Today, Monday 27 at 13:36 local time, I was sitting at my desk at Fermilab and the power went out. Just the emergency lights were on, and the wireless network still worked. I took it as an opportunity to take my afternoon walk a little early expecting everything would be back to normal quickly but the number of cars driving around on site told me more was going on. When coming back I was updated that the had been a major incident to the ComEd transmission stations that bring power also to FNAL. Someone forwarded me the picture below which shows the situation. As of Monday there was no update on when power will be back to the lab, even the dorms had not power.
Given that I had possibly no place to work and my dorm was not looking to good in terms of power either, I decided to hop back on the plane back to Boston less than 12 hours after I landed in the Chicago.
I have worked at FNAL for eight years from 1998-2006 and we never had such an event. I guess this was a good test for the emergency procedures for the lab and Norbert Holtkamp, its ‘100-day director’. I think he and his team did great!