GEEZ - Seems so many failures lately have had back-up generator problems!!! - nuke plant, water systems, waste-water, etc.
The fact that bank machines go down with phone systems is pretty problematic, eh?
Explosion shuts down phones in Toronto
CBC: WebPosted Fri Jul 16 12:13:14 1999
TORONTO - Phones stopped ringing in several major cities in Canada on Friday after an explosion caused a major system failure at Bell building in Toronto.
The failure knocked out phone lines, most cell phones, and bank machines in downtown Toronto. Cantel and digital cell phones appear to be working.
Police report 911 emergency systems are working, but the police are urging people to use these systems only for real emergencies.
The failure was caused by a major explosion at the downtown bell centre at around 8:00 am in which one person has been injured.
Immediately after the explosion, battery powered backup systems kicked in. But they ran out of power a few hours later.
The Toronto Stock Exchange has suspended trading and much of business in the downtown core of Toronto has ground to a halt.
Phone systems in Ottawa and Montreal and as far away as Halifax and Vancouver have also been affected as calls that normally routed through Toronto are rerouted through other cities.
Bell Canada says it's trying to get services restored, but there's no word on when that might happen.
cbcnews.cbc.ca
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FROM: Sheila (sross@bconnex.net), July 16, 1999.
I live 75 miles north of Toronto. Hubby just came back from the bank, grocery store and gas station. The Bank is dead-in-the-water. No computers, no phones. Hubby left the cheque he was depositing with the teller, and she said she'd call him when she could give him a receipt. Fortunately, we're well known here, and the gas station just told him
to come back and pay when things are back to normal. There were apparently lots of out-of-towners at the gas station wanting to gas up for the trip back to Toronto, but couldn't use their credit cards. Things were beginning to get ugly with a few of them. And this is after only an hour or two of problems!!!!
Lady at the grocery store couldn't use her ATM card, had no cash. She was furious at the clerk!!
The news reports say the phones and internet service are out in Toronto. Obviously, they're still working up here. We have to go to the Toronto airport to pick up a friend at 6pm today. I have no idea whether the airport will be operating without phone lines.....I believe Air Traffic Control needs phone lines, but I'm not sure.
Still no word on what caused the fire......
greenspun.com
Cheryl
168 days until 2000 |
