Gary Brown Shut Off Power Downtown on 9/11 to Protect Dan Gilbert's Offices [[Rumor)

[Gistok]

.... or maybe Gary Brown should have called the Psychic Hot Line??

[Scottathew]

Yes, the DPL has its own grid, but past incidents suggest that if DPL fails, it can stress DTE's grid, as well. Wayne State's own grid, for example, is about half DPL, half DTE. Brown made the decision that risking power outages for DTE's customers was unacceptable, so he shut off DPL customers. That Kevyn Orr is in the process of phasing out DPL and handing off all city electrical business to DTE is, of course, purely coincidental.

DPL failing would not stress DTE's grid other than the exact moment of the failure when DTE's system would have to deal with a large amount of excess energy.

Once past the initial moment of failure, a DPL failure would result in more capacity available for DTE's grid.

Nain Rouge, some of your comments are simply false and rejected by the facts of reality. None of this was done to benefit Gilbert or other private businesses. You really ought to do some more research before creating a topic based on a conspiracy theory you've cooked up in your own head.

You're very critical of Gary Brown, and that's where we're going to agree. Gary Brown's comments were reckless and insensitive.

[Scottathew]

Brown did "send a message". He told the building managers that "when I say shed your load, I mean shed your load NOW".

They reached out requesting folks turn off their AC, which on a day like that was a ridiculous request. A building with no AC on a 95 degree day is a building that must close.

Having no AC is the same as having no power. The building must be evacuated either way.

It would have been preferred if the city could work with managers to get them to ground their elevators before the switch was flipped off, but it sounds like they simply either didn't care [[which is what you get from Brown's attitude) or that they didn't have a system in place to talk to the right people in a timely fashion.

Regardless of whether or not they could have done better, this is what Brown should have said:

"Earlier we requested customers to drastically reduce on energy consumption. We appreciate those that cooperated, but we were not successful in getting enough load cut. As a result, we had to impose an immediate shutdown of some parts of the grid in order to preserve partial service and prevent a total cascading failure of our grid. We regret that we were not able to communicate fast enough to the various building managers in order to ground elevators. We're going to investigate a better way to handle this in the future. We thank everyone who was affected for their patience."

[Det_ard]

They reached out requesting folks turn off their AC, which on a day like that was a ridiculous request. A building with no AC on a 95 degree day is a building that must close.

Having no A/C is the same as having no power. The building must be evacuated either way.

You don't think that's a little over-dramatic? So the inside temp rises into the 80's before work lets out at 5:00, therefore you HAVE to close the building? How soft have we become?

[Hamtragedy]

Uh, if they intentionally shut the power off, then why did it take another 44 hours to turn the power back on, or at least the traffic lights overnight? As if somehow paying police overtime to direct traffic downtown will solve the problem?

Downtown / DP&L has been susceptible to power outages on hot days for at least a decade now. When one transmission line is compromised, and it takes days to repair. If you overload the remaining century-old transmission lines and they crash, who knows by what decade power will be restored, so DP&L shut the whole thing down.

BTW, DP&L used to fire ALL of the Detroit Public Schools. Has Edison since taken over that portion, since none of the schools closed last week?

[Hermod]

You don't think that's a little over-dramatic? So the inside temp rises into the 80's before work lets out at 5:00, therefore you HAVE to close the building? How soft have we become?

I agree that you have a couple of hours after AC shuts down in a large office building before the interior reaches unbearable temperatures. If the building managers had killed the AC when told, DPL might have been able to ride through this.

[Scottathew]

You don't think that's a little over-dramatic? So the inside temp rises into the 80's before work lets out at 5:00, therefore you HAVE to close the building? How soft have we become?

Nope, I don't. A building in a 95 degree city without air conditioning cannot be used. I agree that it would take a few hours for the temperature to rise to unbearable levels, but none-the-less the buildings would most likely be closed.

Keep in mind, these are government buildings filled with mostly union workers, their tolerance is going to be much lower. I'd shut the buildings down rather than deal with all the greivances from people being told they have to work without air conditioning.

[Gannon]

I blame the Illuminati, and the New World Order.

Ultimately, of course...but specifically?! Here?


You're probably right, even if you were kidding.

[motz]

keep in mind, these are government buildings filled with mostly union workers, their tolerance is going to be much lower. I'd shut the buildings down rather than deal with all the greivances from people being told they have to work without air conditioning.

I'm pretty sure they invented air conditioning after they built 15-20 story buildings. So I'm pretty sure that your "ITS COMPLETELY UNBEARABLE" line is a result of having lived in AC your whole life. If I can wear a short sleeve shirt to work, I'm fine. I've never had AC anywhere I've lived, so a "TOTALLY UNBEARABLE 95 DEGREE DAY" is just uncomfortable, not a death sentence.

[Hermod]

Nope, I don't. A building in a 95 degree city without air conditioning cannot be used. I agree that it would take a few hours for the temperature to rise to unbearable levels, but none-the-less the buildings would most likely be closed.

Keep in mind, these are government buildings filled with mostly union workers, their tolerance is going to be much lower. I'd shut the buildings down rather than deal with all the greivances from people being told they have to work without air conditioning.

When I worked for the city of Detroit, they were just beginning to install AC in our building. We went through June, July, and August without it. It got turned on in September, but until they were able to "balance" it, it wasn't very effective.

[brizee]

So is this the shining intelligence the City needed to triple his bank account.

And no there is literally nothing Kevyn Orr/Gary Brown/the state can do that his cheerleaders won't condemn, admit was a bad idea, or even bring themselves to acknowledge it could have been done in a better way.

[Hermod]

So is this the shining intelligence the City needed to triple his bank account.

And no there is literally nothing Kevyn Orr/Gary Brown/the state can do that his cheerleaders won't condemn, admit was a bad idea, or even bring themselves to acknowledge it could have been done in a better way.

I have worked in places where "load shedding" was routine on hotter [[than normal) days. If it was going to be hot and humid, the facilities guys would come around and pull the fuzes on our AC system somewhere between 1:30PM and 3:00PM. That part wasn't too bad, it was just that it would take them from 9:30 to 10:30 the next morning to get around and put the fuzes back in. These procedures are normal in many areas.