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CES Plunges Into Darkness, Send Help Pls [Updated]

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raejohnston
CES Plunges Into Darkness, Send Help Pls [Updated]

I’m in the CES media room right now, hotspotting to a stranger’s roaming phone to bring you this news:

For the last hour, the Las Vegas Convention Centre has been experiencing a major blackout. All those gadgets, gizmos, high-tech new products relying on electricity – yeah, they’ve gone dark, too.

While I’m holed up in a safe space away from the chaos of the show floor, I’m tracking the progress of this event the same way you are: social media.

This is all we know for now:

But what could have possibly caused this? There’s no official explanation as yet, but Las Vegas is currently experiencing record rainfalls for January. It hasn’t rained here for 180 days, and yesterday the city was slammed with enough rain to cause flash flooding, road closures, and the Convention Centre roof to leak, constantly.

How much rain, you ask? 12mm.

That’s not a typo. Twelve millimetres – half an inch – of rain has plunged Las Vegas, and CES, into chaos. It’s been A Time.

I’ll keep you updated on how we go with the power situation here at the main hall as the day goes on.

Update:

Okay, it looks like we are coming back online now – slowly

Update: Aaaand, we’re back!

Where was Elon when we needed him, huh? Sounds like Las Vegas needs the South Australia treatment.

Update: And we finally have a statement from the Las Vegas Visitor and Convention Authority, NV Energy and Consumer Technology Association (CTA), “regarding the limited power outage in the Las Vegas Convention Center”:

Today at approximately 11:15 AM, the Central Hall and South Hall bridge meeting rooms at the Las Vegas Convention Center lost power. Power in the South Hall was restored within minutes, and power has now been fully restored to all areas. A preliminary assessment indicates that condensation from heavy rainfall caused a flashover on one of the facility’s transformers. We are grateful to NV Energy for their swift assistance, to our customers and their clients for their patience and to the staff for ensuring the safety and security of all attendees and exhibitors.

It’s official. 12mm of rain brought down CES.

We are not prepared for the apocalypse.

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