| OFFICIALS OF THE Homeland Security Department said there were no indications that terrorists were responsible for the blackout. The CERT Coordination Center said it also did not appear to be related to the W32/Blaster worm or other computer intruder activity.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the chaos was related to a malfunction at Canada’s Niagara Mohawk power grid, which rippled across the enormous Eastern Interconnected System power grid, which supplies about a third of the United States. He said that the cause of the malfunction was not yet known but that it was “probably a natural occurrence.”
Bloomberg said that as far as he knew, no one was injured as tall buildings and subways were evacuated. He said power was being restored slowly in limited areas.
A spokesman for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission told NBC News about 6 p.m. that the malfunction had been contained and that agencies had started lighting up the power grid. But he said full restoration of power could take as little as four hours or as long as all night.
President Bush, who was in California on a fund-raising trip, was being kept apprised of the situation, federal officials told NBC News. Bloomberg was consulting with White House chief of staff Andrew Card, the officials said.
The evening rush hour was just beginning in the East when the power went out at 4:14 p.m., and NBC correspondents described scenes of pandemonium as thousands of New Yorkers streamed into streets where traffic signals were not operating.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said it was crippled, and all three major New York area airports were closed. Buses, trains and subways were not running.
Jim Tsumi of Riverdale, N.Y., was sitting on the shoulder of Highway 495 leading to the Lincoln Tunnel.
“I got no hope getting home tonight,” he said, pointing across the river at Manhattan, where the West Side Highway and a two-mile traffic jam were clearly visible. “It’s like 9/11 again. I hope this is nothing big.”
WIDESPREAD IMPACT
The blackout stretched over huge areas of the Northeast, the Midwest and Canada.
WNBC-TV reported that fire crews were heading down into the New York City subways to check on thousands of stranded passengers. The New York Mets’ game against the San Francisco Giants was canceled.
Every prison in New York state reported a loss of power and was operating on backup generators, NBC affiliate WGRC-TV of Buffalo reported. NBC, MSNBC cable and most other New York-based television networks also were operating on generators.
In Detroit and southeast Michigan, where about 2.1 million customers were without power, inoperative street lights snarled late-afternoon traffic, NBC affiliate WDIV-TV reported. Some areas also reported shortages of water.
Stock trading was sharply reduced in after-hours sessions as traders scrambled to work on emergency power.
Cleveland power officials said 700,000 customers were affected. NBC affiliate WKYC-TV reported that telephone systems were also out.
Almost 58,000 Connecticut Light & Power customers were without power, NBC affiliate WVIT-TV of Hartford reported. The Metro-North Railroad halted all travel in the state, with some trains stranded between stations.
Industry, government and transportation ground to a complete halt in Toronto, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported. About 6 p.m., some power was being restored in limited areas of Ontario.
Other affected cities included Buffalo, Albany and Syracuse, N.Y.; Hartford, Conn.; Lansing and many other smaller cities in Michigan; Akron and Toledo, Ohio; some counties in northwest Pennsylvania; and Ottawa.
Washington and the federal government were not affected. Neither were much of New England — including all of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and southern Vermont — as well as Chicago, Philadelphia and other areas of Canada, including Quebec City.
The Federal Aviation Administration shut down Newark, John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports in the New York area; Detroit Metropolitan Airport and Hopkins Airport in Cleveland. The FAA said that otherwise, however, most of its facilities were operating normally on backup power and that planes in the air were in no danger.
Canadian officials, meanwhile, closed Ottawa International Airport and Pearson International Airport in Toronto.
MEMORIES OF ’77
Especially in New York, where police were nervously gearing up for nightfall, the sudden loss of power revived memories of the ruinous blackout of 1977.
On July 10, power officials guaranteed Congress that another power failure like the 1965 blackout would never occur again. Three days later, the lights went off a little before 9:30 p.m. and stayed off all night — 13 hours in all.
More than 3,700 people were arrested in looting across several neighborhoods, most notably Brooklyn. More than 1,000 fires were set, and estimates of the damage ranged from $61 million to more than $300 million. | |
Just kidding. (Stupid humor)...