Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — What do you do when the power goes out at work? No really, what do you do?
Yes, there was a power outage at the Triad Center Saturday afternoon, causing KSL.com’s servers to go down and the site to crash, and panic for this overanxious news reporter tasked with keeping the website running at the time. The outage did damage to the servers, which is why the site was down longer than it took to restore power to the building.
But it wasn’t just KSL.com. The Deseret News website also crashed. KSL TV lost broadcasting for more than an hour, while KSL Newsradio went dark for even longer. KSL phones and internet service were also affected by the outage.
Because not all of the building is on the same power source, lights, outlets and even the building’s elevator weren’t affected. Basically, the lights were on but we couldn’t let you know we were home.
Our headaches began shortly before 1:45 p.m. The lights flickered for a split second before all of the newsroom’s TVs, phones and broadcasting systems went dark. There are fewer people in the newsroom on the weekends, but needless to say, it caught the handful of us off guard.
An electrician in the building said there was some sort of initial power surge that caused that flicker. KSL has backup generators to keep the building running when something like this happens, but none worked for unknown reasons.
A Rocky Mountain Power spokesman said crews believe a mylar balloon hit power lines downtown to cause the surge, but that remains under investigation.
For the first 90 minutes or so, the only connection was through cellular service. That allowed us to at least use social media to let you know why our site was down and catch up on what was happening in the news.
But work productivity took a sharp decline. At one point, a small group ventured up to the roof of the KSL Building to explore if something there caused the outage. It was a valiant effort that yielded no results. KSL.com employees working during the outage also became experts on Chrome Dino, which is the game offered by Google when your internet isn’t working.
Shortly before 7 p.m., the site showed its first signs of life. However, it wasn't until 10:15 p.m. that the site was really up and running.
It wasn’t exciting, but at least it helped us pass time during the Great KSL Blackout of 2019.
Contributing: Amy Joi Donoghue, Deseret News
