The usual suspects

Emergency officials thought maybe the Occupy kids were to blame for the power outage because... this is the sort of thing emergency officials think about.

18:26: "Just be advised the FBI's currently tracking the Occupy NOLA movement," advising anyone to who sees members to contact the security operations center. (Occupy NOLA members had staged protests earlier in the day.)

Fairly confident they weren't "tracking" anyone using any of the drones they said they didn't bring in but one never knows. Of course if they had bought the drone, then they'd at least have something quieter than a low-flying orange helicopter to run up and down the parade routes all weekend.




But then how would they ruin your ability to hear the bands?

In any case we're relieved to learn that Entergy has ruled out terrorism or anything like terrorism as the culprit in the power outage.   Jury may still be out on raccoons, though.

Update: Also has anyone considered the possibility that the problem occurred when Mitch Landrieu plugged his heart into the Superdome electrical feed?

Mitch Landrieu expanded for the first time Tuesday on what it feels like to be mayor when the lights go out in the middle of your city's big moment on the national stage. It was not so much what passed through his mind at the Superdome on Sunday, the mayor explained: "My heart stopped."

Ultimately Paul Tagilabue will have to make a ruling

Whoever it is, I'm sure the solution will be a new surcharge on everybody's light bill next year.

Early this afternoon, Entergy and Superdome management company SMG announced plans to hire a third party expert to investigate the cause of the outage. Entergy, the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District and SMG will team up to select the company, and pass their choice by the NFL before selection. Entergy is continuing its own analysis of the root cause of the outage.

So what happened?

Something minor in a piece of surge protection equipment as far as I understand.  But why? Nobody seems to be saying, exactly. Although Russell is looking in an interesting place.

The LSED's December minutes are not available, but the agenda for that meeting shows the board was to consider approval of a motion to spend up to $946,500 on an "upgraded feeder cable system" and other items.

Thornton did not return calls seeking comment Sunday night. Nor did Ron Forman, head of the LSED's board of directors.

Something got installed in a last-minute job by one fly-by-night non-union contractor or another.  Personally, I thought the blackout was fun but now I want to know just what happened.  The blackout is a pretty good litmus test for what kind of New Orleanian you are.  Either you were entertained, like most of us were, or you were VERY SERIOUSLY CONCERNED about it and paranoid that it will impact our ability to be blessed with future Super Bowls.

And the VERY SERIOUSLY CONCERNED people will likely be responsible for enthusiastically hiring the next fly by night contractor.

Update: FOX8 reports that the Dome management is blaming Entergy. Which is hilarious because last night Entergy tweeted

Power issue at the Super Dome appears to be in the customer's side. Entergy is providing power to the Dome

The original tweet, though, appears to have been deleted, though.  Sorry I didn't screen capture it.