Bush: Blackout a wake-up call

2003-08-15 20:44

Washington - US President George W Bush on Friday said that the blackout still paralysing much of the northeastern United States was a "wake-up call" on the need to modernize the country's electrical transmission grid.

"We will find out what caused the blackout," he said during an appearance in the Santa Monica mountains in southern California.

"I view it as a wake-up call," Bush said. "I've been concerned that our infrastructure - the delivery system - is old and antiquated, and I think this is an indication of the fact that we need to modernise the electricity grid. So it's a good opportunity for us to analyse what went wrong and deal with it. We don't know yet what went wrong, but we will."

The response in blacked out communities across six northeastern states "showed the great character of America under very difficult circumstances", he said.

Bush assert that US preparations for terrorism since 2001 improved the emergency response to the disruption of transportation, communications, health care and water supplies.

"I was most pleased by the fact that our emergency response was good, reacted well, and I doubt that would have happened, the response would have been as good, prior to September the 11th," he said. "But the creation of the Homeland Security Department, coupled with the modernisation of communications between state and local and federal officials, really enabled the system to work well." - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA