UW Hospital Temporarily Loses Power MADISON, Updated 10:58 p.m. CST February 15, 2000 -- A broken water main in the basement of the University of Wisconsin Hospital Tuesday night caused a temporary, yet voluntary, power outage.

The hospital shut down by its own will, meanwhile resorting to generator power, so as not to spark further problems.

News3's Toya Washington reported that no one in the hospital was threatened by the power outage, though some patients were moved to safer quarters.

All computer systems were kept online and were working smoothly when power returned. Emergency patients arriving at the hospital were diverted to alternate hospitals as a precautionary measure.

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-- Stuart Click (ax@axcomp.com), February 16, 2000

Answers

This is interesting.

When I was helping set up contingency plans for my university for y2k, one of the threats we identified was problems in the water lines (caused by y2k embeds, or power surges/outages) which would mess up the ability to generate power.

Fascinating.

-- Bud Hamilton (budham@hotmail.com), February 16, 2000.