Northeast blackout of 2003

The 2003 U.S.-Canada blackout was a massive power outage that occurred in parts of the northeastern United States and eastern Canada on August 14, 2003. It was the largest blackout in North American history, affecting an estimated 10 million people in Canada (about one-third of the population) and 40 million people in the United States. Power was cut to customers in eight states and the province of Ontario.

Satellite image before blackout
NOAA satellite image of northeastern US and Canada taken before blackout on Aug. 13, 2003, at 9:21 p.m. EDT. (Larger image)

Satellite image during blackout
Satellite image during blackout taken on Aug. 14, 2003, at 9:03 p.m. EDT. (Larger image)

Between 4:12 and 4:15 p.m. EST outages were initially reported in Cleveland, Toledo, New York City, Albany, Detroit, and parts of New Jersey reported power outages. This was followed by other areas initally unaffected, including all 5 boroughs of New York City and parts of Long Island, Westchester County, New Jersey, Vermont, and Connecticut, and most of southern Ontario including Toronto, Hamilton and Windsor, Ontario. It was estimated that the blackout covered an area of roughly 9,300 square miles (24,000 square kilometers).

Eventually a large area bounded by Detroit, Sault Ste. Marie, the shore of James Bay, Ottawa, New York and Toledo was left without power. An At least 21 power plants shut down during the outage.

Many essential services remained in operation in most of these areas, although backup generation in some cities was not up to the task. The phone systems remained operational in most areas, however the increased demand by people phoning home left many circuits overloaded. Cellular telephones experienced significant service disruptions as cellular transmission towers used up their backup power. Television and radio stations mostly remained on the air with the help of backup generators.

In areas where power remained off until nightfall, the Milky Way and orbiting artificial satellites became visible to the naked eye in areas where they cannot ordinarily be seen due to city light pollution.

Media coverage

In the USA and Canada this story dominated news broadcasts throughout the day and on August 15 and headlines on August 15. Internationally, coverage focused on the developing situation in New York.

Causes

Electricity is consumed at the moment that it is produced. The demand load on any power grid must be matched by supply coming on. Any overload is dangerous to equipment, so, in general it shuts down if a serious problem is detected. This is exactly what happened on August 14.

CNN reported officials as saying that the Niagara-Mohawk power grid, which provides power for New York and parts of Canada, was overloaded. Between 4:10 and 4:13 p.m., 21 power stations along that grid shut down. Others claim that the blackout may have started in Ohio [1]. Officials believe that the problem started along one of the Lake Erie province/states, and they have dubbed the problem the "Lake Erie Transmission Loop".

For the time being, the cause was not known for certain, except that it was not believed to be a terrorist attack. Although there was significant sunspot activity at the time, solar flare activity does not appear to have been implicated in the blackout.

Different sources had different initial explanations. Official reports from the office of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien indicate that lightning struck a power plant in northern New York, resulting in a cascading failure of the surrounding power grid and wide-area electricity distribution grid.

However, New York state power officials have stated that the problem did not originate in the United States, that there was no rain storm in the area purported, and that the power plant in question has remained in operation throughout the blackout. The United States Department of Homeland Security is currently looking into the blackouts.

Canadian Defence Minister John McCallum blamed an outage at a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, but that state's authorities reported that all the plants were functioning normally.

In addition to determining the initial cause of the cascading failure, investigation of the incident will also include an examination of why safeguards designed to prevent a repetition of the Northeast Blackout of 1965 failed. Issues of failure to maintain the electrical infrastructure, failure of upgrading to so-called "smart cables", failure of shunting and rerouting mechanisms, AC vs DC intersystem ties, and substitution of market forces for central planning are expected to arise. The North American Electric Reliability Council, a joint Canada-US council, is responsible for dealing with these issues.

The New Mexican governor Bill Richardson says that the North American power grid has only "third world quality" and needs major reworking. [2]

Effects

Generation

With the power fluctuations on the grid, power plants automatically went into "safe mode" to prevent damage in the case of an overload. This put much of the nuclear power available offline until they can be slowly taken out of safe mode again. In the meantime the coal and oil fired plants were brought online, and some power was made available over the area by the morning of the 15th.

Regional Transportation

Amtrak Northeastern corridor railroad service was stopped north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. VIA Rail service suffered delays, but was still running; normal service resumed on several routes by morning.

Passenger screenings at affected airports ceased. Regional airports were shut down for this reason.

Air Canada flights remained grounded on the morning of the 15th due to reliable power not having been restored to its Mississauga, Ontario control centre. It expected to resume operations by mid-day.

In New York, flights were cancelled even after power had been restored to the airports because of difficulties accessing "electronic-ticket" information.

Many gas stations were unable to pump fuel due to lack of electricity. In North Bay, Ontario, for instance, a long line of transport trucks was held up, unable to go further North to Manitoba without refuelling there.

