The Lights Go Out. Was "The Fix" In?

[funky141]

[quote name='jaege' timestamp='1360162095' post='1347616']
I was not an electrician. Nor do I work in a back yard garage. I was a maintenace electrician, which covers a little more than installing lights and reptacles. I am now an engineering technician for the Smithsonian Institute. We use a little bit more power than a little tiny stadium, and considering the requirements of the objects (artifacts), power is a bit more important than for a football game. One thing I do know, if you spend 600k on a project to revamp your electrical system there are no "flukes" or "things missed". (Actually, do [u]you[/u] realize that 600k is a very small revamp project. That might replace two motor control centers.) These systems are designed by people (supposedly) smarter than the average joe. When a company "misses things" that leads to lawsuits and bankrutpcy. No reputable firm is going to miss something.


Let me explain, in small words, how easy it is to transfer to emergency power. Power goes out, within micro-seconds the emergency systems come up, automatically. If that sounds hard to you, then I guess it is hard. We are talking about life safty here. The power is needed for lighting in case people have to evacuate the building. Again not something they are going to let fall to a "fluke"


Maybe something happened that YOU do not know about, but the pros know. Electricty is not all that bewildering.
[/quote]
Reported by the Superdome officials that 3 months before the Super Bowl there were concerns. And you can be maintenance electrician for Smithsonian all you want but in my mind a maintenance electrician for a stadium/venue of that size is way more challenging then a museum. Stadium officials/electricians run so much more than a museum by far. Not even close when you consider hundreds of food stands, gift shops, locker rooms ( locker rooms the size of a museum), club house, press boxes and most importantly the lights, which are made differently than your normal house light.
And if you did have knowledge of electrical work you would know that outside stadium lights are made differently and require special procedures when power on and off thus why the delay in power back on this past Sunday. So I educated you on stadium lights today so you can be smarter than your average electrician.

[jaege]

Obviously you have never been to the Smithsonian if you think that a locker room is bigger than the entire museum. Either that or you have never been to a locker room.

Again let me reiterate, when you are BSing be certain that whoever you are speaking with does not know more than you.

The average stadium is about 220k square surface feet. I will give the superdome about 250,000. (I googled it, the stadium is 269,000 sqf.) The Smithsonian Natural History Museum has 750,000 square feet, and surprisingly that includes gift shops and food stands, two complete restaurants, vast amounts of temperature and humidity controlled storage spaces (these require huges amounts of energy to maintain) exhibit space, over a dozen state of the art laboratories (also energy hogs). There are also, surprisingly, lights. And also locker rooms. The footprint of superdome could fit into one wing of one of the buildings of the Smithsonian. One of a half dozen museums just on the mall in DC. All told we have over 5.5 million square feet of surface space all of it operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, unlike the superdome which operates, maybe 100 days a year for a few hours a day. Just the Smithsonians maintenance staff exceeds the entire staff of the superdome, including all of your vendors and security. Thats just the maintenance staff.

The 600 thousand dollars that the superdome spent on electrical repairs would not even cover the cost to upgrade a single wing of one building. The public space renewal project part 2 for the American History building exceeded 80 million dollars to complete. And that is just one wing, and one project.

I am fairly certain that the electricians and management staff here at our museum have the far greater challenge. In fact I am certain of it.

Everything I posted can be easily googled, if you need verification. As I said before, I am very well versed in the entire gambit of emergency power.


And again, it is automatic to switch to emergency power. Very very easy.

[A Fish Called Yanda]

I don't think comparing museums to stadia is fair.

Stadia have massive fluctuations in the amount of power that they use, yet museums most likely use the same average amount of electricity for large amounts of time (obviously there would be fluctuations after the museums shut down for the night/open in the morning.)

That being said, I trust jaege on electricity far more than Funky

[ravensdfan]

LOL

I don't know the first thing about it. I don't know if it was intentional or not.

