Folks who watched the Super Bowl may recall that Entergy quickly announced that it had continuously delivered power to the dome and was not at fault for the 35 minute power outage.
Turns out otherwise. From Slate:
The device that malfunctioned was apparently installed by the power company specifically in hopes of avoiding an outage.Reuters:
The device was specifically installed to protect the Superdome’s equipment in the event of a cable failure between the switchgear and the stadium, Entergy said. The relay had functioned without issue during a number of other events, including the New Orleans Bowl, the New Orleans Saints-Carolina Panthers game, and the Sugar Bowl. But during Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday, the relay device triggered, signaling a switch to open when it should not have, causing a partial power outage in the building.
In the immediate aftermath of the blackout, Entergy was quick to deflect any possible blame for the outage. The utility said that all of its equipment had worked properly and that the issue was instead likely caused by some other flaw in the Superdome. Later that same night, however, the utility issued a joint-statement with the firm that manages the stadium announcing that they’d launch a full investigation into the matter to find out what went wrong.
Why, that sounds *nothing* like the Entergy that *I* know.
Marie Laveau … Ray Ray Nagin … Ed Edwards … Roger Goodell ….
Round up the usual suspects
Add the Morial family to that list too, Ben.
Where did you read that it was Entergy’s fault? I don’t see that in the article, nor in other articles. It looks like they’ve figured out what went wrong, but haven’t exactly figured out who is to blame for what went wrong.
The trip setting is apparently the issue – New Orleans Entergy owned and installed the equipment. SMG operates the Superdome. The manufacturer said the trip setting was too low, and it remains to be seen whose fault that is from what I can tell. Ultimately, it may be Entergy — but I don’t see that yet.
Entergy made an announcement during the Super Bowl that was reported as their saying that they continuously provided power to the Dome throughout and the interruption wasn’t at their end. This article says otherwise. Perhaps I was mistaken to use the word “fault” although I would still say that their equipment was at fault.