'Wake-up call'

2003-08-16 18:06

New York - Air conditioners were humming on Saturday and lights blazed again across most of the northeastern United States two days after the power went out in the worst blackout in US history.

Still, some regions were experiencing rolling blackouts, and water pressure was low in Cleveland, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan, where residents were told to boil water before drinking or cooking with it. National Guard troops were distributing 28 800 liters of drinking water in Cleveland.

After a 32-hour shutdown, the nation's largest subway system began rolling again in New York at midnight. And in Michigan, where auto plants were paralyzed and officials had warned power could be out through the weekend, Governor Jennifer Granholm said electricity had been restored to just about everyone - but she still urged residents to conserve.

"We're not out of the woods yet," Granholm said on Saturday. "If people don't conserve, we will have rolling blackouts."

Officials still hadn't pinpointed the source of Thursday's massive outage that appeared to have started in the Midwest and spread through eight US states and southern Canada almost instanteously at 16:00.

Grid needs work

Canada and the United States formed a joint task force on Friday to investigate and determine how to prevent it from happening again.

Investigators focused on a massive electrical grid that encircles Lake Erie, moving power from New York to the Detroit area, Canada and back to New York state. There had been problems with the transmission loop in the past, officials said.

Nora Mead Brownell, a commissioner with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said on Saturday that it was clear the power grid needs work.

"Regardless of what the root cause was, it was clearly exacerbated by a system that is unable to support today's economy," she told NBC's "Today" show.

New Yorkers and virtually all the 1.4 million people in the state of Ohio who lost power were back on line on Saturday, as well as an estimated 2.3 million customers in Michigan.

'Unkindest cut of all'

But still, some customers in the Cleveland area, upstate New York and New York City were dealing with the unkindest cut of all: Their power, restored, was turned off again due to rolling blackouts needed to conserve electricity.

The call for conservation echoed across each state affected by the blackout.

"If you don't turn them off, they will go off," said Long Island Power Authority chairperson Richard Kessel.

Chris Bowen, 47, of Syracuse, New York, said he and his family would try to heed the plea. "We'll probably leave the air conditioner off tonight when we go to sleep. We played cards by candlelight last night and it was fun. Maybe we'll do that again."

'Wake-up call'

President George W Bush, during a tour of a California national park, said part of the problem was "an antiquated system" to distribute electricity nationally. "It's a wake-up call," he said.

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he received a call from Bush offering congratulations on the city's handling of the crisis. Crime in the city was actually down compared to an average evening, and the looting that had marked the city's notorious 1977 blackout didn't appear.

The New York City Council finance office estimated the blackout cost the city up to $750m in lost revenue - up to $40m in lost tax revenue and up to $10m in overtime pay for the first 24 hours.

Despite plunging several of the nation's largest cities into darkness, the outage resulted in few reports of vandalism or increased violence.

There were at least three US fatalities. In New York fires, a 6-year-old was killed and a 40-year-old man suffered a heart attack. A 42-year-old woman in Connecticut died in a blaze sparked by a candle. Her husband and 10-year-old son were badly burned.

In Canada's capital of Ottawa, police reported 23 cases of looting, along with two deaths possibly linked to the blackout - a pedestrian hit by a car and a fire victim.

Sniff test

The restored power also left people wondering whether meat in the now-warm freezer was still good. "The sniff test is probably the most effective. When in doubt, throw it out," said Tom Heinen, co-owner of a chain of 15 Ohio supermarkets.

A young Connecticut couple, meanwhile, was enjoying an addition to their family. They made their way through chaotic streets on Thursday to Greenwich Hospital to have their first baby.

The hospital managed the delivery with the help of generators.

"Everyone keeps saying you'll remember where you were on the outage of 2003," said Dan O'Neill, whose wife, Kara, gave birth to a healthy baby boy early on Friday morning.

"It was a blackout and he has one of the blackest heads of hair I've ever seen."

- AP