Worlds busiest airport has had no power for over 6 hours Atlanta
 

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ai...minals-n830546

Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta has had no power for over 6 hours trapping people in planes and even worse trams.

Looks like a fire at a substation caused the problem

What the fks up with homeland security and why don't they have back up generators. This makes the US look like a third world country.

I've been to that airport on my way back to BC from Puerto Rico. God damn that place is a huge mess, I can only imagine it with out power.

The eyebrows at 0:10.

The fire damaged all the switchgear, which included the generator transfer switch system.

If it truly is the busiest airport in the world (I'm pretty sure I've heard that claim about every big airport) the systems should be redundant and separate. Since they weren't that's pretty weak.

Apparently the airport is served by two separate underground substations and the fire damaged them both.

I guess you could go as far as to build them complete at separate ends of the airport from each other, perhaps the cost of doing that vs rarity of both systems being damaged at the same time wasn't worth it.

I guess as armchair electrical engineers it's easy for us to make claims in hindsight, without knowing the all the details.

there were redundancy in the system

either the damage was pretty extensive or most of the handy guys were out of town the Sunday before the biggest Western holiday

remember the widespread blackout in the east during the early 2000s?

If an incident at a single point can knock out everything then it isn't a redundant system. It may have some redundant components, but overall the system is not redundant.

wasn't that die hard 4 where the mac commercial guy saved the world?

I think the tower itself will have a backup of some sort. everything else is probably a luxury.