Power Failures

The Gaza Strip's only electric power plant shut down Sunday evening after Israel halted the shipment of diesel that fuels it, plunging most of this city into darkness and threatening such vital services as hospitals, bakeries, water supply and sewage. Many of Gaza City's 400,000 inhabitants rushed to stock up on candles, batteries and bread, trudging up and down stairs as elevators ground to a halt, and then shivered through a night of temperatures in the low 50s.

Across Africa, people know what to do when the lights go out: Life chugs along thanks to generators, candles, wood fires, paraffin lamps and windup radios. But South Africa prides itself on being a kind of "older brother" in sub-Saharan Africa, more modern, more industrialized and richer than the rest.

A transmission glitch at a West Miami power substation knocked out electricity Tuesday to as many as 3 million people across Florida, halting public transportation, snarling traffic and cutting air conditioning in homes from Key West to Daytona. Foul play was not involved, making the blackout mostly just "a massive inconvenience," Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez said.

Southern California endured Day 3 of the year's first major heat wave, with temperatures topping 100 degrees in many valley areas Friday. Temperatures will cool slightly today, but Southern California can still expect a hot weekend. Here are some details: -- Were any records set? Yes. The mercury reached 111 degrees in Woodland Hills, beating the previous record set in 1973 by four degrees, and temperatures reached 93 degrees in Oxnard, 10 degrees hotter than the old record, also set in 1973.

More than 115,000 residences and businesses in widely scattered parts of Los Angeles lost power Saturday when the Sylmar fire damaged the main transmission network bringing electricity into the city, water and power officials said. Entire neighborhoods were plunged into darkness for about half an hour Saturday morning, including parts of Mid-City, Crenshaw, Harbor Gateway and Sherman Oaks, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said.

Temperatures fell over the ice-coated Northeast on Saturday, where storm-related power failures had already plunged more than a million homes and businesses from Pennsylvania to Maine into the dark and cold. "If you don't have power, assume that you will not get it restored today, and right now make arrangements to stay someplace warm tonight," warned Gov. John Lynch of hardest-hit New Hampshire.

A thunderstorm knocked out power throughout the Hawaiian island of Oahu after sunset Friday, forcing President-elect Barack Obama and his family to spend the night at their seaside vacation home in the dark as winds swept in from the ocean. The street lights outside Obama's compound in quiet Kailua started to shut off about 6:30 p.m.

Ronnie Kennedy, a utility supervisor from Louisiana, watched proudly as his crew reconnected a severed power line in this frost-crusted city. As thick slabs of ice fell around them, the men in white hardhats kept working. Within minutes, juice was restored to another house. The painstaking process of repairing ice-coated lines and replacing power poles that had snapped under the strain of frozen rain would need to be repeated hundreds of times.

About 10,000 Juneau residents lost power after a bald eagle lugging a deer head crashed into transmission lines. "You have to live in Alaska to have this kind of outage scenario," said Gayle Wood, an Alaska Electric Light & Power spokeswoman. "This is the story of the overly ambitious eagle who evidently found a deer head in the landfill." The bird, weighed down by the deer head, apparently failed to clear the transmission lines, she said.

About 2,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers of Southern California Edison throughout Los Angeles remained without power Wednesday after high winds and rains wreaked havoc on the Southland on Tuesday. At least five steel transmission towers were demolished, downing numerous wooden poles and power lines.