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Dulles International Airport without power for hours
DULLES, Va. (AP) — The power is back on at Washington Dulles International Airport. Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority spokesman Jonathon Freye says the power went off around 1:25 p.m. Saturday and was restored shortly before 4 p.m. During the outage, some departing flights were delayed. (wtop.com) Plus d'info...
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One has to wonder why Dulles does not have backup power and is double or triple sourced. Most critical facilities have a "power ring" which is fed from two or three points of the Municipal supply and then inside the ring an ability to generate a substantial amount of the needed power.
Hi John
I don't know if its the case in this outage, but if the relays which select the power source (primary utility, alternate 1, alternate 2 etc) or the board(s) which control the relays or the breaker panels go u/s, then no matter if your power generation and delivery facilities are still functioning, power does not get through. The source-switching box and breaker room are the critical single no choke point which is almost never duplicated. Duplicating them and locating, designing (and testing and maintaining) the necessary switchgear and cabling is difficult and expensive.
I don't know if its the case in this outage, but if the relays which select the power source (primary utility, alternate 1, alternate 2 etc) or the board(s) which control the relays or the breaker panels go u/s, then no matter if your power generation and delivery facilities are still functioning, power does not get through. The source-switching box and breaker room are the critical single no choke point which is almost never duplicated. Duplicating them and locating, designing (and testing and maintaining) the necessary switchgear and cabling is difficult and expensive.
Error - Changed "node" to "choke point" but failed to completely delete "node"
Agree entirely Frank...if the switch burns out the in house generation cannot access the local grid...we had that happen at a hospital in Nova Scotia where that incident was triggered by an offsite failure and the generators could not access the "emergency" circuits. After an anxious hour, the switch was bypassed manually. This article though I read as an offsite problem, but I might have misread it. Either way, I bet they are looking long and hard at their supplies.
I was there during that time. When the lights went off, I thought they wanted to save energy and I realized that was power outage. All shops were closed or very limit service. We had to use stairs. Poor people who were elder or disabled, had to use the stairs, but fire rescue guys were helping them. United Club doors were not able to open at all. No air condition running.
Yep, very few planes were incoming and outgoing.
What an experience!
Yep, very few planes were incoming and outgoing.
What an experience!
