Power Cut / Outage

[pmcgsmurf]

Power went off about 30 minutes ago in our entire street/area.

With all the lighting and streetlights off it is surprising just how dark it is.

Various house alarms going off as well just to keep us alert.

Sitting in the dark with 33% phone battery so hope it goes back on before I run out.

Can't remember last time we had an outage that wasn't just for a few seconds or a couple of minutes.

Hope it's not a new policy with new restrictions I missed to keep us all in the house.

 

[clk320x]

Is it back @pmcgsmurf ?

 

[ChrisEdu]

All together now....
And the lights all went out in...

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Power went off about 30 minutes ago in our entire street/area.

With all the lighting and streetlights off it is surprising just how dark it is.

Various house alarms going off as well just to keep us alert.

Sitting in the dark with 33% phone battery so hope it goes back on before I run out.

Can't remember last time we had an outage that wasn't just for a few seconds or a couple of minutes.

Hope it's not a new policy with new restrictions I missed to keep us all in the house.

A few years ago we stayed in the penthouse of the Rotunda, which is the famous cylindrical building in the centre of Birmingham. The shape of the building and being in the penthouse means that you have more than a 180 degree view. One night I happened to be on the balcony with my children looking out across the city and beyond when there was a powercut.

It was genuinely one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. It went from bright lights everywhere to complete darkness for as far as the eye can see. But like on the films the lights went out in stages or blocks over the course of a couple of seconds - it wasn’t accompanied by that sound though, you know the one which sounds like this “Jiwoaaaarrrrrrrr”.

It wasn’t just the darkness which became apparent but also the compete lack of noise. The city fell completely silent. The views were stunning when illuminated, but seeing the city in darkness was an incredible and rare event, and we were lucky to see it. A few minutes later, the lights came back on block by block, and normallity resumed like nothing had happened.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Power went off about 30 minutes ago in our entire street/area.

With all the lighting and streetlights off it is surprising just how dark it is.

Various house alarms going off as well just to keep us alert.

Sitting in the dark with 33% phone battery so hope it goes back on before I run out.

Can't remember last time we had an outage that wasn't just for a few seconds or a couple of minutes.

Hope it's not a new policy with new restrictions I missed to keep us all in the house.

Perha0s a good time to invest in a battery power pack for recharging phones without mains electricity, and maybe even a UPS to keep yourInternet, Wi-Fi and any Internet connected services (security alarms, cameras, automation systems) online to avoid failing over to SIM cards.

 

[pmcgsmurf]

Is it back @pmcgsmurf ?

Came back on around 00:30.
Quite a long time to be really.

Was funny listening to all the house alarms, seems no one knew how to disable them.

 

[pmcgsmurf]

A few years ago we stayed in the penthouse of the Rotunda, which is the famous cylindrical building in the centre of Birmingham. The shape of the building and being in the penthouse means that you have more than a 180 degree view. One night I happened to be on the balcony with my children looking out across the city and beyond when there was a powercut........

That sounds like quite an awesome thing to see.

I went for a walk up the street last night and was surprised how dark and quiet it was, without my light on my phone I'd have fallen over or walked into things.

 

[pmcgsmurf]

Perha0s a good time to invest in a battery power pack for recharging phones without mains electricity, and maybe even a UPS to keep yourInternet, Wi-Fi and any Internet connected services (security alarms, cameras, automation systems) online to avoid failing over to SIM cards.

Good idea, I have a few charged up battery packs here, forgot I had them.
Not got a UPS but I have a few at work that aren't being used since we removed a few servers.
Will bring one of these home as I'm redoing my workroom.

Win 7 to 10, microservers out and utilise Onedrive but this needs a thread of its own.

 

[Swotty]

We get power cuts out here in the sticks a couple of times a year. All the power and 'phone/internet supplies are overground. Worst one was 4 days. I bought a generator, have it checked yearly and keep loads of spare petrol. Last outage was just over a week ago after very strong winds and lasted 6 hours.

There is little to no light pollution here, so dark, starry skies are the norm ... unless it's cloudy, of course!