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2003
August 14th. - 4:11 p.m. Eastern Standard Time:
Power Blackout in South Eastern Canada and North Eastern Part of the USA
, effected approximately 50 million people in an area of 9,300 square
miles, including
- Toronto,
Ottawa, and other parts of Ontario (i.e., Windsor, Waterloo,
Cambridge)
- Connecticut
(Bridgeport, Fairfield Counties, Hartford, Stanford)
- Massachusetts
(parts of Boston, Pittsfield, Springfield)
- Michigan
(Ann Arbor, Detroit, Lansing)
- New York
State (lost 80% of its power, i.e., Albany, Buffalo, Plattsburg,
Rochester, Syracuse)
- New York
City;
- Northern
New Jersey (at least 1 million people in East Rutherford, Nanuet,
Newark, Seacaucus)
- Ohio (Cleveland,
Akron, Ashland, Medina, Toledo
- Pennsylvania
(Erie, Oil City, Philadelphia, Titusville)
- Vermont
(Burlington)
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Evidently the outage was not caused by terrorists (but it shows clearly
how a terrorist attack could simply shut down power to millions of American
households and businesses).
Cause:
According to the Office of the Prime Minister in Canada lightning had
struck a power plant on the U.S. side in the Niagara Falls region, setting
off massive outages; the version is disputed by officials from the New
York Power Authority.
The increased demand
for electricity due to high temperatures and humidity across the Northeast
did not put an extreme strain on the system. The New York Independent
System Operator, the organization that manages the state's electricity
grid, said demand across the state was about 29,000 megawatts, several
thousand megawatts below the system's capacity, when the blackout hit
at 4:11 p.m. EDT.
The electrical grid
consists of 160,000 miles of transmission lines, substations, and power
plants. It allows for the exchange of electricity to neighboring power
companies in emergency situations and for a exchange / trade from one
region to another.
A power station
near the Canadian border lost power and electricity in the grid surged
to fill the void. This void drew such large amounts of electrical power
that created an overload on parts of the grid system and initiated an
automatic shut down. The shut down procedures protects stations and
lines from getting destroyed or catching fire, similar to a circuit
in a home. Therefore, the physical infrastructure of the grid was not
damaged, but the increased load on operating parts of the grid (stations,
power lines) more systems to shut down. In an cascading effect most
parts of the northeastern grid shut down.
Within minutes 21
power plants went off line. This included nine nuclear power reactors
- six in New York and one each in New Jersey, Ohio and Michigan - which
shut down because of the loss of offsite power, according to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.
Effects on:
- Large Office
Buildings (elevators, air condition)
- Hospitals
(limited to emergency power, often not providing air conditioning)
- Transportation
(traffic lights; subways; commuter trains; Amtrak services partially
suspended; tunnels closed: i.e., Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, which
is used daily by 27,000 vehicles; terminals shut down: i.e.,
due to overcrowding the Grand Central Station, the terminal
for Long Island, New Jersey and upstate New York commuters was
closed.)
- Water Supplies
(i.e., Cleveland, Ohio: at least three suburbs without water
and additional 1.5 million people low on water since pumping
equipment failed)
- Internet:
300,000 of the 2.4 million AOL users online at 4:11 p.m. just
disappeared due to the power outage; all Internet backbone computers
have back-up generators that immediately set in; if necessary
Web traffic was rerouted to other computers; a flood of back
up e-mail is expected to hit business computers when power is
restored which could slow down corporate e-mail systems for
a few days
- Communication
(cell phone service became quickly overloaded; no disruption
in service capacities since most networks and cell towers switched
to power provided by batteries or diesel-powered emergency generators)
- Air traffic
at six airports came temporarily to a halt (JFK, LaGuardia,
Newark, Cleveland, Toronto, and Ottawa). Airports across the
affected region were shut down by the FAA which led to hundreds
of flights cancelled or delayed. Delays continued on Friday.
Planes were still grounded at New York's JFK Airport as of 8:30
p.m. Thursday evening.
Airports
from New York to Los Angeles turned into campgrounds on Friday
as passengers struggled to find flights and, as always, problems
remained worst in New York City.
In New
York City swarms of international travelers were stranded
without water for a second day at John F. Kennedy International
Airport and at LaGuardia, Airlines were often not able to
provide sufficient information about flights. In some cases
people calling ahead were told that airports were open. When
they arrived they had to discover that this did not necessarily
mean that airplanes were taking off or landing. An airline
employee told stranded passengers: "If you're starting
out in New York, go home. We have no computer system, we have
nothing. We have 50,000 bags downstairs that we can't get
to because there are no lights."
Newark
International Airport remained crowded but more orderly as
travelers were able to board most flights.
Some power
was restored to New York area airports by midday, but by early
Friday evening half of LaGuardia and Kennedy airports still
had no power - meaning no air conditioning and no running
water.
In Detroit,
Wayne County International Airport continued to rely on emergency
power as of Friday, with no air-conditioning, no catering
and no staff in some places. Many Detroit airport workers
could not get to work because power was out at their homes,
gasoline stations were closed, and child care centers were
shut.
Federal
officials said that 700 flights were canceled nationwide by
Friday afternoon, and that delays could continue through the
weekend. In a ripple effect delays and cancellations reached
airports that never lost power. Northwest canceled 174 flights
on Friday, three-quarters of which were flights from Detroit
and stopped operation at LaGuardia.
Another
reason airports had to close was due to the fact that TSA
did not have backup power supplies for their screening equipment.
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Industry
and Business
Auto manufacturers in the Detroit area (i.e., General Motors,
Ford, Daimler Chrysler) cancelled shifts after assembly lines
came to a halt;
Retail chains like May and Nordstrom closed most of the stores
in the impacted areas; Home-Depot and Lowe's remained open,
power by emergency generators providing much needed supplies
such as flashlights, batteries, portable power generators,
etc.
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Consequences:
- People
trapped in elevators, on roller coasters, and inside trains
(New York transit workers had to evacuate commuters on trains
stopped in tunnels and between stations; it took more than 2
hours to reach some of the trains.)
- Traffic
nightmares in all major cities caused by
a) darkened traffic lights
b) people driving into the cities to pick up loved ones (with
the train and subway system down)
- Injuries:
St. Vincent's Hospital in NYC reported treating people who were
injured trying to get out of the subways, as well as people
treated for heat exhaustion.
- New York
City mobilized 40,000 police officers and the entire fire department
overnight to maintain order. As of late afternoon, no reports
of looting or other disturbances had been reported.
- Mobilization
of 700 National Guardsman and 300 extra state troopers on duty
in New Jersey
- Broadway
performances and sporting games were cancelled
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Recovery:
Power began to come
back as Thursday evening wore on, but full restoration may take until
Friday morning or even longer.
- New Jersey:
around 11 p.m. power had been restored to all but 250,000 people
- New York
City: subways resumed limited service around 8 p.m.
- Ohio: power
restored during the evening
- Pennsylvania:
power restored during the evening
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