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Home energy

The Atlanta Blackout of 2009

by Dana Blankenhorn
April 13, 2009
in energy, environment, Health, journalism, Personal, Science, The War Against Oil
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Mak-home-tree-destroyed The lights went out here around 10 AM and just came back on about an hour ago.

So a blackout you never heard of actually lasted longer than the Great Northeast Blackout of 1965. (This home about a mile from my own was destroyed yesterday, writes DecaturMetro.)

I learned an important lesson. I'm completely unprepared.

I never replaced the laptop that blew up a year ago and so didn't have an alternate machine. I misplaced the stick memory to which I'd copied my passwords. Even if we had a burglar alarm system it would have stopped running without wall power, so I was forced to stay home.

Mostly I read, I slept, and I used my cell phone. I got cold because the heater requires electric power to turn on the gas. I couldn't eat because opening the refrigerator door would spoil all the food inside it. Had this gone on overnight no one in the house could have gotten to work tomorrow because all our clocks use wall power.

Weather radio The new cat next door is named Noah, but I call him NOAA Weather Radio and don't have one. (This is not the cat. It's $49.99 at Amazon.)

The blackout, which covered large parts of the metro area at various times, was caused by a wind storm following an otherwise-uneventful weather front. I kept looking to the sky and listening for a tornado but nothing ever came down. Trees and branches and power lines were just knocked down by 30 mile gusts.

Had this been an actual emergency Atlanta would have been completely shut down. As it is people panicked before the broken streetlights, some sitting in front of them for minutes at a time, others blasting through them at speed.

The lights were also out all day at my son's school, but there was no way to get the buses back, nowhere really for the kids to go, so they just sat around in their first period classes until they nearly went barking mad.

After everyone got together we went to the suburbs for some food and to buy a Netbook, partly as a way to write during a future trip and partly as a back-up in case this happens again. The salesman was trained to fear shoplifters and insisted on accompanying me to the register while the wife and kids went elsewhere in the store. She was pissed, and we never got that NOAA weather radio the neighbor's cat has been telling me to get for weeks now.

Americans, including me, have become incredibly dependent upon undependable systems. Electrical systems. Cable systems. Water systems. We take it all so much for granted we're at sea when we lose these basics.

Two-way electrical systems and fuel cell generators partly backed by solar power or windmills would make us much more resilient at times like this. Dish antennas make us independent of the cable. Water is the pollution created by fuel cells.

So getting serious about the War Against Oil also protects us during these minor emergencies. And it may keep the neighbor's cat from giving you dirty looks.

Tags: AtlantaAtlanta stormblackoutDecatur GADecatur Georgiaemergency preparednessweather emergency
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Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn began his career as a financial journalist in 1978, began covering technology in 1982, and the Internet in 1985. He started one of the first Internet daily newsletters, the Interactive Age Daily, in 1994. He recently retired from InvestorPlace and lives in Atlanta, GA, preparing for his next great adventure. He's a graduate of Rice University (1977) and Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism (MSJ 1978). He's a native of Massapequa, NY.

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Comments 8

  1. ja reld says:
    16 years ago

    I know this is more of a personal blog, but being referenced from zdnet, I read this, not knowing what to expect.
    I live in North Dakota, which must be a completely different country than Atlanta.
    First, ND gets sustained wind speeds in the 30 to 40mph range – especially during blizzards, and gusts well above that and power loss isn’t a concern. The last wind gust I can remember causing a power loss was in 1997, when a gust of 90MPH hit, and power was out for a couple hours. Are the environments really that different such that a small wind gust [I’m hoping I am reading that right – I can’t quite discern what “30 mile gusts” means] can do such damage?
    Second, ok, so power is out. Can you really not leave your house? Is it a fear of looting or something? I am asking that question in all seriousness. The sarcastic part of me is saying that you don’t have an alarm system now, so did the locks magically stop working because there is no power?
    Third, you couldn’t go to work the next day because the clocks were out? That is how the blog reads to me anyway. I could acknowledge that if you worked from home via the computer, then yes, you would not be able to “go to work”, but just because the clocks are out, doesn’t lead me to stay home from work. You already admitted that you could use the cell phone, and most of them have clocks with alarms, and can be somewhat loud, so why not use that?
    I do get the point of the story – the current culture has taken utilities for granted, especially water, and raising awareness is a good thing.
    However, the whole post reads [again, to me, and maybe me only] like a “the world as we know it has ended” scenario and seems like a lot of fearmongering over just a power loss.

