How survivors turned the power back on at the Rosewood South substation
On Day 51, at about 12:37 in the afternoon of 28 August 1993, three survivors had three generators running inside the fence of the Rosewood South substation, and the Knox County power grid came back on for everyone on the server. It has stayed on ever since. Out here in the real world it was 13 September 2026, 19:49 in South Africa.
#When did the power go out?
The grid was always going to fail. Knox County's electricity had been due to die at 07:00 on Day 51, and it went a day or two early: on 12 September 2026 in our world, the lights went out across the county. From then on the only power in Knox County came from generators. Fridges went warm, the streets went dark, and every survivor with a base learned to love the sound of a petrol engine.
#Where is the Rosewood South substation?
South-west of Rosewood, where the big east-west transmission line ends. It is the largest substation in Knox County: 79 steel-frame towers inside a fenced yard running from about x 7150 to 7228 and y 12497 to 12573. The gate is on the east side, around 7228, 12563. Inside stand three big transformer blocks in a north-south line near x 7175 (at about y 12515, 12539 and 12554), with a small control shed near the south fence around 7166, 12566.
The county has six smaller substations: one by the derelict steel factory near Ekron, two around Louisville, and one each at Muldraugh, Riverside and Irvington. Rosewood South was the one that brought the grid back.
#What did it take to restore the power?
The rule was simple:
- Three generators, all inside the substation fence, on the ground or one floor up.
- Each one connected, switched on and holding fuel, all three at the same time.
- A survivor close enough for the yard to be loaded, within 150 tiles.
No horde was waiting and no loot was planted: the yard held whatever the apocalypse had left in it. The moment the third generator ran, the grid came back, once and for good. After that the generators were free to go home with their owners.
#What happened on the night?
Three survivors hauled a generator each into the yard and set them beside the three transformer blocks: the north one, the middle one and the south one. At 19:49 South African time the third came on, and the grid was live again across the whole map. The server's notice read:
Then came the anticlimax: nobody's lights came on. The server had the grid running, but every player who had joined during the blackout was still holding the power settings their game received at login, and those said "off". One relog later the lights were on ("It worked. Very cool."), and the nightly restart caught everyone who had not relogged. That is why the power and water page tells you to relog after any grid change.
#What changed afterwards?
The same evening the water board got a reprieve too: mains water, due to fail on Day 65, was pushed out to Day 100, and later to Day 150. The grid's shutoff now sits 9,999 days out, so the power you see today is the power the survivors of Day 51 won back.
Some things still wear out. Lamp bulbs burn out, generators need fuel and repairs, and on Day 150 the taps run dry: see Power and Water for all of it, and tune in to the emergency broadcast for the Knox Water Authority's warnings in the two days before.