Heathrow Airport is shut until Friday night

[Ozgirl76]

And my husband is due to fly home to Australia on Friday evening. I predict chaos.
Airport is saying that people should not travel to Heathrow and should contact their airlines.

I live near the affected area - I had an early night as was feeling under the weather. Had no clue what was happening until 5am this morning I woke to tens of messages. I heard several alarms going off thinking it was a very noisy night and that's the last thing I remember before falling asleep. Watching the news was surreal how I slept through that I'll never know. The oven clock and intruder alarm were the only signs of the power cut!

We do not know the official cause of the fire but no one in the area I have spoken to believes it is UK incompetence this time and to be honest it would not surprise me in the slightest if they were right! Only time will tell...

They'll get the top deck 😂

Banking apps seem to have collapsed a lot recently around pay-days. Strangely enough no one dares talk about cyberwarfare there, presumably because it's much more likely the case.

Investigators continue to believe the fire was not the result of a deliberate act, but stress inquiries are at an early stage.
Detectives from Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command are being deployed as part of the investigation, but that is described as routine and nothing more than a precaution.
Counter-terrorism detectives bring some specialist skills but also they have the security clearance to access sensitive material as investigators try to establish the fire’s cause.
Authorities, including from the intelligence service, are monitoring and would be updated if the police led investigation suggests anything suspicious led to the fire.
Heathrow is part of the UK’s critical national infrastructure and thus a potential target for terrorism or sabotage in pursuance of a cause. Espionage and sabotage in the UK backed by state actors has risen in recent years.The energy regulator, Ofgem, has promised to commission a review of the substation blaze. Downing Street would not say whether it is confident Heathrow Airport will be fully reopened by Saturday, PA reported.
Asked whether this would be the case, a No 10 spokesperson said: “Well, it’s clearly a fast-moving situation.”
“It will be for emergency services and Heathrow to update on timescales for when this situation will be resolved. We do expect there will be significant direct disruption in the hours and days ahead.”
The spokesperson confirmed there was a “cross-government” call on Friday focusing on the immediate aftermath of the fire, PA reported

British Airways has updated its statement on the disruption caused by the fire, offering passengers an option to rebook their flights between now and the end of the weekend to a later date for free.
Here is the statement:
Due to a power outage in the London Heathrow area, London Heathrow Airport is currently closed.
As a result, customers due to travel from Heathrow on Friday 21 March are advised not to travel to the airport until further notice. We will be contacting those who are due to travel on Friday via email to advise them of their options.
To offer our customers more certainty, we’re offering those booked to travel to or from Heathrow in the coming days (March 21 to March 23 inclusive) flexible options to rebook to a later date for free. Please visit Manage My Booking to see the options available.
We kindly ask customers to contact us via phone only if they’re due to travel imminently, to allow us to help affected customers as quickly as possible.
We are closely monitoring the situation and will provide more information as soon as we have further details.

…..more wine!!

Candles, matches, oil lamps

I thought it was pretty clear you meant that.

During the weekend train strikes, for weeks on end the trains were in the wrong place. Son and partner living outside Leeds found getting into the city on a Monday frustrating

Fires at substations happen all the time, they just don't get reported on because they don't knock out an airport.

Last one near me was a few years ago, had customers ringing up complaining their services were disrupted (IT company) and was told we should have had our own substation and our own cables running underground to prevent the electricity outage 😂

I’m watching with interest from Scandinavia. So glad my prepping includes popcorn, I will be making some. 🍿

If you’ve got some time over I recommend you all to read the latest In case of crises or war brochure that was recently sent to all households here. Just in case.

rib.msb.se/filer/pdf/30874.pdf

We do not really get any warnings here.
The only thing we got was a letter from Boris Johnson during Covid. I framed it for the kids!

I am sure they do and it is very plausible that is was just an accident and nothing more sinister - there's a lot that the general public like me probably isn't aware of if it isn't reported in the media. I think it's just due to to the current very strained relationships with certain countries like Russia it doesn't sound as far fetched as it would have.

It doesn't look good either way - that our busiest airport has been grounded and paralysed like this. The silence in the skies near me is not something I have ever experienced - very strange.

No-one other than conspiracy theorists with the tightest of tinfoil hats have suggested the recent problems with some online banking is evidence of deliberate attacks because there's no evidence that that's the case.

When IT systems fail mistakes are always way more likely to be the root cause than malice. If you worked in IT you'd know just how fragile these systems are.

Anyone else get an email from the National Grid about being power cut prepared?

In Wales last two autumns the government have sent out a be prepared for power cuts.

We're doomed I tell ya, doomed

Has the Protect and Survive booklet been updated recently?

Sky News is saying Heathrow closed 'for the foreseeable future'. 😱

So you weren't living there on 9/11.

On a different note, the most profound silence I remember was the sudden cessation of birdsong during an eclipse. Quite eerie.

Cyber security is a huge task. If you look at your Microsoft account (if you have one). You will see every thirty mins someone/or an automated bot attacks personal accounts from varies countries. Other establishments it’s a constant game of cat and mouse as updates are rolled out when security threats are identified.

Some of the critical infrastructure isn’t connected to public networks to avoid being taken out.

have they said if the backup power was at the sane location? I heard them say that the back up had failed i was wondering if they were at the same place which seems odd! Or if two problems had occured at different parts of the system.

Top tip about popcorn😁also first aid kit as per your info. (which incidentally told me not to click on random links (doh!).

I'm very happy to see that Sweden cares about it's pets and livestock. Nice.

No but we do get a leaflet every now and then. We havent had any power cute though!

https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-shadow-war-against-west

From a reliable source for those interested in Russia’s covert aggression against Europe.

Noted that Hungary and Serbia never seem to have any unexplained events within their borders?

I think its good to keep an open mind with these things - although what can anyone of us really do to prepare other than stock up on lifes’s essentials? . 😳

It's not a fire in a power station. It is the total loss of a piece of critical infrastructure, which will mean one of the busiest airports in the world, will be out of service for the foreseeable future.

I doubt it was an accident either.