    Reply
  2. ja reld says:
    16 years ago

    I know this is more of a personal blog, but being referenced from zdnet, I read this, not knowing what to expect.
    I live in North Dakota, which must be a completely different country than Atlanta.
    First, ND gets sustained wind speeds in the 30 to 40mph range – especially during blizzards, and gusts well above that and power loss isn’t a concern. The last wind gust I can remember causing a power loss was in 1997, when a gust of 90MPH hit, and power was out for a couple hours. Are the environments really that different such that a small wind gust [I’m hoping I am reading that right – I can’t quite discern what “30 mile gusts” means] can do such damage?
    Second, ok, so power is out. Can you really not leave your house? Is it a fear of looting or something? I am asking that question in all seriousness. The sarcastic part of me is saying that you don’t have an alarm system now, so did the locks magically stop working because there is no power?
    Third, you couldn’t go to work the next day because the clocks were out? That is how the blog reads to me anyway. I could acknowledge that if you worked from home via the computer, then yes, you would not be able to “go to work”, but just because the clocks are out, doesn’t lead me to stay home from work. You already admitted that you could use the cell phone, and most of them have clocks with alarms, and can be somewhat loud, so why not use that?
    I do get the point of the story – the current culture has taken utilities for granted, especially water, and raising awareness is a good thing.
    However, the whole post reads [again, to me, and maybe me only] like a “the world as we know it has ended” scenario and seems like a lot of fearmongering over just a power loss.

    Reply
  3. Dana Blankenhorn says:
    16 years ago

    Fair questions all.
    1. Yes, our infrastructure sucks. That was the point.
    2. We have had a rash of home burglaries in the neighborhood even without a blackout.
    3. I work at home. No power at home, no way to work at home. No wireless Internet, no PC. This upset me and I got a Netbook that night. Preparedness
    Thanks for writing.
    Dana

    Reply
  4. Dana Blankenhorn says:
    16 years ago

    Fair questions all.
    1. Yes, our infrastructure sucks. That was the point.
    2. We have had a rash of home burglaries in the neighborhood even without a blackout.
    3. I work at home. No power at home, no way to work at home. No wireless Internet, no PC. This upset me and I got a Netbook that night. Preparedness
    Thanks for writing.
    Dana

    Reply
  5. nomad496 says:
    16 years ago

    Hello Dana, I understand how you felt; we had a similar experience on new year’s day out here in Oregon. We had a fairly major storm that knocked over trees and knocked out power over large parts of Salem (the capital). Our power loss was preceded with a large voltage spike that blew out our weather radio, our wireless router and everything else that was not on a UPS. We live on a small farm outside of town and heat with wood, so we were in better shape, but one tree hit the house (not much damage), one hit our greenhouse (destroyed), and one crushed part of the fence in our pasture (could have let the animals get out, but didn’t). Also, for us, no power means no water since we have a well. It made me realize that we had gotten a bit too complacent about basic infrastructure as well.
    As for the guy from North Dakota, their power lines are built for the winds up there, I suspect that the ones in Georgia are not. Ours certainly aren’t.

    Reply
  6. nomad496 says:
    16 years ago

    Hello Dana, I understand how you felt; we had a similar experience on new year’s day out here in Oregon. We had a fairly major storm that knocked over trees and knocked out power over large parts of Salem (the capital). Our power loss was preceded with a large voltage spike that blew out our weather radio, our wireless router and everything else that was not on a UPS. We live on a small farm outside of town and heat with wood, so we were in better shape, but one tree hit the house (not much damage), one hit our greenhouse (destroyed), and one crushed part of the fence in our pasture (could have let the animals get out, but didn’t). Also, for us, no power means no water since we have a well. It made me realize that we had gotten a bit too complacent about basic infrastructure as well.
    As for the guy from North Dakota, their power lines are built for the winds up there, I suspect that the ones in Georgia are not. Ours certainly aren’t.

    Reply
  7. Dana Blankenhorn says:
    16 years ago

    Agreed on all counts.

    Reply
  8. Dana Blankenhorn says:
    16 years ago

    Agreed on all counts.

    Reply

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