I DO know that it was extremely beneficial to the 49ers and their young rattled QB. That cannot be denied.

Right here in the now, I guess it doesn't matter because we held on to win.

Next year, in the then, it could very well matter if it was intentional by anyone higher up in order to make a more balanced Super Bowl and increase ratings. If that's the case though, they'll never talk.

[Guest llwillow1231]

I think if it was innocent we would have an answer today is wednesday ...It didn't hurt us it did help the 49ers .it ended the way it should and i am glad.i guess the right question to ask is how often does this happen when the saints play ......I doubt anyone will dispute if the answer is never then someone did something they had no right doing.

[Tank 92]

[quote name='llwillow1231' timestamp='1360174677' post='1347833']
I think if it was innocent we would have an answer today is wednesday ...It didn't hurt us it did help the 49ers .it ended the way it should and i am glad.i guess the right question to ask is how often does this happen when the saints play ......I doubt anyone will dispute if the answer is never then someone did something they had no right doing.
[/quote]


But, but the blowout that was in the making would have felt much better!

At this point I would bet a dime to a dollar that this was not a failure of any system, but a manual trip to disrupt the momentum of the game. Could be any number of entities that made it happen, but this was no "anomaly" or system failure. It really is irrelevant to the success of the Team, so I'm done thinking about it. I'm angry that it happened because a monumental butt whooping was short circuited, but oh well.

World Champions!

[Guest llwillow1231]

[quote name='awholelottahaloti' timestamp='1360199950' post='1348504']
But, but the blowout that was in the making would have felt much better!

At this point I would bet a dime to a dollar that this was not a failure of any system, but a manual trip to disrupt the momentum of the game. Could be any number of entities that made it happen, but this was no "anomaly" or system failure. It really is irrelevant to the success of the Team, so I'm done thinking about it. I'm angry that it happened because a monumental butt whooping was short circuited, but oh well.

World Champions!
[/quote]i am trying to ignore it now but angry doesn't come close . when it happened i knew it and when they started coming back i was cursing. i wanted to route them so badly they would not ever forget it perhaps next year .with full power for 4 quaters.

[runamuk]

We won the super bowl .all i can say is nice try next time don't bet on a rookie qb

[TXRaven]

I am not a consiracy theorist but I think there may have been some tampering. I much prefer to believe in the destiny explanation though.

[Gordo52]

Aliens.

[adam713]

Case closed. Let's shut down this thread. Conspiracy hypothesis' busted.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/08/entergy-superbowl-idUSL1N0B83N620130208

[funky141]

yep from espn also
http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/2012/story/_/id/8929106/super-bowl-xlvii-utility-says-bad-device-caused-super-bowl-blackout

[PuRock]

[quote name='adam713' timestamp='1360336123' post='1350233']
Case closed. Let's shut down this thread. Conspiracy hypothesis' busted.

[url="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/08/entergy-superbowl-idUSL1N0B83N620130208"]http://www.reuters.c...N0B83N620130208[/url]
[/quote]

[color=#000000][font=arial, helvetica, sans][size=4]"[b]While some further analysis remains[/b], we believe we have identified and remedied the cause of the power outage and regret the interruption that occurred during what was a showcase event for the city and state,"[/size][/font][/color]

[color=#000000][font=arial, helvetica, sans][size=4]IDK if its case closed. Maybe they need to determine why the relay box looked like it was smashed with a sledgehammer. [/size][/font][/color]

[color=#000000][font=arial, helvetica, sans][size=4]This is such a fun topic. [/size][/font][/color]

[runamuk]

what are they going to say an assistant coach for the 49ers dropped a hammer or, other blunt object to break it . lol we won all good !

[Tank 92]

[quote name='adam713' timestamp='1360336123' post='1350233']
Case closed. Let's shut down this thread. Conspiracy hypothesis' busted.

