Detroit malaise, critics sound off

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Friday, June 16, 2000

Motown malaise As power goes on, critics sound off

Daniel Mears / The Detroit News

By Cameron McWhirter, Darren A. Nichols and Brian Harmon / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- The worst power outage in Detroit's history was declared over Thursday by Mayor Dennis Archer. But the fallout was expected to continue as people begin to total how much money has been lost, and how much the city's reputation has been damaged.

"We are 100-percent capacity," Archer said. "All people connected to our power grid are receiving power. People can resume normal electrical usage." But as the final buildings came on line, there were calls for privatizing the city's electric service, demands for immediate fixes to the power grid and worries that Detroit's image would suffer in the hands of the national media, in town to cover this weekend's Grand Prix.

"How can you be a world class city and you're in the dark?" said Darryl Stewart, 46, a longtime Boston Edison activist, who has been battling the city for better lighting in historic neighborhoods. The Department of Public Lighting crews worked 16-hour shifts to restore power. That allowed Detroit Public Schools, for the first time since Tuesday, to reopen and the People Mover to resume operations.

But there was a high cost to the outage that shut down schools, government offices, hospitals, street lights and Wayne State University. All told, more than 4,500 buildings lost power. In addition to millions in overtime pay to city workers, lost parking revenue and other costs for the city government, Wayne State researchers lost precious refrigerated specimens, parents of 167,000 students had to find day care, and businesses lost merchandise. In addition, power loss left some public schools without their electronic alarm systems and as many as four of them were broken into and vandalized overnight Wednesday night, said Detroit Public Schools Security Chief Charles Mitchell.

Davison Elementary was vandalized so badly that it may close for the rest of the school year, June 23, said Stan Childress, a district spokesman. John R. Elementary on the west side was broken into and its vending machines raided. The officials did not specify the other buildings and could not provide estimates on how much repairs will cost. The power outage hit several businesses hard. University Foods near Wayne State could lose as much as $300,000 in food that was spoiled because it went unrefrigerated for three days, said Rodney Karromi, operations manager of the supermarket on Warren. A hand-made sign posted at the store read: "Once again we are closed due to a power outage -- compliments of the city of Detroit."

"There are people dying from hunger and here we are throwing all this food away -- just because of a situation the city knew about, but did nothing to avoid," said stock manager Andy Shounia, while pulling pints of Haagen-Dazs ice cream from the freezer.

Call for changes The crisis, which began Tuesday when an electrical connection blew that funneled power from Detroit Edison to Public Lighting, has spurred calls by some residents for a privatization of the department, which in recent years has transferred some of its street lights to Detroit Edison. Those lights remained on. But Archer said Thursday that he opposes privatization of the department, and he felt confident that the Lighting Department's customers, such as Wayne State University, will continue to buy its electricity from the city.

Detroit provides its own power at a time when other big cities are choosing to buy electricity from utility companies. In cities such as Atlanta, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Dallas, officials said they have found that private utilities have more money, staff and technical expertise than most city governments to establish street lighting systems and power public buildings. The power failure angered Councilwoman Kay Everett, who called Thursday for the resignation of Public Lighting Director Mark Petty. But council member Nicholas Hood III said that while the problem is distressing for city residents and workers, this is not the proper time to point fingers.

"I'm not calling for anybody's head to roll," said Hood, who had to make arrangements for someone to watch his two children who attend Detroit Public Schools. "This is not the right time to cast blame." But the prolonged outage, which Archer initially said would be over by 3 a.m. Wednesday, frustrated residents like Victor Pye, 39, an eastsider who had to find emergency day care for his school age children. "This takes me back to the snowstorm, when the streets weren't plowed, to the schools crisis, to other problems with the city providing services," he said. "It just makes me wonder: what are we doing with our money?"

Detroit resident Rita Jackson, standing near Harper Hospital in the middle of the city, said she wanted Detroit to make sure this problem did not happen again. "It's not like it's Archer's fault. But maybe he'll realize that this could be a problem again and do something about it beforehand," she said.

3 failures in 9 years This week's shutdown is the third major power failure to cripple the city and the lighting department in the past nine years. In 1991, a 24-hour power failure cut electricity to about half the city. Electricity was lost to street lamps, public housing complexes, schools, police and fire stations and other public buildings. Three of the city's substations had cable failures.

