Re: Never push the Big Red Button (New York City subway failure)

[Fred Baker <fredbaker.ietf () gmail com>]

> On Sep 10, 2021, at 1:33 PM, Warren Kumari <warren () 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.

Yup, it happens, and it happened.