Typical
Isn't it funny how disaster waits until the right moment?
Every winter, I get nervous about one thing... the supply of mains power. Auckland's power grid seems only marginally better than that of African slums. Short power outages occur most days of the week once the load on the grid goes up, and you don't want to be without uninterruptible power supplies for your computers.
Unfortunately for me, the two smaller UPSs I used for my workstations decided to both kick the bucket. Not entirely sure why, but there was a power spike last week that had them both beeping and after that, falling over.
Aware of the gravity of the situation, I've been shopping around for a single unit with higher VA rating that's also quiet (suggestions here would be welcome).
I was, however, not fast enough.
Yesterday, the Wairau Rd substation blew up. I'm not sure what happened - sounds like there was an explosion damaged part of the substation - but a huge chunk of the North Shore went black.
And, my computers were plugged straight into the wall... catastrophe. As a result, the Program Files (x86) directory on Vista 64 is now full of scrambled files. Most of the apps I use every day don't work because the files are corrupted. I should be able to replace them, maybe by using a System Restore Point, but it's still a major hassle I could do without, especially on deadline day.
Luckily, my servers are behind a chunkier UPS that's been holding up fine, so they're running normally.
Typical... just typical.
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Comments
North Shore. The power cuts happen mostly in the early morning, so I suspect it's Mercury flicking on water heaters or whatever. The reason I know this is because one UPS has a very noisy relay of some sort...
Posted by: Juha | June 22, 2007 11:07 AM
Auckland Smauckland... We don't have problems like that down in Christchurch.
I just think you're working in the wrong place Juha
;-)
Posted by: James Hogan | June 21, 2007 4:45 PM
I pity the poor fools.
Living just down the road from the Otahuhu substation in South Auckland is an advantage. :p
Aint seen a power cut since
I've been here (1995)
Posted by: Tony Lee | June 21, 2007 1:11 PM
Power here in South/East Auckland (I am near Pakuranga) is also pretty reliable - I don’t think we have had a major power cut (or a small power cut in that case)(For this year at lest) since the Otahuhu substation disaster.
We do have the odd power cut maybe once or twice a year but part from that its pretty reliable.
Posted by: stu161204 | June 20, 2007 1:51 PM
Which part of Auckland do you live in, Juha? Power here in Kohimarama, East Auckland is pretty reliable -- we do have the odd power cut maybe once a year but apart from that pretty reliable. The last major cut was the Otahuhu substation disaster -- although there has been a few dips once every few months.
Your comment that you have 'short power cuts' each day of the week doesn't sound right to me, given that I haven't seen that happen in either Kohimarama or in Auckland's CBD.
Posted by: James Pole | June 20, 2007 1:04 PM
The winter is a real concern yet we've heard little about the water resources so far to date (it is bucketing down in Auckland today)and on top of that they are buying new electric trains....
Where pray tell will the power come from for 30 odd electricity guzzling trains come from - brown outs?
Posted by: rye | June 20, 2007 12:28 PM