Communication

Many people were very surprised to find that (unlike wired telephones) cellular communication devices were disrupted. Many people who in prior blackouts would have relied on transistor radios for news discovered to some dismay that they no longer had one, having long since replaced them with portable CD players and other such devices. Most New York and many Ontario radio stations were momentarily knocked off the air but were able to return with back-up power. Cable television systems were disabled and areas that had power restored (and had power to their television sets proper) could not receive information until power had also been restored to the cable provider. Those who relied on the Internet were similarly disconnected from their news source for the duration of the blackout.

Looting

Incidents of looting were reported in Ottawa and Brooklyn. However, these appear to have been greatly exaggerated. All of New York City suffered only four burglaries as of noon August 15, and, in Ottawa, there was only one jewelry store robbery within a few minutes of the blackout.

Looting was pretty minimal for such a major blackout. In general, the public was orderly.

New York

In New York State, all prisons were blacked out and had switched to generator power. The two Indian Point nuclear reactors had shut down, as had two in Ohio. The governor of NY State declared a state of emergency.

Manhattan, including Wall Street and the United Nations, was completely shut down, as were all area airports, the subway, and the Long Island Rail Road. People were trapped in elevators. Over 600 subway cars were trapped between stations: all were evacuated without serious injury.

Gridlock was reported as persons in Lower Manhattan fled on foot, jamming the streets with traffic. Mayor Michael Bloomberg advised residents to open their windows and drink plenty of liquids to avoid heat stroke in the heat. Temperatures were 92°F (33°C) with humidity.

40,000 police and the entire fire department were called in to maintain order.

At least two fatalities were linked to the use of flame to provide light, and many non-fatal fires also resulted from the use of candles.

New Jersey

Affected areas included most of Essex, Passaic and Bergen Counties, including the major cities of Newark and Paterson. Power was returned first to the urban areas because of concerns of safety and unrest.

The day following the black out, August 15, the New Jersey Turnpike stopped collecting tolls until 9:00 am.

Massachusetts

A small area of extreme western Massachusetts was affected.

Michigan

TV stations were knocked off the air in Michigan, and water supplies were disrupted in Detroit due to the failure of electric pumps. The cities of Detroit, Lansing and Ann Arbor were affected. A Marathon Oil refinery in Detroit suffered a small explosion from gas buildup, necessitating an evacuation of one mile around the plant. Officials feared the release of toxic gasses.

Ohio

Over 540,000 customers were without power. In Cleveland, water service stopped because the city is supplied by electric pumps and backup electricity was available only on a very limited basis. Portions of the cities of Mansfield, Marion and Ashland without power. Cleveland declared a curfew on all persons under the age of 18.

Canada

Traffic lights, the subway and streetcar, the Toronto Stock Exchange, the CBC's Toronto studios, and Pearson International Airport were shut down in Toronto. Major Toronto hospitals reported that they had switched to generators and hadn't experienced problems. 911 service was working. Highways were gridlocked.

Toronto officials were asking residents to curtail unnecessary use of water, as the pumps were not working and there was only a 24-hour supply.

Traffic lights were out and Parliament Hill was evacuated in Ottawa. Passers-by were reported to be directing traffic.

Fierce disruptions of truck traffic in northeastern Ontario were reported due to the unavailability of fuel, including the backlog near North Bay. The tunnel between Windsor and Detroit was also closed.

Several miners were caught in their Falconbridge mines in Sudbury when the power went out. Mine officials said that they were safe and could be evacuated if necessary, but were not being evacuated due to the risks of doing so with no power. They were safely evacuated by the morning. In Sarnia, a refinery scrubber lost power and released above-normal levels pollution; residents were asked to close their windows.

In the evening of the 14th, Ontario premier Ernie Eves declared a state of emergency, advising non-essential personnel not to go to work on the 15th. Residents were asked not to use televisions, washing mashines, or air conditioners if possible, and warned that some restored power might go off again.

Long Term Effects

A provincial election was expected in the fall in Ontario and power has long been a major issue. The government may be hurt by the success of Quebec and Manitoba in avoiding calamity while Ontario was shut down. The extra publicity given to Ontario's need to import electricity from the United States, mostly due to a decision of the government not to expand the provinces power generating capabilities, may also adversly effect the Conservative government. Premier Ernie Eves' handling of the crisis was also criticized; he was not heard from until long after mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki had spoken out. It is quite likely that the provincial election will thus be postponed until the spring. If it is discovered that the blackouts were Ontario's fault, as New York officials have claimed, the chances of the government being re-elected would probably suffer.

Restoration of service

By evening of August 14, power had been restored to:

Burlington, Ontario - seemingly the first place which had lost it to have it restored
most of London, Ontario;
western Ottawa and Kanata;
a portion of downtown Toronto;
three-quarters of the million customers who had lost power in New Jersey;
parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio.
parts of Long Island

Con Edison retracted its claim that New York City would have power by 1 AM that night, and predicted that the Niagara Falls area would have to wait until 8 a.m.

By early evening, two New York airports and Cleveland airport were back in service.

Half of the affected part of Ontario had power by the morning of August 15, though even in areas where it had come back online, some services were still disrupted or running at lower levels.

Preparations against the possible disruptions threatened by the Year 2000 problem have been credited for the installation of new electrical equipment and systems which allowed for a relatively rapid restoration of power in some areas.