Overload (90 page)

Once more. The same result.

Karen knew, from having read about it, that whenever there was a widespread

blackout, phone lines became clogged because more people tried to use them

than the system could handle. Also, many dialed "Operator" to ask what was

happening, making it difficult to reach an operator too.

She began to be really alarmed. Where was Josie? Why was she taking so

long? And why hadn't the janitor, Jimmy, come in to see if she was okay, as

he always did when anything out of the ordinary occurred?

Though Karen had no means of knowing it, a combination of events had

contributed to her predicament.

At 10:45 A.M., while Karen and Josie were getting ready to go shopping,

Luther Sloan was arrested and charged with a total of sixteen offenses, all

felonies, under Section 693C of the California Penal Code, which deals

specifically with stealing gas.

Since that time, Henrietta Sloan, shocked, despairing, totally inexpe-

rienced in the matter, had been trying to arrange her husband's bail.

Shortly before noon she telephoned her elder daughter, Cynthia, appealing

for help. Cynthia responded by asking a neighbor to take care of her one

living-at-home child when he returned from school, then left to meet her

mother. Cynthia's husband was at work and would not be home until evening.

While Karen had been trying to telephone her mother and sister, both were

shuttling between a bail bondsman's office and the jail where Luther Sloan

was held.

They were in the visitors' section of the jail when the power cut occurred,

but were unaware of it. The jail had its own standby generator and, while

lights flickered off briefly, they came on again at once as the generator

started up automatically and took hold.

Only a few minutes earlier, Henrietta Sloan and Cynthia had discussed

phoning Karen, but decided against it, not wishing to distress her.

Neither of the two women, nor Luther Sloan, would know about the power cut

for another two hours when bail was finally arranged and the trio left the

jail together.

A few minutes before the lights in Karen's apartment went out and her

wheelchair and respirator switched over to battery operation, Bob

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Ostrander had shouted to the chief operator at La Mission plant, "Hit those

trips! Hit them now!"

When the operator did, the GSP & L transmission system was deprived,

without warning, of three million two hundred thousand kilowatts of power,

at a time when the utility was operating with a thin reserve, and on a warm

May afternoon with load demand unseasonably high because of widespread use

of air-conditioners.

The result: A monitoring computer, recognizing there was now insufficient

power on line to meet demand, instantly opened high voltage circuit

breakers, plunging a large area of the GSP & L system into blackout.

Karen's apartment building was in one of the areas affected.

Josie and the janitor, Jiminy, were trapped in the apartment building

elevator and were shouting frantically, trying to attract attention.

After Josie left Karen she walked quickly to a service station close by

where Humperdinck bad been left overnight. The lessee knew Karen and

allowed the van to be parked without charge. It took Josie less than ten

minutes to collect Humperdinck and stop at the apartment house front door,

where Karen's wheelchair could be conveniently loaded.

The wizened old janitor was touching up paint outside when Josie returned.

He asked, "How's our girl Karen?"

"Fine," Josie answered, then she told him about going to Redwood Grove

Hospital because of the next day's scheduled blackout. At that be put down

his paint can and brush and said he would come up to see if there was

anything he could do to help.

In the elevator, Jiminy pressed the button for the sixth floor and they

began ascending. Tley were between the third floor and the fourth whe n the

elevator stopped and its light went out. There was an emergency

battery-powered lamp on a shelf and Jiminy reached up and switched it on,

In its dim glow he pressed every button in sight, but nothing happened.

Soon after, they both began shouting for help.

They had now been shouting for twenty minutes without any response.

Tliere was a small trapdoor in the roof of the elevator, but both Josie and

Jimmy were short and, even perching on each other's shoulderswhich they

tried in turn-they could move it only slightly but had no chance whatever

of getting through. Even if they did, it was unlikely they could escape

from the elevator shaft.

Josie had long ago remembered about Karen's low battery, which made her

cries more desperate and, after a while, her tears flowed as her voice

became hoarser.

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T'hough they did not know it then, josie and Jiminy would remain in the

elevator for almost three hours until electric power was restored.

The telephone company would later report that, while its emergency

generators functioned during the blackout, for an hour after it happened,

demand for its services was unprecedented. Tbousands of calls went

uncompleted, and many who tried to reach operators for information were

unable to do so.

Nim Goldman, under pressure on several fronts because of the sudden power

failure, thought briefly of Karen and was relieved she had agreed to go

to Redwood Grove Hospital early this morning. He decided that later, when

things had eased a little, he would phone her there.

Karen was now white with fear, and sweating.

By this time she knew that something serious had happened to prevent

Josie coming back.

