CARRINGTON SPEAKS

The first Carrington Event came to notice in 1859. Six million Quebecers may have been startled in 1989 when a similar massive solar flare – the explosion of magnetic energy from the sun that collapsed their power grid, and left six million homes without power. Another geomagnetic storm, in 1921, brought ground currents 10 times as strong as the one in Quebec. The fiercest one, called the Carrington Event of 1859, electrified telegraph lines and created northern lights visible as far south as Cuba and Hawaii. If such a storm struck today it could create devastation. NASA researchers say severe space weather could be coming, since every 11 years as our sun hits what’s called its solar maximum, an especially active period with sun spots, and solar flares and “coronal mass ejections”, can be expected. These clouds of plasma that flow out of the sun at millions of kilometers an hour, are more likely to occur at that time. Streams of particles and pulses of electromagnetic energy, called space weather, throws the earth’s magnetic field into disarray. The next solar maximum is expected in 2013. If the 1921 solar storm were to repeat itself today, massive blackouts would affect more than 130 million people, according to a 2009 NASA report on space weather, and over 350 transformers would risk permanent damage. Water distribution would be “affected within several hours, loss of heating, air conditioning, sewage disposal, phone service, hospitals and banking systems with many other social and economic impacts that could last for years.” Here’s an interesting thought I’d like to add. There was an English painter who lived in the early 1800s whose name was Carrington. Let’s say he was such a pleasant person to have around the retirement home where he lived out in his later years that the company decided that all the Carrington homes of the future would be named after him. We can send a message to all the residents here as well as the employees, that we all do greatly appreciate each other as we continue to exchange nods and smiles throughout the day. “We care a ton for each other” includes most of the letters in the Carrington name.