Genius. /
Where are you seeing that the backup systems were “immediately adjacent” to the station that had the fire? Not seeing that in local news. The fire did spread through the tunnel to two additional substations, and what I heard (paraphrasing b/c I can’t recall exactly) is that the combination of the fire and damage and whatever they have set up to automatically shut things down was triggered. Clearly the lack of better backups is a problem that needs immediate attention and is inexcusable, but if you could provide a link to what you are stating, that would be appreciated.
Delta had its own issue a year or so ago, but that was a computer system issue, not a power issue. IT needs to be addressed better as well. Not sure if it has or not.
There are other companies in Atlanta that have backups and redundant systems spread miles apart so that if something happens, they can go into disaster recovery mode. That said, sometimes it takes hours for computer systems to do whatever backup is necessary to restore systems, even when other kick in (if I understand this correctly).
“The outage, which completely crippled the airport’s infrastructure, was caused by a fire in a Georgia Power underground electrical facility, the company said in a statement. The facility reportedly also houses the switch that might have activated backup power.”
"In a news release Sunday evening, Georgia Power said the fire “caused extensive damage” in an underground Georgia Power facility. The blaze had to be extinguished by fire crews before Georgia Power workers could enter the facility to assess damage and begin fixing it.
“The event impacted not only the underground facilities, but also substations serving the airport and, while the cause is not yet known, Georgia Power’s system responded by isolating areas where equipment wasn’t operating correctly to ensure safety and minimize damage,” the news release said. “No personnel or passengers were in danger at any time.”
@jym626 I heard that in an interview with a Georgia Power person on Good Morning America.
ok- from the horse’s mouth:
https://www.georgiapower.com/about-us/media-resources/newsroom.cshtml
Well, if they do have many redundant systems, they didn’t work. The explanation last night, that whatever safety measure is in place to shut this stuff down when a sequence of bad stuff occurs is likely a logical (albeit unacceptable) explanation.
More bothersome is what I heard from people who were at the airport, on planes, arriving to get on planes, etc. was that there was no communication. No one with bullhorns, no updates. Was hard to tell who was in charge (per friends) and little info was shared. Major kudos, though, toe Chick-Fil- who is closed on Sundays, who brought food to stranded passengers.
One friend was scheduled to fly to Italy. She stayed at the airport for 8 hours before heading back home. Another was a friend stuck on the taxiway in a plane for many hours. She first posted on facebook at around 2 yesterday. Then posted 8 hours later to say she was finally home, having deplaned on the roll-up staircase onto the tarmac. Another friend’s house guest (daughter’s future MIL) took uber to the airport at 4. When they arrived, she was told to stay in the car and head right back to where she came from or she’d never get another car. She did. Stayed at my friend’s place overnight and flew home at 8:30 this morning (surprising as the airport was socked in).
This was posted on fbk by another friend who works for delta as a gate agent ans is at the airport (about Chicck-fil-a)
http://www.myajc.com/news/chick-fil-comes-rescue-during-atlanta-airport-power-outage/P4szWaXYACLOpULbo0kRWJ/
Addendum:
" The fire occurred in a tunnel that runs along the path of the underground Plane Train tunnel near Concourse E." Which is why the trains to the concourses were not operational until around 10 this morning.
I saw a photo of a hideously long line at the Delta check in gate in the New Orleans airport this morning! It will be a while before all the problems from yesterday are all ironed out. Atlanta is the busiest airport in the world. D3 is flying here from PHX this evening and I hope she doesn’t run into any hideous lines. She seems constitutionally unable to get to the airport early.
The poor people who had checked bags yesterday couldn’t even be reassigned because some computer glitch makes that impossible. They kept getting the advice to speak to an agent in the airport. An agent who had no power and so could do nothing!
Luckily my DD was on a 9:30am flight yesterday. I asked her what she would have done…and she said…she would,have called the friend where she parked her car to pick her up…and she would have driven here…probably a 15 hour or so drive.
But really…how would she have known WHEN to make the call that her flight just wasn’t going to happen!
My elderly mom was on her way to Atlanta last night to spend the holidays with my sister. It was a fluke that her flight was diverted to my city so she spent the night with us as her flight got scheduled to continue on to Atlanta at 7 am this morning.