XF explosion at Candlestick Park

[jaggedben]

I thought people here might be interested in what just happened before the start of Monday Night Football.

You can see the arc flashes and explosion from the blimp shot, in this video, about 20 secs in. Kinda cool to watch.
http://www.nfl.com/videos/pittsburgh-steelers/09000d5d82539d93/Get-the-candles-out

Wonder what went wrong?

I'm also impressed that they were able to switch the stadium to another XF within a 1/2 hour. Does the stadium have completely redundant back up infrastructure?

 

[Hv&Lv]

I thought people here might be interested in what just happened before the start of Monday Night Football.

You can see the arc flashes and explosion from the blimp shot, in this video, about 20 secs in. Kinda cool to watch.
http://www.nfl.com/videos/pittsburgh-steelers/09000d5d82539d93/Get-the-candles-out

Wonder what went wrong?

I'm also impressed that they were able to switch the stadium to another XF within a 1/2 hour. Does the stadium have completely redundant back up infrastructure?

I can almost guarantee that the transformer that fed the park was not the one that went out. Something happened, whether an XF blew out, or something dead shorted, or even a phase wire burnt to the ground. Although I didn't notice the usual 3 shots, more than likely, a lineman isolated the bad pot, or bank of pots, and closed the recloser back in, restoring power to the original transformer and every other XF feeding the area. BTW, there are probably several PMT's feeding the stadium, not just one.

 

[jaggedben]

Uh, oh, second blackout. Not good.

EDIT: okay, game back on now. keep your fingers crossed.

 

[hurk27]

after viewing the video in full screen and pausing back and forth it appearers that the first flash was about 100' to the right of the second flash, and there is a vehicle leaving the area to the right, could be as simple as a squirrel got between the bushings and when the re-closer tried to come back in with all the load at the time it took out something in the sub station to the left???

 

[jaggedben]

I can almost guarantee that the transformer that fed the park was not the one that went out. Something happened, whether an XF blew out, or something dead shorted, or even a phase wire burnt to the ground. Although I didn't notice the usual 3 shots, more than likely, a lineman isolated the bad pot, or bank of pots, and closed the recloser back in, restoring power to the original transformer and every other XF feeding the area. BTW, there are probably several PMT's feeding the stadium, not just one.

I don't know what it means, but in the video you can see one smaller arc flash followed by a much larger one some 20 yards away that leads to an explosion. Also that area is within the stadium grounds.

 

[jaggedben]

PG&E says only Candlestick was affected. My guess at this point is that it was stadium equipment that failed. I'm sure the stadium has quite an infrastructure of its own. The lights alone must draw a few MW.

 

[hurk27]

Did some playing around on GE, and after looking all the way around the park in street view, the only place except some parking lot light feeds, is at the back side of the stadium off James Town Ave. there is a high voltage feed that runs under James Town and back up on the poles on the stadium side, both sides of the street have fuses at the cross over poles, and is about the proper place in the video to where we see the flashes, and is about the correct distance apart, I think it was these fuses that we saw go, just not sure why, and it seems that the fault was on the parks side.

Also it looks like the generators are also located at the back of the stadium in this location but a little hard to see.

If you have GE go to 655 James Town Ave. in street view and look on both sides of the street in that location.

There are two circuits on the pole on the west side of the street, the higher set is what feeds the stadium, 69kv?? if so would not be a problem with feeding this stadium.

 

[jaggedben]

I'm not sure if this is the same spot you mean, but go to 99 Ignacio Avenue, using Google Street view, and spin around to due east. Below the tree you'll see a pole. That's pretty much spot on where the large flash came from in the video (you can even see the tree silhouetted by the flash). Something on that pole was likely what went boom. The location could also have been something across the street in the RV parking section, but I don't know what would be there that could go boom.

It might have been PG&E lines after all.

 

[hurk27]

I'm not sure if this is the same spot you mean, but go to 99 Ignacio Avenue, using Google Street view, and spin around to due east. Below the tree you'll see a pole. That's pretty much spot on where the large flash came from in the video (you can even see the tree silhouetted by the flash). Something on that pole was likely what went boom. The location could also have been something across the street in the RV parking section, but I don't know what would be there that could go boom.

It might have been PG&E lines after all.

Ok I I did post in hast a little, as I better orientated GE to about the same angle of the shot taken by the camera at the time the first point of flash started.

I looked at you location and the 69kv line? (not sure of the voltage), passes by the end of that street at your point, it goes down to the next street Giants way (in street view) and at the corner of Giants way and Ingerson ave if you look in street view you will see a couple of large generators and what looks like a couple transformers, and large natural gas manifolds, not sure but this lines up very close to the point of the first flash and a little up Giants way and or Gilman Ave. There might another closer that might have been the source of the second flash, following the grid right there it looks lie these 69k lines come into the area from the west north west down Giants way Ave from Gilman, and run to the point at 655 James Town Ave. where they go under ground to feed the stadium, another set runs down James Town ave also to 655 James Town Ave. where they also go under ground to provide what I think is a redundant back up, which is why I think they were able to restore the power so fast.

looking down 99 Ignacio Avenue, I found only some LV feeds that ran to street lights, the 69k line you see at the end of the street above the back hoe are the ones that run down to Giants Ave to those generators, but street view doesn't go all the Way so you can't really see how those generators are fed or if the transformers back feed the 69k line, but you did get allot closer then I did in my hast:happyyes:

 

[hurk27]

Ok the second closer is on Gilman one pole from the corner of Gilman and Giants Way, I put a referance mark at these two points and they seem to line up with the flashes.

