Con Ed Says NYC Datacenters Should Get Power Saturday 107
Nerval's Lobster writes "The local utility serving most of the New York City area, Con Edison, reported that it should begin supplying utility power to midtown and lower Manhattan by Saturday evening, returning the island's data centers and citizens to some semblance of normalcy. In the past few days, data center managers have been forced to add fuel logistics to their list of responsibilities, as most Manhattan data centers have been subsisting on generator power. That should come to an end, for the most part, when utility power is restored. In a possibly worrying note, Verizon warned late on Nov. 1 that its services to business customers could be impacted due to lack of fuel."
Re:Fuel logistics (Score:5, Informative)
True, but you can't legally use the fuel that's meant for the data center in your truck to get it there. We did that after Hugo hit the SC coast in Sept 1989 and got caught. The generator fuel has dye in it that will stain the fuel filter. It took nearly six months and several tens of thousands in legal fees to get our truck back. Meanwhile, the servers in our data center in Goose Creek, SC ran out of fuel and nearly put the company out of business. There were dozens of other trucks that got caught at the weight stations over the next few years that also used fuel not meant for use on the road that were also fined and/or confiscated. My father-in-law owns a towing company so they got a lot of towing and storage business from that. Don't underestimate the US government's desire to screw over the little guy and their desire to put companies out of business.
Re:New York will re-build. (Score:5, Informative)
Obviously not, because they are going to re-build.
Manhattan barely has to rebuild anything. Building codes are tough there - everything has to be brick, concrete, or steel. Building foundations go down to bedrock. Few Manhattan buildings were damaged by the hurricane. One three-story slum had the front facade collapse; the walls and floors held and no one was injured. One construction crane had its boom broken by the wind, but the safety cables held and it didn't fall. That was about it for Manhattan.
Yes, there was about a half billion gallons of water in subway, railroad, and road tunnels. Was. The MTA has big pumps. They have pumping trains made from old subway [youtube.com] cars which they pushed up to the water with small Diesel locomotives. Half the East River tunnels are already pumped out and some lines under the river are operating. Limited subway service between Manhattan and Brooklyn should resume tomorrow.
Power never failed for Manhattan above 34th St, and it's back on now for most of lower Manhattan. Even when flooded, underground power lines can be restored rapidly. That will speed up the remaining pumping work. With power back on, New York City's gasoline pipeline is running again, and gas stations are reopening.
The areas that are severely damaged are single-family residential frame structures in coastal communities. Some of them are totally wiped out. People in the outer boroughs and the Jersey shore are getting cold and hungry. The first supermarket in Far Rockaway reopens at 11 AM Saturday. In Manhattan, as soon as the infrastructure came back up, the city was ready to go. Not so in the 'burbs.
The idiots who stayed on Fire Island despite a mandatory evacuation order were finally rescued, with great difficulty. The first group of rescuers had to themselves be rescued; they were cut off when water cut all the way across the island. Now the people who built expensive frame houses facing the Atlantic Ocean only a few feet above sea level are whining for Government funding to rebuild.