Lightning definitely NOT the cause of US/Can Blackout
by Varlet 10:49pm Thu Aug 14 '03 (Modified on 12:24am Fri Aug 15 '03)


A study of National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration radar images for upstate New York and the New England region shows that no thunderstorms have been in that area this evening, and there have been no rain events in the Niagara Falls-Buffalo area in the past 48 hours.

All the news reports claiming that lightning caused this outage are, apparently, false. The Associated Press has carried widely distributed reports saying: "Canadian authorities said at first that it appeared lightning had struck a power plant on the U.S. side of the border in the Niagara Falls region, setting off outages that spread over 9,300 square miles. But U.S. officials disputed that conclusion". (Aug 14, 9:19 PM EDT 'Largest-Ever Blackout Hits Eastern U.S.', By CALVIN WOODWARD Associated Press Writer).

However, a study of National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration radar images for upstate New York and the New England region shows that no thunderstorms have been in that area this evening. Furthermore, a review of the two major NOAA sites in upstate New York, in Buffalo, NY and at the Niagara Falls International airport, indicate that there have been no thunderstorms in these areas in the past two days, and no rainfall has been reported in either of these locations in the past 48 hours, either.

The Canadian and US authorities are accusing each other's power generation systems of being at fault. The Canadians are the ones who have claimed that it was either lightning or a fire at an upstate NY Con Ed generating station that caused the problem.

Check out these sites to verify my report:

NOAA radar for upstate NY and New England: http://weather.noaa.gov/radar/loop/DS.p38cr/si.kenx.shtml

Niagara Falls International Airport 2-Day Weather History:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/obhistory/KIAG.html

Greater Buffalo International Airport
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/obhistory/KBUF.html

So what was the cause? Who knows! But it definitely wasn't lightning in the Niagara falls area! Maybe it's just a failed attempt by the electric companies to create a fake power shortage in order to ramp up electric rates, like Enron and the California electric companies pulled a while back, robbing the people of California of hundreds of millions of dollars. Already, the Canadian press have written that this blackout has closed down oil refineries, and that the price of gasoline rose this afternoon as the blackout wore on ("Blackout puts squeeze on gasoline prices", by Brent Jang, Toronto (Canada) Globe and Mail, 15 August, 2003).

Watching the idiot president-select vamp on this issue tonight, it appears that it may be a while before we know anything "like" the truth about this latest crisis of the capitalist system. For tonight, 50 million American and Canadian citizens will experience a minor simulation of the nightmare conditions that the US/British bombing of Iraq's infrastructure have caused for the Iraqi people.

Varlet