A March 1996 storm knocked out power to buildings and traffic lights. It took city workers several weeks to restore electric power although Detroit Edison workers had the power restored to their customers in several days.

On the eve of the city's international Grand Prix, the failure also has done little to improve the national image of the Motor City, said Michael Bernacchi, a marketing and media professor at University of Detroit Mercy.

"Perception is everything," Bernacchi said. "We are fighting uphill battles and this is one of those battles. That's so tough to reverse. The problem is when something bad or negative happens, it's expected. If something good happens, it's the exception." As street lights flickered back on, one by one, residents like Pye wondered what would be next. "It's spooky," he said. "It seems that all the other cities just don't have these kinds of problems."

Detroit News Staff Writers David Josar and Gelasia Croom contributed to this report.

http://www.detnews.com/2000/metro/0006/16/a01-76387.htm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), June 16, 2000

Answers

Monday, July 10, 2000 Detroit ignored policy in outage Lighting department decision not to reduce electric power put system at risk of collapse

What went wrong

Public Lighting Department documents tell how the power outage occurred, according to logs obtained by The Detroit News.

Monday, June 12 * 11:12 a.m.: One of three lines feeding electricity from Detroit Edison to the city agency gives out. Public Lighting workers did not initiate emergency procedures to reduce stress on the system, as instructed in their emergency manual and as suggested by Detroit Edison.

Tuesday, June 13 * 2:49 a.m.: A gas turbine also shuts, further damaging the system and putting increased demands on the two remaining lines from Detroit Edison. Workers did not initiate the emergency procedures. * 12:40 p.m.: Low voltage warnings began to sound at Public Lighting's command center. A second power line from Edison burns out and the system begins a general collapse. * 12:42 p.m.: Public Lighting workers begin reducing stress on the system, but far too late as the entire system collapsed -- cutting off electricity to about 4,500 buildings across the city and more than 40,000 streetlights and 1,200 traffic signals.

Friday, June 16 * About 11 p.m.: The last of the city buildings has power restored. By Cameron McWhirter and Darren A. Nichols / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- Officials of the Detroit Public Lighting Department chose not to follow the department's written emergency plan or recommendations from Detroit Edison to reduce capacity hours before the worst power outage in city history, according to department documents obtained by The Detroit News.

By deciding not to follow procedure, officials at Public Lighting put the entire system at risk of collapse, which it ultimately did on June 13, when a second of three lines feeding power from Detroit Edison to Public Lighting gave out.

Public Lighting Director Mark Petty told The News on Sunday that his staff chose not to reduce capacity because they felt it would have been overreacting. Petty said the department's emergency manual, which calls for reducing capacity or "shedding load," is "outdated." "That (manual) is just for a contingency," he said. "That would be a knee-jerk reaction." When asked if using the shedding load procedure would have prevented an overall outage, he said, "That's Monday-morning quarterbacking." He said shedding load, as suggested by the manual and Detroit Edison, would have caused a blackout of whole sections of the east and west side, as well as parts of downtown. But he conceded that the whole system would not have shut down. He further provided The News with a letter dated June 14, the day after the blackout began, from Edward Hansen, manager of Power Delivery Operations at Detroit Edison, to Petty. The letter stated that Public Lighting was warned to reduce capacity shortly before the outage. Detroit Edison contends that they also verbally warned the city numerous times the day before.

The four-day power outage cut off electricity to 4,500 buildings in the city, including all city government offices, police precincts, fire stations and most traffic lights. The outage also cut off power to 250 of 263 public schools, much of Wayne State University, Detroit Receiving Hospital, the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, the People Mover and even the city's Web site. The outage cost city government yet uncalculated millions in overtime for public lighting workers, lost energy revenue from customers such as Wayne State, spoiled food in school cafeterias and other losses. Thousands of downtown workers lost days of work and 167,000 students could not go to school. Petty told City Council on June 26 that the outage was a regrettable accident caused when an electrical connector, called a "pothead," which feeds power from Detroit Edison to Public Lighting, gave out. "Having to do it over again, I would have done the same thing," he said. "There was no reason to shed load (cut power) at the time, period." Mayoral spokesman Greg Bowens said Sunday that the overall outage could not have been averted. "The equipment failed," Bowens said. "They would have failed if they were carrying five megawatts." Detroit Edison was responsible for maintaining two of the power lines that failed and Edison should share some of the blame for the outage. The initial line that went out is the responsibility of Public Lighting, Bowens said. Log printouts from the Public Lighting command center detail minute by minute how the crisis evolved and show that city officials knew well in advance of the outage that its own contingency plan called for reducing electrical demand.

