Weird Power Outage?

[Neeper]

I think my home PC got fried. It won't turn back on!!

[EVERLAST]

I now know why my alarm clock was flashing this morning instead of waking me

[FurnaceFace]

Power blip sets off alarms across Alberta

Calgary Herald

Published: Saturday, March 18, 2006
A flash power failure caused havoc across the province Friday night, dimming lights and triggering fire and security alarms.
An Altalink power line used to ship electricity between Alberta to British Columbia malfunctioned around 9 p.m.

When the line failed, the electricity had no where to go. The excess power overloaded the system for an instant, causing a power blip across Alberta, before safety breakers came into effect, said Enmax spokesman Peter Hunt. "This is very rare. It is a major system event," he said.

Traffic lights across Calgary were affected. Security and fire alarms were also set off, causing emergency crews to race across the city responding to dozens of calls. Two extra dispatchers had to be called in to cope with the overflow of alarms but by 11 p.m. the situation was under control, Calgary Fire spokesman John Conley said.

I guess Memory Express will be busy today with people buying replacement bits that got fried and buying UPSs.

Neeper - One of my boxes wouldn't reboot immediately. I unplugged the power cord, plugged back in and it came up fine. Give it a shot.

[@theCBE]

I was driving down memorial when I saw a huge flash coming from what looked like the bow river... then the guy I was talking on the phone to said all his power went out. As did all the street lights..
My computer was rebooted when I got home and all my clocks needed to be reset

weird stuff for sure

[Red]

I wonder how many people will buy those $250 power bars from Monster Cable

To those that "lost" some electronics, try to unplug it from power for a minute and see what happens. I had to do this with my TV and DVD player.

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by Jiggy_12

No radio eh? That would have creeped me right out.

Yeah, it was creepy. For a moment I wouldn't have been surprised if flying saucers started coming down next.

[Bobblehead]

I left my receiver off and an hour later it came back to life. It lost some settings that had been programmed for 4 years, but other than that, all looks to be back to normal.

And I have a "high quality" power bar that came with my satellite system that the receiver was plugged into, and my receiver still wasn't a happy camper for a while.

[Shazam]

Here's the story on what happened:

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/...563f9c&k=14363

My basement UPS was on for 5 seconds due to electrical noise.

[STeeLy]

It was pretty freaky. I was just on the phone with my manager at the time (he was talking on his cell and I was on the company phone which draw the power from the phone line) and the lights blinked. All I heard my manager say was: WTF was that? I just told him, hey We got that here at the store too...

Good thing my computer was off, but had to reset about 15 different digital clocks at home... such a pain.

[OILFAN #81]

I live in South Edmonton but didn't notice anything. Mind you I went to a Maxim Girl Kegger last night and was passed out on my bed for awhile so it might have happened at that time.

[OILFAN #81]

Edit: double post

[FelixFF]

Definitely a strange event last night. I was at a friends place(on 14th ave sw) waiting for a few more friends to show up before we went out for some drinks at a nearby pub. I was sitting on the balcony(the bacony is facing west)i was looking south while my friend was looking north towards the downtown core. The whole area i was looking at went dark while the sky seemed to glow bright for a split second then i looked towards the downtown buildings and nothing but dark shadows for a couple of seconds. My friends girlfriend was downloading some music vids then nothing..but her computer went haywire for the next 5 minutes.

[Fire]

The power outage fried my cable modem.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Fire

The power outage fried my cable modem.

My cable modem got fried last summer during a thunderstorm. I was sitting at the computer when I saw a lightning bolt come down very close to my house. Bam, my cable modem was dead.

That's why I now surge protect my cable line coming into the house.

[photon]

I had to go to Memory Express to return something and it was NUTS. The service line was huge and they said they'd never sold so many power supplies.