[url="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/08/entergy-superbowl-idUSL1N0B83N620130208"]http://www.reuters.c...N0B83N620130208[/url]
[/quote]
[quote name='funky141' timestamp='1360336407' post='1350237']
yep from espn also
[url="http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/2012/story/_/id/8929106/super-bowl-xlvii-utility-says-bad-device-caused-super-bowl-blackout"]http://espn.go.com/n...r-bowl-blackout[/url]
[/quote]


Sorry, but if you read through the entire ESPN article it points to someone tripping the relay manually.

"Not long after Friday's announcement, the manufacturer of the relay, Chicago-based S&C Electric Co., released a statement saying that the blackout occurred because system operators had put the device's so-called trip setting too low to allow the device to handle the incoming electric load."

Think what you want, but a plant engineer would not all of the sudden just make a mistake like this and there were no issues with the settings of this relay prior to the SB. The trip point on these shunt trip relays is generally set way above a calculated expected maximum load and left at that setting with no need to adjust for anything. Lower the trip amperage, walk away and wait for the lights to go out. Easy enough to do and go unnoticed.

In actuality, this is exactly what stadium officials said from day 1. The system performed as designed. What they didn't know is that someone set the trip point low enough for the relay to trip under a normal load.

[Tank 92]

[quote name='PuRock' timestamp='1360336538' post='1350240']
[color=#000000][font=arial, helvetica, sans][size=4]"[b]While some further analysis remains[/b], we believe we have identified and remedied the cause of the power outage and regret the interruption that occurred during what was a showcase event for the city and state,"[/size][/font][/color]

[color=#000000][font=arial, helvetica, sans][size=4]IDK if its case closed. Maybe they need to determine why the relay box looked like it was smashed with a sledgehammer. [/size][/font][/color]

[color=#000000][font=arial, helvetica, sans][size=4]This is such a fun topic. [/size][/font][/color]
[/quote]

No need to hit it with a hammer. Take a screwdriver, adjust the trip amperage, lights out.

I'm having fun!

[Moderator 2]

So who on the Niner's bench plugged in their hairdryer?

[jaege]

[quote name='adam713' timestamp='1360336123' post='1350233']
Case closed. Let's shut down this thread. Conspiracy hypothesis' busted.

[url="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/08/entergy-superbowl-idUSL1N0B83N620130208"]http://www.reuters.c...N0B83N620130208[/url]
[/quote]


What because someone came up with a very thin excuse. Yep that's all we blind sheep need. Baaaaa.

I am not a conspiracy theorist either but if anyone thinks that money does not make the whole NFL go around then they are naive. There are 100 s of millions of dollars at stake here. Its late, work the next day, one of the teams is a small market anyway (that most people do not like), and that 3rd quarter opening run back made the outcome of the game look pretty clear. The blowout that was shaping up meant most viewers were turning off their TVs. They would not be watching those million dollar commercials. Next year the ad airtime might not be as high. The NFL might lose money. That does not even consider the Vegas angle.

[size=4]People and organizations have done far more and worse things for far less money. While I am not saying anything untoward did happen, I would not be surprised if a different story came out one day.[/size]

[adam713]

[quote name='jaege' timestamp='1360366601' post='1350838']
What because someone came up with a very thin excuse. Yep that's all we blind sheep need. Baaaaa.

I am not a conspiracy theorist either but if anyone thinks that money does not make the whole NFL go around then they are naive. There are 100 s of millions of dollars at stake here. Its late, work the next day, one of the teams is a small market anyway (that most people do not like), and that 3rd quarter opening run back made the outcome of the game look pretty clear. The blowout that was shaping up meant most viewers were turning off their TVs. They would not be watching those million dollar commercials. Next year the ad airtime might not be as high. The NFL might lose money. That does not even consider the Vegas angle.