Repeated warnings Log printouts from Public Lighting computers show that the problem began Monday, June 12, at 11:12 a.m., when one of three electrical power lines that send power from Detroit Edison to Public Lighting shut down. The reason was that a cable line connected to the "pothead" burned out at the city's Mistersky plant. Detroit Edison currently supplies about 75 percent of Public Lighting's power, according to the city. The rest of the power is provided by city-owned generators and turbine engines at its main plant. Detroit Edison staffers said they warned Public Lighting Department officials to reduce capacity shortly after the first line went down Monday. When stress on the system was not reduced, Detroit Edison said it told Public Lighting staff throughout the morning of Tuesday, June 13, that they had to reduce the load or the entire system could collapse. "We were worried about the equipment," Ron May, vice-president of Energy Delivery and Service for Detroit Edison, told The News. "We didn't want them to be interrupted and we didn't want our customers to be interrupted. It just isn't good for our customers, the city itself and our reputation across the country."

Public Lighting's partially handwritten and partially typed "Emergency Load Shed" manual, obtained by The News, states that if one line to Detroit Edison shuts down, workers should dramatically reduce capacity to the two remaining lines within one hour. "This is to prepare for the contingency loss of another line," the manual states. Detroit Edison's letter to Petty also cited this procedure as "Standard Operating Practice." The procedure calls for cutting power to the outer areas of the Public Lighting system, beginning on the far west side and then moving to the far east side. If that procedure had been followed, as it has been in past incidents, power would have remained for most of the Public Lighting system, including much of downtown, Detroit Receiving Hospital and Wayne State. Power would have been lost to sections of the city but not the entire city. But Public Lighting did not reduce the stress on the system. Petty said that in his five years as director, Public Lighting had lost a power line to Detroit Edison once before. He had chosen not to implement emergency procedures then, and no outage had occurred.

Power lines under pressure An hourly handwritten log shows that throughout June 13, increased demand was placed on the two remaining electrical power lines to Detroit Edison. The Public Lighting system has its peak demand from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the average weekday. According to the log book, the two remaining lines were handling a total of 16 megawatts of power by 7 a.m. Tuesday. By 10 a.m., the lines were handling a total of more than 60 megawatts. At that time, the entire Public Lighting electrical system was generating 107 megawatts. More than 56 percent of all the energy used by Public Lighting was coming through two tie lines at one plant. Petty said on Sunday the two lines were operating below capacity, and said the loss of the turbine or generators did not concern him. "It was the same situation that we had on Monday (June 12)," he said. On Tuesday, June 13 at 2:49 a.m., one of the city's main gas turbines that adds electrical power to the whole system gave out at the city's Mistersky plant, Petty said.

Petty said he was notified about the turbine, but his staff chose not to implement the emergency procedure. Too little, too late The log printouts show the crisis finally reached a climax at 12:40 p.m., when "low voltage" warnings started going off throughout the system. Low voltage warnings went off at the same time as the city's second line to Detroit Edison also burned out at 12:40 p.m. From that point, the log shows a system in complete collapse, as low voltage warnings went off and lights, computers, traffic lights, air conditioning units and elevators across Detroit went out.

Senior citizens needing medication were trapped in public housing high rises. Tourists were trapped on the People Mover. Traffic from Telegraph to Mack slowed to a creep.

At 12:42 p.m., almost 10 hours after a major turbine shut down and more than 24 hours after an important line to Detroit Edison gave out, workers at the Public Lighting command center initiated the "shed load" procedure. The log printouts show the system operator began shutting down the system, but it was far too late. As the operator shut down generators and substations, the entire system simply gave out.

At about 5 p.m. Tuesday, June 13, Mayor Dennis Archer walked down 11 flights of stairs from his darkened office and told the gathered media that power would be restored citywide by 3 a.m. Wednesday morning. By 3 a.m. Wednesday, Public Lighting had restored power to only the Coleman A. Young building, fire headquarters, Detroit Receiving, the county jail, police headquarters and some other buildings. Petty said the crisis was not finally over until late Friday, June 16, when the last schools had power restored.

http://www.detnews.com/2000/metro/0007/10/a01-88743.htm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), July 10, 2000.


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