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Published on 14 December 2011
Police: Jackson garage fire believed to have started with explosion of diesel generator
A fire inside a garage on Bowman Road is believed to have started with a diesel generator and quickly engulfed the structure, police said.
Police Officers Theodore Kucowski and Steve Scaglione, as well as firefighters from Stations 55, 56 and 57 responded to a 911 call reporting fire had broken out in the garage at 879 Bowman Road around 8:07 a.m. Tuesday, to find the detached garage was completely engulfed in flames, according to Sgt. Christopher Parise.
Published on 04 September 2011
Utility crews are continuing to restore electrical outages a week after Hurricane Irene struck the East Coast.
The storm knocked out power to more than a million customers of Dominion Virginia Power; the utility reports outages number about 52,500 businesses and households mid-day Saturday, with the vast majority in the Richmond metropolitan area. Dominion said the areas that suffered the most extreme damage will have service restored Saturday.
Virginia's electrical cooperatives said Saturday that they have restored power to all of their members.
In New Jersey, there were fewer than 27,000 homes and businesses still without power as of 6 p.m. Friday, nearly all of them in JCP&L customers. The company said most customers' electricity would be restored by Saturday, except for small groups of customers in severely flooded areas, when restoration was expected by late Sunday.
Published on 04 September 2011
Flood of Generator Returns to Big Box Stores
Generator companies are reporting brisk sales of portable generators as millions of Americans remain without electricity after Hurricane Irene.
Big box stores who sell gasoline generators are facing a flood of returns once the lights come back on. It is a common occurrence. Consumers come to regret the pricey purchases and generally try to return portable generators after their personal crisis passes. We find many consumers end up disappointed at the quality of gasoline generators.
Retailers typically say they accept returns of generators if they have not been used, while some take back used items for a fee. Home Depot accepts returns of gasoline-powered items like generators within 30 days of purchase, but it reserves the right to charge a maintenance fee if a used item has to be cleaned or restored to resell.
Published on 20 August 2011
Solar Storms = Power Failures
"Forget 2012 The solar storms expected for 2011 may end up taking out power power grids for months at a time."
A new study from the National Academy of Sciences outlines grim possibilities on Earth for a worst-case scenario solar storm. Damage to power grids and other communications systems could be catastrophic, the scientists conclude, with effects leading to a potential loss of governmental control of the situation. The prediction is based in part on a major solar storm in 1859 that caused telegraph wires to short out in the United States and Europe, igniting widespread fires. It was perhaps the worst in the past 200 years, according to the new study, and with the advent of modern power grids and satellites, much more is at risk.
"A contemporary repetition of the [1859] event would cause significantly more extensive (and possibly catastrophic) social and economic disruptions," the researchers conclude. 'Command and control might be lost'
Read more: Powerful Solar Storm Could Shut Down U.S. for Months