Atlanta airport closed

[Red Squirrel]

Holy crap I don't even want to start to figure just how many batteries that would take but I know it would take huge structures off-site just to house them and they would have to be replaced at LEAST once a decade using batteries they would have been using up till now at a cost of oh my fucking god.

Chances are you'd only run the most critical stuff like lights, computers and basically anything vital to operations. I guess tarmac equipment like compressors might be an issue though. Those mechanical hallway arm things might use lot of power too but they don't run continuously so idealy if power goes out they are all in the right position and you can at least finish boarding/disembarking any planes that are in the process and let those take off. By then hopefully the generator kicked on.

Our power plant at the CO I work at runs at about 1600 amps but we have two 155kw generators to take over. I think the batteries are good for about 10 hours.

I guess no matter what you will always have a single point of failure though so it's probably a risk vs cost thing.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I live in one of Atlanta's suburbs and been in that airport several times, but for domestic and international flights. I was stunned to find that the airport sat on a SPOF design and that this wasn't the first time they've had power issues. Makes no difference, IMO, that it is the world's busiest airport in that this shouldn't happen in busy internally-labeled airports. Wife and I actually had friends (and their kids) stuck in the international terminal at the start of their trip to India.

 

[local]

Thanks for the info but too much power for generators? You can buy a 4.5MW generator from CAT and I'd be willing to be you can power a few jet bridges with one of those.

I agree, they probably were talking about all of them. But I would imagine cost/benefit ratio would be way in favor of extra ladder trucks rather than large generators for this kind of almost never happens kind of event.

 

[Mayne]

did they not pay their hydro bill?

 

[Ichinisan]

did they not pay their hydro bill?

"Hydro bill?"

Water bill?

Wind bill? Nuclear bill? Coal bill? Natural gas bill?

You Canadians...

Power bill.

Electric / electricity / electrical bill.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Most power companies have the word Hydro in their name, so that's probably why we always call it the Hydro bill. that and a good chunk of power comes from dams, at least where I am. Cut us from the south and we have enough spare power to send a man to the moon a couple thousand times. (ok I just made that up, but it's probably true, it did not actually take much power to do that. )

 

[Exterous]

http://www.myajc.com/news/national/atlanta-outage-zero-communication/WZer5OOaNNgsk26R6gOMyK/

Among the airport’s challenges: It had no electricity to power its public announcement system, and only hundreds of employees to manage 35,000 stranded people. The airport’s backup generators can power only one elevator per concourse. The generators in concourses D and E failed shortly after switching on, Bheodari said.

So they do have generators for the terminals but they aren't tied into important systems or well sized. And given that two failed shortly after starting I'm guessing they aren't tested or well cared for.

Also they knew they lost power around 1pm and knew they had a fire but didn't call a ground stop until 3:28pm meaning they kept letting planes land instead of diverting them. I've heard mentions of them only having ~5 mobile stairs which would seem to line up with the fact that it took almost 10 hours to deplane everyone stranded on the tarmac.

 

[shortylickens]

thats what happens when you force people to use an airport 2000 miles out of their way.

 

[FeuerFrei]

Chick-Fil-A: Once again serving the community without regard to profit
Stores in the area swung into action Sunday (their off day) to deliver meals to stranded travelers at the airport.

http://www.wideopeneats.com/chick-fil-a-sunday/

 

[Ichinisan]

Chick-Fil-A: Once again serving the community without regard to profit
Stores in the area swung into action Sunday (their off day) to deliver meals to stranded travelers at the airport.

http://www.wideopeneats.com/chick-fil-a-sunday/

I believe some individual CFA restaurants did something like that a couple years ago when Atlanta got hit with instant ice as soon as rush hour hit. Instant gridlock and even the salt trucks couldn't move or do anything. People were stuck for several hours.

 

[zinfamous]

I believe some individual CFA restaurants did something like that a couple years ago when Atlanta got hit with instant ice as soon as rush hour hit. Instant gridlock and even the salt trucks couldn't move or do anything. People were stuck for several hours.

HTF did Chik Fil-A get out there on that dreaded Southern Ice?

 

[Exterous]

HTF did Chik Fil-A get out there on that dreaded Southern Ice?

lol - that was a fun thread

https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...n-i75-in-atlanta-for-20-hours.2366438/page-10

 

[tynopik]

HTF did Chik Fil-A get out there on that dreaded Southern Ice?

when life gives you Southern Ice, make Southern Iced Tea

 

[Ns1]

This is ATL right? As in DELTA'S HUB? how is this even possible?

Among the airport’s challenges: It had no electricity to power its public announcement system, and only hundreds of employees to manage 35,000 stranded people. The airport’s backup generators can power only one elevator per concourse. The generators in concourses D and E failed shortly after switching on, Bheodari said.

So they do have generators for the terminals but they aren't tied into important systems or well sized. And given that two failed shortly after starting I'm guessing they aren't tested or well cared for.

Also they knew they lost power around 1pm and knew they had a fire but didn't call a ground stop until 3:28pm meaning they kept letting planes land instead of diverting them. I've heard mentions of them only having ~5 mobile stairs which would seem to line up with the fact that it took almost 10 hours to deplane everyone stranded on the tarmac.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Anyone that has ever flown Delta from Los Angeles to Seattle and been routed through Atlanta probably wishes the closure was permanent.

 

[Ns1]

Anyone that has ever flown Delta from Los Angeles to Seattle and been routed through Atlanta probably wishes the closure was permanent.

that's just crazy - alaskan air and call it a day.

 

[Ichinisan]

HTF did Chik Fil-A get out there on that dreaded Southern Ice?

They walked down the precariously icy interstate ramps.

 

[spacejamz]

I looked in earlier posts so I am sorry if I missed it, but both the primary and backup lines were in the same tunnel that caught fire...

https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/n...fire/465-6e1cf44f-930d-4b5a-b7db-94311a4d877b

Did the designer of their backup system skip the day of class where this shouldn't happen?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Reminds me of when you have a fiber ring, but both ends of the ring going to a certain city go through the same casing. Doh! Something similar happened to my city years back, someone cut the fibre going into the city to disable the alarm system of a restaurant so they can try to steal the ATM, or something like that. They disabled the alarm system alright, because no calls were leaving the city and all communication was cut off.

We have better redundancy now.