On Wed, Sep 15, 2021 at 3:20 PM Fred Baker <fredbaker.i...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > On Sep 10, 2021, at 1:33 PM, Warren Kumari <war...@kumari.net> wrote: > > > > The utility let them know that they were going to be doing some > maintenance work in the area. No impact expected, but out of an abundance > of caution, they transfer over to generators. After the utility lets them > know that the maintenance work is all finished, they want to switch back. > If the generators are "emergency power", and you need to switch back to > "utility power", obviously the way to do this must be the big red button, > clearly marked as "EMERGENCY POWER OFF", no?! > > One of the many stories that came out of 9/11 was a switching center in NY > City that had a diesel generator as a power backup - which of course acted > as primary when the city power is off. After a few days of operation, it > needed to be refueled, so a truck was sent in carrying gasoline. The > generator was refueled and restarted, and - oops - diesel != gasoline. So > then they needed to bring in a new generator. > Oooof. I've seen someone at a gas station do something similar -- I cannot remember if it was putting diesel in their gasoline car, or gas in their diesel pickup, but I *do* remember the sudden yelp and look of dismay when they suddenly realized what they were doing. It must be really easy to get wrong in a car (operating on autopilot), but that's a much less bad failure than a generator... Anyway, refueling generators reminds me of: https://www.mail-archive.com/nanog@nanog.org/msg111947.html W > > Yup, it happens, and it happened. -- The computing scientist’s main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making. -- E. W. Dijkstra