Documents: Worries about outage before Super Bowl

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-EXCITE

By KEVIN McGILL and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - While authorities investigate the causes of the 34-minute Super Bowl blackout, documents show that Superdome officials were worried last fall about losing power at the big game.

Tests on the dome's electrical feeders showed decay and "a chance of failure," state officials warned in a memo dated Oct. 15. Also, the utility that supplied the stadium with power expressed concern about the reliability of the service before the NFL championship.

Entergy New Orleans, the company that supplies the stadium with power, and the structure's engineering staff "had concerns regarding the reliability of the Dome service from Entergy's connection point to the Dome," the memo adds.

The memo - prepared for the Louisiana Stadium & Exposition District - says those concerns were due in part to "circumstances that have previously occurred with the electrical service regarding transient spikes and loads."

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130205/DA48E3AO0.html

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Fans and members of the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers wait for power to return in the Superdome during an outage in the second half of the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game, Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

[mikeytherat]

1. When this happened, I turned to Mrs. Rat and said, "Somewhere an engineer is laughing and ranting."

I said, "An engineer brought this up. A lack of maintenance and an aging system, with at least one potential major point of failure, were highlighted. The engineer was, of course, ignored. Ignored for reasons of cheap-skatedness."

mikey_the_rat

[sgsmith]

2. Except, if you read the article

They did spend a million dollars on improvements prior to the game and some $600,000 on electrical feeder improvements between the utility and the Superdome.

[fleur-de-lisa]

3. The real cause of the SB blackout . . .