[size=4]People and organizations have done far more and worse things for far less money. While I am not saying anything untoward did happen, I would not be surprised if a different story came out one day.[/size]
[/quote]

I'll say this AGAIN. Lecturing me on the "realness" of life does no good, and I get that unjust things have happened due to money. I wouldn't be surprised, per say, if a report came out and said that someone manually screwed with the device. I'm just saying that folks shouldn't be so quick to jump on a conspiracy bandwagon because it's an interesting correlation (though zero proof has been presented). Yes, it's fun to discuss and speculate and that's why were all on this forum. But, since were on the money angle, why would an energy company come out and say "oh, yes, it was indeed our bad" when that causes THEM to lose boat loads of money too.

Entergy's stock dropped when they made that announcement and just hurts their reliability (which loses you money too):
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/02/08/entergy-stock-super-bowl-outage/1901841/

So, you're right: The device was intentionally set at a low setting by a 49ers fan who works at one of Entergy's competitors. Mrs. Peacock with the candlestick (like the ballpark in SF) in the Study! Boom...case closed.

[Tank 92]

[quote name='adam713' timestamp='1360368056' post='1350912']
why would an energy company come out and say "oh, yes, it was indeed our bad"

[/quote]


Why are you saying things that are just not true? Entergy in no way said "our bad" What they said was;


[i][b]The device was specifically installed to protect the Superdome's equipment in the event of a cable failure between the switchgear and the stadium, Entergy said on Friday.[/b][/i]
[i][b]The relay had functioned without issue during a number of other events, including the New Orleans Bowl, the New Orleans Saints-Carolina Panthers game, and the Sugar Bowl.[/b][/i]
[i][b]But during Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday, the relay device triggered, signaling a switch to open when it should not have, which caused a partial power outage in the building.[/b][/i]
[i][b]Entergy said the device has since been removed from service and new replacement equipment was being evaluated.[/b][/i]
[i][b]"While some further analysis remains, we believe we have identified and remedied the cause of the power outage and regret the interruption that occurred during what was a showcase event for the city and state," Charles Rice, president and chief executive officer of Entergy New Orleans, said in a statement.[/b][/i]

My guess is the "new replacement equipment" that is being evaluated will be preset and not easily tampered with.


They said the switch opened when it shouldn't have. They didn't say why and the manufacturer is saying the trip set point was set too low. Like I said before, believe what you want, but don't misrepresent the facts to try to prove your point.

[funky141]

[quote name='awholelottahaloti' timestamp='1360371797' post='1351066']
Why are you saying things that are just not true? Entergy in no way said "our bad" What they said was;


[i][b]The device was specifically installed to protect the Superdome's equipment in the event of a cable failure between the switchgear and the stadium, Entergy said on Friday.[/b][/i]
[i][b]The relay had functioned without issue during a number of other events, including the New Orleans Bowl, the New Orleans Saints-Carolina Panthers game, and the Sugar Bowl.[/b][/i]
[i][b]But during Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday, the relay device triggered, signaling a switch to open when it should not have, which caused a partial power outage in the building.[/b][/i]
[i][b]Entergy said the device has since been removed from service and new replacement equipment was being evaluated.[/b][/i]
[i][b]"While some further analysis remains, we believe we have identified and remedied the cause of the power outage and regret the interruption that occurred during what was a showcase event for the city and state," Charles Rice, president and chief executive officer of Entergy New Orleans, said in a statement.[/b][/i]

My guess is the "new replacement equipment" that is being evaluated will be preset and not easily tampered with.


They said the switch opened when it shouldn't have. They didn't say why and the manufacturer is saying the trip set point was set too low. Like I said before, believe what you want, but don't misrepresent the facts to try to prove your point.
[/quote]

why does my normal breaker switch trip? It's brand new, right off the shelf? but never tripped before?
you can run circles around each other, seriously.

