Murmurs surfaced in the previous week when speculation of the prime rib status of an attack on Sydney's electrifying juice. Allegations Faheem Khalid Lhodi was plotting to bomb the national power grid certainly weren't helpful in the view of keeping the terrorists at bay. First in The Australian and confirmed by Federal Attorny-General Phillip Ruddock, Lodhi was being monitored by ASIO as the alleged terrorist, through the use of the pseudonym, M. Ralus, procured maps of the Sydney electricity grid, paying fond attention to the western district in particular.
Lodhi certainly did not share his information as in the mid-morning of today, parts of the south west of Sydney darkened. Powerless from a blackout resulting from a careless excavator on a work-site who cut a major line underground. Spreading far, retailers were forced to stand agape and ignorant outside their entrances like bouncers and security guards. One sleeveless hap remarked on the television crews scrambling their way down to the Westfields of Liverpool "trying to catch some of the chaos." Of which, there was none as looters were mentally locked out and ruing the fall of the event on a Wednesday morning.
The fall of the power was never considered to be a terrorist attack. Some quarters have been looking at Dial Before You Dig and their attempts at a rather bold and costly attempt at a campaign for their excavation awareness service. Or rather, lack thereof. Others automatically assumed the drunken careening of a late night reveller returning home on a weekday morning crashing into a workstation.
Written on Wednesday, 28 April 2004