Power Lines

A magnitude 6.5 earthquake rocked the Northern California city of Eureka on Saturday, snapping power lines, toppling chimneys, knocking down traffic signals, shattering windows and prompting the evacuation of at least one apartment building. There were no reports of major injuries, but the temblor, which struck at 4:27 p.m. about 33 miles southwest of the coastal city of 26,000, was powerful enough to send people running into the streets, some fearing a tsunami. Centered offshore about 13 miles deep, the quake was felt as far north as central Oregon, as far south as Santa Cruz and as far east as Reno, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Chancy Smith, who is in charge of his county's emergency response unit, had never seen anything like it. A "funeral procession" of cars trekked through county roads as a tornado bore down on Solomon, Kan., Smith said. Gawkers clogged the streets. Photographers stood in the middle of highways with tripods. Some vehicles drove over downed power lines. Like some kind of paparazzi, obsessed with storms instead of stars, the chasers converged in tornado alley last weekend to capture images and perhaps profits from a deadly twister outbreak that scoured the Central Plains.

How could respectable scientists armed with the same data on electromagnetic fields end up on opposite sides of the spectrum? The studies themselves are largely to blame. The results are often ambiguous and hard to interpret. Some suggest a link between EMF and health problems, and some don't. David Carpenter, a professor of environmental health sciences and biomedical sciences at the University at Albany, State University of New York, says he has more faith in the studies that suggest a danger.

The powerless Re "Outrage over power outage," Dec. 7 Come on, people, it's not the end of the world. Yes, the power outages are an inconvenience, but it's not like we live in Nome, Alaska. I can't find fault with Southern California Edison's efforts to restore power. Like thousands of others, I lost power for a few days. This was an extremely rare wind event that felled many trees, and the response by local utilities has been impressive. L.A. County Supervisor Michael Antonovich should ease up; he lambasted Edison officials for failing to communicate with customers who had no access to phones, radio, television or the Internet.

An electrical discharge from poorly maintained power lines caused a fire in November in Brea that destroyed three homes and a school, police said Friday. Sgt. Bill Smyser said that the investigation showed the fire was not intentionally set but that a criminal negligence charge was possible. The power lines blamed for the fire are owned by Los Angeles-based BreitBurn Management Co.

In the gusty predawn hours of Oct. 21, 2007, portions of three wooden utility poles in Malibu Canyon snapped and fell to the ground. Sparks from live electrical wires ignited dry brush, creating an inferno that raced down the canyon into the Civic Center area, destroying 14 structures and 36 vehicles.

Thieves in northeast China have stolen miles of power lines and equipment from power stations, seriously disrupting electricity supplies to the region, the China Daily said Friday.

High-voltage power lines that spark above backyards and flash outside the windows of hundreds of beach-area homes will be dismantled, representatives of Rockwell International Corp. announced Monday. "We were willing to make some investment here in our facilities in order to accommodate the community's request," Rockwell spokeswoman Michelle Bandoian said. "We are currently testing our new generating system, and we expect to turn the lines over to Edison the first week in April."

A $1-million state grant will study how to prevent bird death by electrocution. Nobody knows how many birds are killed by power lines each year, but people who study it put the toll in the thousands. Researchers led by the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group will study the deaths and seek ways to prevent them. "It's not a population problem; it's an individual bird-mortality problem," said Brian Walton of the research group at UC Santa Cruz.

Authorities closed a short stretch of the Garden Grove Freeway on Wednesday to check overhead power lines that reportedly produced sparks when a truck passed underneath. Officials said an inspection found no problems with the wires, and the freeway was reopened 40 minutes later. A spokesman for Southern California Edison said two overhead wires may have touched and sparked when a power pole near the freeway was accidentally jostled by a heavy truck.

Heavy rain, snow and wind walloped the Northeast during the weekend, leaving 3.2 million people without power from Virginia to Maine and many more wondering: What happened to fall? "It's only October," said Melissa Mack of Hartford, Conn. "We haven't even finished the kids' soccer season. " Trees with their leaves colored in autumnal glory turned white from the heavy, wet snow. Many limbs and trees came crashing to earth under the weight, taking power lines with them.

Trees, traffic lights and power lines will have to come down -- how else could you possibly move 180,000 pounds of metal along an L.A. street, especially when it measures 122 feet long and has a wingspan of 78 feet? That will be the next mission of the California Science Center, the state museum that on Tuesday was officially granted ownership of the retired space shuttle Endeavour. The ship won't arrive until the latter half of 2012, fortunately, because finding a clear path for it will be a gargantuan task.

Hurricane watch Re " Irene takes last swipe at Northeast ," Aug. 29 "Damned if you do, damned if you don't. " Some people actually seem disappointed that the federal and local governments went overboard in their warnings that Hurricane Irene could be a major disaster for the United States — but wasn't. I for one think that is exactly one of the reasons we have a federal government: to protect citizens from potential disasters. A job well done. Steve Binder Oxnard Whenever there's a big windstorm, trees are uprooted and power lines are pulled down.

After philosophy students and faculty members rallied to denounce heavy-handed efforts to separate male and female students, Islamists on campus struck back: In the dead of night, witnesses say, the radicals showed up at a men's dormitory armed with wooden sticks and bicycle chains. They burst into dorm rooms, attacking philosophy students. One was pistol-whipped and hit on the head with a brick. Gunfire rang out, although no one was injured. Police were called, but nearly a month after the attack, no arrests have been made.

The city of Joplin was changed from a typical small Missouri city into a zone of frenzied effort after Sunday's tornado as rescuers raced bad weather and coped with a shortage of supplies. At least 116 people were killed in the tornado, and the toll is expected to rise. Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr announced the latest death toll at a Monday afternoon news conference, according to the Associated Press. Rohr said seven people had been rescued. By midmorning Monday, about 20 hours after the tornado tore a six-mile wound in the heart of the city, residents searched through the rubble in what reminded many of a war zone.

As far as tightly wound actresses go, Reese Witherspoon tops the list. She insists upon a strict sense of order in her life. Her production company is called Type A, a moniker her latest costar, Robert Pattinson, says fits her strong sense of self perfectly. And even when she appears to be having a spontaneous moment, lamenting that her well-orchestrated career built around an avoidance of bikinis has been breached by her current role as a leotard-clad circus performer, it turns out the line is a well-rehearsed quip that's been repeated, practically on a loop, to scores of media outlets.

The 13,600-acre Ventura County fire that destroyed five homes earlier this week was caused by downed power lines, but a number of questions remain, investigators said Thursday. Southern California Edison is investigating the source of the fire that erupted early Sunday near Moorpark, said spokesman Steven Conroy. In addition to Edison equipment, however, privately owned power lines were in the area of the fire's origin, and so it is unclear which was the source, he said.

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.

A powerful storm system of tornadoes, hailstorms and lightning pounded the South, killing at least eight people and leaving a wake of uprooted trees, downed power lines and damaged homes. The storms swept quickly through northeast Texas and Oklahoma and rolled through into the South on Monday and early Tuesday, hitting Georgia and the Carolinas. The system was expected to pass through Florida and into the Atlantic Ocean by Tuesday evening, according to the National Weather Service.

[Update 12:47 a.m.] Tokyo's utility company says black smoke has been seen emerging from Unit 3 of the crippled nuclear plant in northeastern Japan, prompting a new evacuation of the complex. Officials with Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday that workers from the entire Fukushima Dai-ichi plant have been temporarily evacuated. _________________ Control room lights were on and electronic thermometers were functioning Wednesday at several of Japan's stricken nuclear reactors, marking small but potentially critical steps toward controlling overheated fuel that has been spewing radiation for more than a week.