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Originally Posted by the_only_turek_fan
I live in the NW, and we had an outage in that same time slot.
The explanation to the best of my knowledge is that there are too many people using electricity which means there is an increase in the amount of current that is drawn, which in turns makes power lines sag. This makes the lines vulnerable to a fault.
Dan, Kevin, am I on the right track?
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Well Sunil, as some of the other guys here already mentioned, your explanation isn't correct, but it's not nearly as bad of an attempt as some of them might imply...
There are soooo many possible explanations for an outage, but weather and mother nature is the answer most of the time.
The over-drawing of current is correct, but it's not because there are too many people using electricity at once. Power grids are designed with this in mind, wouldn't you think?
Systems are so sophisticated these days and completely computer controlled that whenever it senses added loads to a particular region, backup UPSes kick in to meet the demand.
Most likely, the outage was due to a sagging power line shorting through tree limbs (which should have been trimmed) and cutting off the path. The particular line was likely a major path supplying a particular area causing the outage.
Another explanation would be "rolling blackouts" (when power companies intentionally cut power off to certain areas) which power companies deploy every now and then (usually during peak times when the most electricity is being used) to keep power consumption down. They usually go on for an hour to three hours and most of the time they try and notify the people it will affect.