[jaege]

[quote name='adam713' timestamp='1360368056' post='1350912']
I'll say this AGAIN. Lecturing me on the "realness" of life does no good, and I get that unjust things have happened due to money. I wouldn't be surprised, per say, if a report came out and said that someone manually screwed with the device. I'm just saying that folks shouldn't be so quick to jump on a conspiracy bandwagon because it's an interesting correlation (though zero proof has been presented). Yes, it's fun to discuss and speculate and that's why were all on this forum. But, since were on the money angle, why would an energy company come out and say "oh, yes, it was indeed our bad" when that causes THEM to lose boat loads of money too.

Entergy's stock dropped when they made that announcement and just hurts their reliability (which loses you money too):
[url="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/02/08/entergy-stock-super-bowl-outage/1901841/"]http://www.usatoday....outage/1901841/[/url]

So, you're right: The device was intentionally set at a low setting by a 49ers fan who works at one of Entergy's competitors. Mrs. Peacock with the candlestick (like the ballpark in SF) in the Study! Boom...case closed.
[/quote]


Firstly I wasn't lecturing anyone, least of all you. Lecturing implies that I have some desire to educate, which in this case I do not. I really do not care either way. Secondly, I do not know a Mrs Peacock, and certainly have no desire to know what it is she may be doing with a candlestick, alone in her study.

[size=4]Lastly, I never said nor implied that a 9ers fan or an employee of any energy company did anything to any settings.[/size][size=4]I merely was pointing out that it is not outside the realm of reality that an agency that stood to lose a large sum of money may have taken advantage of a situation to try and prevent that loss, and that now we fans are being fed the typical line of BS.[/size]

[Tank 92]

[quote name='funky141' timestamp='1360382163' post='1351239']
why does my normal breaker switch trip? It's brand new, right off the shelf? but never tripped before?
you can run circles around each other, seriously.
[/quote]

Did you even read the article on the link you posted? The manufacturer is saying the trip point was set too low to handle the load. And QC is a little different on a $20k piece of industrial equipment than your $5 household breaker. How often does a household breaker fail? Not very often, and usually that's due to age. It trips as designed because you overloaded the circuit.

This is going round and round because people like you are ignoring the documented facts.

[jberta1]

I'm not sure it was on purpose. However, it absolutely killed our momentum. Just returned a kick for a TD and had them at 3rd and 13. SF is very lucky the lights went out, it could've been very ugly for them.

[Guest RBates]

[quote name='Militant X 1' timestamp='1359991371' post='1344410']
i'm curious to see what my flock brothers/sisters think about that "mysterious" power outage that happened right after our boys went up 28-6. Beyonce had a whole lot of electrical stuff going on in her show and no power outage then. hmmm. so what are your views on this? could "the fix" have possibly been on? lol!

~Mili
[/quote]_YES- they tried to cover that spread.

[funky141]

Word on the streets in New Orleans is Sean Payton left his space heater on in the office for the entire season and it finally blew.

[Purple Nurple]

[quote name='PuRock' timestamp='1360336538' post='1350240']
[color=#000000][font=arial, helvetica, sans][size=4]"[b]While some further analysis remains[/b], we believe we have identified and remedied the cause of the power outage and regret the interruption that occurred during what was a showcase event for the city and state,"[/size][/font][/color]

[color=#000000][font=arial, helvetica, sans][size=4]IDK if its case closed. Maybe they need to determine why the relay box looked like it was smashed with a sledgehammer. [/size][/font][/color]

[color=#000000][font=arial, helvetica, sans][size=4]This is such a fun topic. [/size][/font][/color]
[/quote]

I didnt see a picture. Help a brother out here.

[ravensdfan]

I'm not a conspiracy person however, I have to say I did find the comment Boger made to the 49er guy odd on the Sound FX SB thing. Where he says (and I'm paraphrasing a bit because I don't remember word for word) "Yeah, just had to get the momentum going" the 49er says something like "yeah, we are" and then he says, "lights going out is always good for somebody"

Hmmm....

Just sayin' I found it odd.