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Fire destabalized grid { August 15 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.gopusa.com/news/2003/august/0815_blackouts.shtmlhttp://www.gopusa.com/news/2003/august/0815_blackouts.shtml
Power Shutdown, Not Terrorism Responsible For Largest Power Outage in North American History
By Jimmy Moore
Talon News
August 15, 2003
NEW YORK (Talon News) -- Amid fears of looming terrorist attacks by al Qaeda around the world, parts of the United States and Canada experienced the single largest power outage in North American history on Thursday afternoon leaving more than 50 million people without power.
Canadian government officials say the blackout was caused by a lightning strike at the Niagara power plant in Niagara Falls, New York.
Meanwhile, U.S. government officials point to power transmission problems in Canada as the likely cause of the abrupt power loss.
However, Bryan Lee, a spokesman for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said the massive outage was caused by a power shutdown at a Manhattan power plant which destabilized the power grid.
"The thinking is that a fire at a generating plant in Manhattan destabilized the grid, which cascaded up the grid and took a loop around the Great Lakes into Canada," explained Lee.
In New York City, thousands of subway passengers were stuck when the power went out. Temperatures rose quickly in office buildings in the state of New York and in the Canadian province of Ontario. Nuclear plants were shut down in Ohio. Traffic light outages halted traffic in major cities such as Cleveland and Detroit.
However, Homeland Security officials in Washington were quick to say that this occurrence is not related to any terrorist plans.
Nearly the entire Northeast section of the United States and southern Canada was affected by the blackouts, taking away power from millions of people at around 4 p.m. EST.
Power was quickly restored to many residents in some cities, but it was estimated that it would take hours to restore all the power again.
The state of New York was hit especially hard by the blackouts, with 80 percent of power lost, according to Matthew Melewski, a representative for the New York Independent System Operator in charge of overseeing the state's power grid. An immediate state of emergency was declared for both New York and New Jersey.
Shea Stadium, the home of Major League Baseball's New York Mets, was evacuated because of the blackouts. The game between the Mets and the visiting San Francisco Giants was postponed.
New York City saw mass mayhem because of the loss of power to subways, elevators, and airports, such as John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia, which only had a limited amount of backup power. Thousands of people lined the streets of lower Manhattan in the sweltering August heat while others suffered underground, stuck in subway cars for hours after the blackouts occurred.
Power outages took place in northern New Jersey and in parts of Vermont. The Metro-North Railroad was out of commission in Connecticut while the lights flickered in Hartford.
People were trapped in elevators in Albany, New York until 5 p.m. while people in New York City scrambled to find pay phones, since cellular telephone service was disrupted during the blackout in many areas. Verizon, the leading wireless phone provider in America, reported there were no disruptions in their service.
Hospitals in Cleveland resorted to back-up generators, but only had limited power.
"Everyone is very hot because the air conditioning is off," said Olga Kropko, a labor and delivery nurse for University Hospital. "Our laboring moms are suffering."
In Mansfield, Ohio, police struggled to keep stranded pedestrians roaming the streets from getting injured.
"A lot of officers are out there trying to make sure nobody gets hurt, to try to cut down on the accidents," remarked Officer Randi Allen.
These blackouts were the worst seen since the ones experienced on August 11, 1996, when heat, sagging power lines and high energy demand resulted in 4 million customers in nine states to lose their power.
A similar blackout took place in New York City in 1977, leaving 9 million people without power for more than a day.
Amtrak halted all passenger rail service running from New Haven, Connecticut to Newark, New Jersey. The nation's capital, Washington, DC, did not lose power.
New York City Major Michael Bloomberg encouraged the 8 million residents in his city to use common sense measures to stay safe during this ordeal.
"Be sure you don't make an inconvenience into a tragedy," warned Bloomberg.
The Department of Health and Human Services in Washington reminded people to do their best to stay as cool as possible and drink lots of water. Local health officials were assisting with this effort.
"While this is a major inconvenience let's just pray that nobody dies from the heat," a hopeful Bloomberg said. "But once we get through this, let's just consider this another test of New York and the [resilience] of New Yorkers."
After investigating this further, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security concluded that the power outages were simply a natural occurrence and not a part of a terrorist plot against the U.S. or Canada.
"One thing I can say for certain, this was not a terrorist attack," said President George W. Bush, who was in San Diego, California on Thursday afternoon. Bush offered federal assistance to all of the cities affected by the blackouts.
The police in areas hit by the blackouts are more concerned with the aftermath of what has happened rather than trying to understand why they took place.
"We're more concerned about getting the traffic lights running and making sure the city is OK than what caused it," remarked a police department spokesperson.
Nuclear power plants in New York and Ohio were shut down as a precautionary measure because of the loss of power off-site, reports the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Bethesda, Maryland.
The North American Electric Reliability Council, which oversees the power system, said the power outages were "widespread and appear to be centered around Lake Erie, although they are affecting the entire eastern interconnection."
The U.S. Transportation Department grounded flights out of New York City, Newark, Cleveland, Toronto and Ottawa.
Copyright © 2003 Talon News -- All rights reserved.
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