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Power cuts hit US, Canada
14/08/2003 23:33 - (SA)
New York - A huge power blackout hit US cities spreading from New York to Cleveland and Detroit and north into Canada on Thursday afternoon. State officials said the Niagara-Mohawk power grid was overloaded. The grid provides power for New York and stretches into Canada. The officials said the outage is a natural occurrence and not related to terrorism.
In New York, the blackout affected subways, elevators and airports, including John F Kennedy and LaGuardia airports. Thousands of people streamed into the streets of lower Manhattan in 32°C heat.
In Toronto, Canada's largest city, workers also fled their buildings after the blackout hit shortly after 16:00 EDT (02:00 GMT). There also were widespread outages in Ottawa, the capital.
Traffic lights were out throughout downtown Cleveland and other major cities, creating havoc at the beginning of rush hour.
There were reports of outages in northern New Jersey and in several Vermont towns. In Connecticut, Metro-North Railroad service was knocked out. Lights flickered at state government buildings in Hartford.
Every prison in New York state reported a loss of power and switched to backup generators, said James Flateau, a spokesman for the state department of orrections.
In Albany, New York, several people were trapped in elevators in Empire State Plaza, but most had been freed by 17:00. People in New York City lined up 10 deep or more at pay phones, with
cellphone service disrupted in some areas.
Mike Saltzman, a spokespertson for New York Power Authority, a state-owned utility in White Plains, NY, said its two largest hydroelectric plants, including Niagara Falls and St Lawrence-FDR, were operating. He said he did not know the status of 18 other smaller plants.
The blackouts rivaled those in the West on August 11, 1996, when heat, sagging power lines and unusually high demand for electricity caused an outage that affected 4 million customers in nine states, one of the most severe outages in US history.
A blackout in New York City in 1977 left about 9 million people without electricity for up to 25 hours. No terrorism
"There is no evidence of any terrorism at this point," said Michael Sheehan, deputy commissioner for terrorism of New York City's Police Department. "We've talked to Washington and there are rumors, but none of them pans out."
Top New York police officers gathered at the department's operations centre downtown where the focus was on the ramifications of the blackout rather than its cause.
"We're more concerned about getting the traffic lights running and making sure the city is OK than what caused it," a police spokesperson said at the centre.
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