Huge Blackout Hits Eastern U.S., Canada

My Way ^ | Aug 14th, 2003 | By CALVIN WOODWARD

[Gabrielle Reilly]

The largest power blackout in U.S. history rolled across a vast swath of the northern United States and southern Canada on Thursday, driving millions of people outdoors into stifling rush hour streets - then darkness.

New Yorkers escaped silenced subways. Nuclear power plants in four states shut down.

"We all are wondering what caused this," said New York Gov. George Pataki. President Bush ruled out terrorism. The blackouts set off finger pointing on both sides of the border.

At one point, Canadian authorities said it appeared lightning had struck a power plant on the U.S. side in the Niagara Falls region, setting off outages that spread over 9,300 square miles, but U.S. officials quickly disputed that.

The blackouts started shortly after 4 p.m. EDT, engulfing most of New York state and parts of New England, and spreading west to Ohio and Michigan. In Toronto, Canada's largest city, workers fled their buildings when the power went off. There also were widespread outages in Ottawa, the capital.

Power began to come back as evening wore on, but officials said full restoration would take much longer.

Outages ranged over an area with roughly 50 million people.

[StatesEnemy]

What I wanna know is why Western Massachusetts (specifically the Indian Orchard, and 16 Acres sections of Springfield) were also without power.... Supposedly we are not on the N/M grid

[Dog Gone]

Power began to come back as evening wore on, but officials said full restoration would take much longer.

I want to hear where it's come back on.

[MJY1288]

So far it looks like the emergency response teams have done one hell of a job in dealing with all the stranded people in the subway systems, elevators, tall buildings and the airports.

I think this will be looked at as a pretty good response to a crisis situation that could have been complete disaster.

[katze]

But, we'll hear from Schumer and Hillary tomorrow with all their demands. If NYC could get rid of some of their wasteful social programs, there would be plenty to have all the backups needed.

[MJY1288]

Actually, I think this is a great opportunity for GWB to push for his Energy Plan

[TheFrog]

"Supposedly we are not on the N/M grid" Dude, time to count interconnects. Eastern Interconnect, Western Interconnect, and ERCOT, You are not in Texas so you are not connected to ERCOT. You are east of the Rocky Mountains and therefore not on the western interconnect. So that must put you in the "eastern interconnect"

[BenLurkin]