She had tried to telephone again and again. Still, all that she could get

was the recorded voice. She considered maneuvering her wheelchair and

causing it to bang against the outside apartment door in the hope that

someone might be passing and would hear, but to move the chair at all

would drain, even faster, whatever strength remained in the battery.

Karen knew, through experience and calculation, that the battery could

not last long, even to power her respirator.

In fact, there was barely a quarter of an hour's life remaining in the

battery. On returning from the shopping trip, its power was even more

reduced than Karen supposed.

Karen, whose religious beliefs had never been strong, began to pray. She

begged God and Jesus Christ to send Josie, or Jiminy, or her parents, or

Nimrod, or Cynthia, or anyone-anyone!

"All they have to do, God, is connect that other battery. The one down

there, Jesus! Anybody can do it! I can tell them how. Oh please, God!

Pleasel . . ."

She was still praying when she felt the respirator begin to slow, her

breathing become slow and inadequate.

Frantically, she tried the telephone again. "'nis is a recorded an-

nouncement. All circuits are busy. Please bang up and . . ."

A high-pitched buzzer, connected to the respirator and powered by a small

nickel cadmium cell, sounded a warning that the respirator was about to

stop. Karen, her consciousness already diminishing, heard it dimly, as

if from a long distance away.

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As she began to gasp, helplessly craving air she could not take in

unaided, her skin turned red, then blue as she became cyanotic. Her

eyes bulged. Her mouth worked wildly. Then, as air ceased coming en-

tirely, she choked; intense pain gripped her cbest. Soon, mercifully,

the battery died and, with it, Karen. just before her death, her bead

slumped sideways and, as it touched the telephone microswitch, a voice

responded. "Operator. May I help you?"

19

In some ways, Nim thought, it was like the rerun of an old movie as be

explained to the assembled press group, including TV and radio crews, what

had happened at La Mission plant to cause the latest blackout.

He reflected: Was it really just ten months ago that Walter Talbot and

the others died, and Big Lil suffered bomb damage which caused last

summer's blackout? So much had happened since, that the gap in time

seemed wider.

Nim was aware of one difference, today. It was the attitude of the media

people, compared with ten months earlier.

Today, there seemed a genuine awareness of the problems GSP & L faced,

and a sympathy which had previously been lacking.

"Mr. Goldman," Oakland Tribune asked, "if you get green lights to build

the plants you need, bow long will it take to catch up?"

"Ten years," Nim answered. "Oh, if we had a real crash program, maybe

eight. But we need a lot of permits and licenses before we can even

begin. So far there isn't any sign of them."

He had come here, to a press conference in the observation gallery of the

Energy Control Center, at Teresa Van Buren's request, shortly after the

shutdown of all La Mission's remaining generators and the resultant

blackout. Nim's first intimation that anything was wrong was when the

lights in his office went briefly off and on. That was because special

circuitry was protecting the utility's headquarters, and vital in-

stallations like the Energy Control Center, from loss of power.

Nim, guessing that something was wrong, had gone to Energy Control at

once where Ray Paulsen, who had arrived a few minutes earlier, filled him

in on what had happened.

"Ostrander did the right thing, and I'll back him up on it," Paulsen

said. "If I'd been there, I'd have done the same."

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"Okay, Ray," Nim acknowledged. "When I talk with the press I'll take that

line."

"Something else you can tell them," Paulsen said, "is that we'll have all

power back on in three hours or less. And by tomorrow, La Mission 1, 2,

3, and 4 will be on line again, and all geothermal units."

"T'hanks. I will."

It was noticeable, Nim thought, that, in the press of events, the an-

tagonism between him and Paulsen seemed to have evaporated. Perbaps it

was because both of them were too busy for it.

Now, in the press conference, Nancy Molineaux asked, "Does this change

any of the scheduled blackouts?"

"No," Nim responded. "They'll have to begin tomorrow, as planned, and

continue every day after that."

Sacramento Bee inquired, "Will you be able to restrict them to three

hours only?"

"It's unlikely," Nim said. "As our oil supplies diminish, the blackouts

will have to be longer-probably six hours a day."

Someone whistled softly.

A TV newsman asked, "Have you heard there's been some rioting-

demonstrations against the 'anti's?"

"Yes, I have. And in my opinion it doesn't help anybody, including US."

The demonstrations bad happened last night. Nim read about them this

morning. Stones were hurled through windows of the Sequoia Club and

headquarters of the Anti-Nuclear League. Demonstrators at both places,

who described themselves as "Ordinary Joe Citizens," had. clashed with

police and several demonstrators were arrested. Later they were released

without being charged.

It was being freely predicted that there would be more demonstrations and