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Power/Utility Failure

2003 August 14th. - Northeastern USA and province of Ontario, Canada: power failure impacting up to 50 million people in a 9,300 square-mile area.

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1998 January 12th. - Northeastern USA, Canada: Ice storm leaves up to 3 million people without electricity for days, in some areas for weeks

1996 August 11th. - USA, Western States and parts of Mexico: heat, sagging power lines and unusually high demand for electricity caused an outage for 4 million customers for as long as 10 hours.

1996 July 2nd. - USA, Western states: short circuit caused by trees hitting power lines in Idaho; power outage for up to six hours impacting 2 million people in 14 states.

1994 December 14th. - Western USA: power surged caused loss of electricity for 2 million people from Arizona to Washington state; at least 1 nuclear power plant had to be shut down

1993 November 24th. - United Kingdom, London: power failure trapped more than 20,000 passengers in subway trains.

1982 March 27th. - Western USA: high voltage lines in Oregon failed, causing a one hour blackout for nearly 1 million people in four states

1981 January 1st. - USA, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming: 1.5 million people experienced power outage for up to seven hours

1977 July 13th. - USA, New York City: Power outage caused by lightning hitting power lines started around 9:30 p.m.; more than 9 million people were left without electricity for up to 25 hours; widespread looting, many injuries, more than 1,000 arson fires and 4,000 arrests. The damage estimates in Upper West Side, East Harlem and downtown Brooklyn exceeded $300 million.

1977 May 17th. - USA, Florida, Miami: 1 million people in a 15,000 square-mile area lost power

1965 November 9th. - USA, New York State, most of New England, parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey: around 6:00 pm at least 25 million people in a 80,000 square-mile area lost electricity for up to 19 hours.