More On Power Outage!

Power now on , but still police, fire and other emergency sirens. Everyone very calm, though, and people are returning to work, though traffic is still congested. Everyone I called in the DWP area seemed to have lost power, but everyone outside of DWP service area seemed to be fine. More later.

UPDATE 1:55 pm

Drudge reports a DWP power line snapped. LA Times did have a news alert ASAP, but they are still using the AP wire report with no mention of possible power line snap.

UPDATE 2:00

ABC reports that a DWP employee accidentally cut a power line in West LA and cited two sources for the information.

UPDATE 2:10

Daily news has staff written report with some new info:

A Los Angeles Department of Water and Power spokeswoman said two ``receiving stations'' were impacted, and that crews were working to determine the cause. She could not immediately estimate when power would be restored or how many customers were affected.

Nothing staff written at LA Times yet.

UPDATE 2:20

Other info from Daily News article:

Traffic lights throughout downtown and the Valley were not working, causing major traffic tie-ups, officials said. Electricity was out briefly at City Hall and Los Angeles International Airport, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority was running its subways using back-up generators.

Still nothing at LA Times.

UPDATE 2:28

No sirens downtown for at least ten/fifteen minutes. Everything back to normal here. Multiple sources now saying it was an accidentally cut cable in West LA quoting both state and DWP sources. Still nothing but old AP story at LA Times.

Why am I not surprised?

UPDATE!!

LA Times finally posts story. It is dated 2:26... but I could not get it to come up until, now at 2:30. Below is what LA Times added to the AP wire story:

By Sharon Bernstein
Times Staff Writer

2:26 PM PDT, September 12, 2005

A wide ranging power outage caused by an accidently cut cable darkened large sections of downtown Los Angeles and many parts of the San Fernando valley shortly after noon today, authorities said.

Lee Sapaden, a spokesman for the county Office of Emergency Management, said the massive power failure was caused after an employee "inadvertenly cut a power cable" at a DWP substation in West Los Angeles.

The outage dimmed much of downtown Los Angeles and other parts of the city, Burbank, Glendale and the southest San Fernando Valley, Sapaden said.

UPDATE 2:36

www.laobserved.com reports links to the LA Business Journal which at 2:15 had a report up that it was a mechanical failure at two receiving stations. Kevin also links to a detailed 1:43 Reuters story and reports that CBS also had the accidentally cable cut story posted at 2:19 on their on-line site, which ABC was broadcasting at least by 2 PM.

So why was the LA TIMES last to report this?

FINAL WORD

Wasn't a cut cable after all - just two wires put together that should... not... ever.... ever... be put together.

Now repeat after me. Red Wire to Red Wire. Green Wire to Green Wire. And Yellow Wire to...
(multiple deleted expletives not suitable for a family blog).... Wire ....

We shall now return to our regular programming.

FINAL FINAL WORD

OK - So now they did cut a cable, after all. And... then... they also stuck two wrong wires together.