North Americans in the dark

2003-08-15 11:33

Toronto - Canadian officials insisted a massive blackout across the Northeast and parts of Canada originated in the United States, though US power workers denied that and American officials blamed Canada.

In the hours of confusion after Thursday's outage - the biggest in US history - Canada's government offered conflicting explanations for the blackout, blaming it first on lightning in Niagara, then a fire at a Niagara plant, and next a fire at a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant.

Canada's defense minister, John McCallum, later backed off some of those theories, though remained firm that the source of the problem was in the US section of the intricate power grid shared by the northeastern United States and Ontario.

America's fault

"The source is an outage in a northeastern United States power plant," said McCallum's spokesman Shane Diaczuk.

In the United States, officials were looking at a power transmission problem from Canada as the most likely cause of the outage, said a spokeswoman for New York Governor George Pataki. There was no sign of terrorism, officials in New York and Washington agreed.

The outage blacked out much of Ontario, but authorities said the power was starting to return to some areas Thursday night. In Ottawa, the capital, a few packs of youths roamed the streets, and at least five incidents of smashed store windows and stolen merchandise were reported, said police Staff Sgt. Pat Flanagan.

The changing theories started several hours after the power went out at about 16:15.

Jim Munson, a spokesman for Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said: "We have been informed that lightning struck a power plant in the Niagara region on the U.S. side." The premier's office later said a fire at the Niagara plant in New York caused the blackout, while the defense minister said the fire was at a Pennsylvania nuclear plant.

"That is absolutely not true," said Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Maria Smith. "It's bizarre. We have a direct line to each of our five (nuclear) power plants and they are all running at 100%."

Brian Warner of the New York Power Authority said he wasn't sure where the power failure originated, but said the Niagara plant never stopped operating and wasn't struck by lightning.

In one of the largest previous blackouts, in 1965, the blame fell on the Canadian side. That blackout struck the Northeast and parts of Canada, leaving 30 million people in the dark. Investigators said it was caused by a faulty relay at a station in Ontario that caused a key transmission line to disconnect, according to the Blackout History Project, a Web site published by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.

In his comments Thursday, the Canadian defense minister did not name the plant in Pennsylvania where he believed there was a fire or give further details. But his spokesman later said that McCallum and other Canadian officials were getting their information from a variety of sources, including some in the United States, as the situation unfolded.

Blackouts were reported in Toronto, as well as Ottawa in the province's eastern reaches and in much of Ontario. The blackout had not spread as far as Thunder Bay in northwestern Ontario, suggesting power in the north was sporadic.

Ontario Premier Ernie Eves declared a state of emergency for the province and asked any nonessential or non-emergency workers to stay home Friday.

In Sudbury, Ontario, 338 kilometres north of Toronto, more than 100 miners at a Falconbridge nickel mine were staying in underground lunchrooms because the outage halted elevators to bring them to the surface.

"I wouldn't call it an emergency situation right now - they've got plenty of water, and the ventilation is still operational with the backup power," Sudbury police Staff Sgt. Al Asunmaa said. "They're not in any immediate danger right now."

Power was also knocked out on Parliament Hill, leaving scant emergency lighting.

In Toronto, streetcars preparing to transport workers around downtown for the evening rush hour ground to a halt, sending riders into the street to hail taxi cabs.

Some people ended up directing traffic on their own.

Wearing a suit and tie, Peter Carayiannis waved vehicles through one busy intersection. "I've been doing this for about 45 minutes because nobody else is," he said.

'You just have to wait'

"The streetcar can't go anywhere, you just have to wait," said Mike Collins, a streetcar driver with the Toronto Transit Commission.

An official at the Ontario power company, Al Manchee, said power was being restored slowly, with substantial progress expected throughout the evening.

Toronto's international airport was one of six, including airports in New York, Newark, Cleveland and Ottawa that was grounded, according to the US Transportation Department.

Millions of Canadians were without power, and the total blackout area covered roughly 50 million people. Electricity was out in a broad swath of the Northeast - stretching west to Ohio and Michigan - and in southern Canadian cities.

In Toronto, Canada's largest city with more than 2 million residents, traffic snarled at major intersections as workers tried to get home by car, in taxis or on foot.

The Toronto Stock Exchange said it would open as usual Friday, running on backup power if necessary.

- AP