7 at about 4:30 which affected the area near Moorpark and Janss Roads. Did not see anything in the local papers today though. I will try to find out more from SoCalEdison, although I suspect they will say it was NOT Y2K related!

-- Eileen(on God) (macenery@gte.net), January 08, 2000.

Hi Eileen, Sorry about that! After ready your message, I realize I should have put a date on my message. The power outage happened Friday, January 7th. I posted the message later that evening, probably about 9:30 - 10:00pm. I think this board must be on eastern time, as when the message appeared on the bulletin board, it was dated the 8th. I went back to Ralphs today to place an order for a birthday cake, and asked the checker what had happened. She said they didn't know yet but after the outage they lost their computers. As a coincidence, my son-in-law had left a prescription at Longs/Arboles, and when he called to see if it was ready, he was told their computers were down. This happened about the same time as the power outage at Janss/Moorpark.

-- Linda (lindasue1@earthlink.net), January 09, 2000.