As you probably know, this is the fifth day half of Manhattan has no power. Why did the lights go out? Because a Con Ed substation on 14th Street blew. Ignoring the insanity of a single point of failure for electricity to half a million people, surely that couldn’t be anyone’s fault?
“Consolidated Edison figured any surge would not surpass the 11-foot record set nearly two centuries ago. Or the design limit of 12.5 feet for a key substation in lower Manhattan.
But the wall of seawater reached 14 feet.” – AP news story
Now, that’s 14 feet above low tide. The water peaked, of course, at high tide. High tide is five feet above low tide, so the surge – the gap between hurricane weather and normal weather – was nine feet. Here’s a diagram:
So. Nine feet. No one could have predicted nine feet, could they? No one was expecting that?
“THE WATER COULD REACH THE FOLLOWING DEPTHS ABOVE GROUND […] LONG ISLAND SOUND AND RARITAN BAY INCLUDING NEW YORK HARBOR…6 TO 11 FT.” – National Hurricane Center
That’s not some obscure weather model. That’s the OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT FORECAST. And that forecast was made early Sunday morning, nearly two days before the storm hit.
Conclusion: Con Ed was grossly negligent, and is trying to cover it up by making bald-faced lies to the national press.
The Rationalist Conspiracy 