PM me with your E-mail and I will send you the .kmz file so you can see where I put these points at in GE.

 

[kingpb]

Probably just somebody trying to steal copper wire!

Never been a 49er fan, so suits me just fine they had this problem.:lol: just hope nobody was injured.

 

[norcal]

Probably just somebody trying to steal copper wire!

Never been a 49er fan, so suits me just fine they had this problem.:lol: just hope nobody was injured.

Know why LA does not have a professional football team? Because San Fransisco would want one too. The only opinion I have about football is that have no use for the forty whiners.

You may try www.sfgate.com for more info (SF Chronicle website), I did not find anything in a quick search at the time of this post but was in a hurry.

 

[iwire]

[h=1]Ryan Clark Thinks The 49ers Staged Last Night?s Power Outages[/h]

 

[Jraef]

[h=1]Ryan Clark Thinks The 49ers Staged Last Night’s Power Outages[/h]

I would think that if an investigation finds a willful act of sabotage that put public safety at risk was perpetrated by the 49ers organization, it would actually KILL their chances for getting the move to the new stadium. The NFL must approve the move and the market shift (conflict with the Raiders) and they have not done so yet. A bonehead move like this would play right into the hands of the City if it turned out to be true. Can you say reckless endangerment?

I seriously doubt that will be what they find, and I think it was irresponsible for Ryan Clark to have said that nationally. But wait, sports figures acting irresponsibly? I'm in SHOCK!

Nobody knows if it really was a "transformer" yet, but the media can't get excited by the word "fuse" unless it's attached to a bomb. This explosion was in the same area where a fan was shot in August after a pre-season, it's possible that a stray bullet found its way into a place it shouldn't have been and because there haven't been any big night games there since, there was not enough load on the system to stress it to the point of failing. I admit that's a stretch too, but more likely than the 49ers deliberately causing it.

 

[iwire]

I seriously doubt that will be what they find,

I agree, I posted it because it made me laugh.

 

[zbang]

It was a good day for outages in that area. Earlier that day (~2:30pm), a trash truck at the Cow Palace snagged a guy wire. That stretched the primary feeding the expo buildings' transformer (pole-mounted at the building) and apparently caused at least one lead to break at both ends. PG&E was 6 hours fixing it.

I'd forgotten how nicely the florescent banks flicker when you're missing a phase :lol:.

 

[Jraef]

The finger pointing has begun...

PG&E sent out a mouthpiece who immediately said "It was the City's ATS that failed, not anything that PG&E was respponsible for". The Mayor of SF came out blasting PG&E for jumping the gun, the investigation was not over. Then an hour later the PG&E mouthpiece retracted the statement, apparently it WAS a failed power line that started the ball rolling.

"PG&E's initial investigation has found that the first outage was caused when a splice, which connects two overhead electrical wires, failed, and the wire fell to the ground near the stadium," utility spokesman Joe Molica said. "Although the stadium has a backup feed and that system switched on immediately, the metal halide stadium lights took several minutes to cycle back on."

No word yet on the 2nd outage.


Now today, the Mayor of Santa Clara issued an official statement that THEY have plenty of "reliable" power available, that the new proposed stadium is right next to Silicon Valley Power's 145MW generating station. But who ever said the problem was a lack of available power? So it came out later that this of course was COMPLETELY unrelated information according to their mouthpiece. But I do work for a lot of people in the Server Farm buisiness, who have GUARANTEED power delivery contracts with SVP. If there is a game on and there is a power problem, SVP will, in my opinion, kill power to the 49ers game to protect their big cash cows, Google and Yahoo.

 

[kwired]

Next time my power is out I'm calling jaggedben and hurk and letting them find the problem with Google instead of calling POCO. They can then dispatch workers straight to the problem as well as a list of needed supplies :happyyes:

 

[hurk27]

Next time my power is out I'm calling jaggedben and hurk and letting them find the problem with Google instead of calling POCO. They can then dispatch workers straight to the problem as well as a list of needed supplies :happyyes:

Hey! I was having some fun with GE

Now just where can I send the bill, wonder if the city will pay it:happysad:

If anyone hears where the location of the problem was, let me know, curious as to how close we were on GE.

 

[kwired]

Hey! I was having some fun with GE

Now just where can I send the bill, wonder if the city will pay it:happysad:

If anyone hears where the location of the problem was, let me know, curious as to how close we were on GE.

Kind of scary isn't it?

You are over half the continent away from the place, yet if you had some bad intentions you already have enough information to start a plan of attack. And you did not use any top secret spy technology to acquire your information.