North American cities paralysed by widespread power outage

An electrical overload originating at a Manhattan power plant and affecting the Niagara Mohawk power grid has caused a widespread power outage up the eastern side of North America. New York City, Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto, Ottawa and other cities have all been affected.

Businesses have been without power since around 4.00pm local time and major transport and logistics problems are being experienced.

The blackouts are expected to last several hours, raising the fears of potential looting problems when darkness falls.

The cause of the electrical overload has yet to be established but terrorism is not suspected at this point.

UPDATES
• It now appears that the power outage was triggered at a Canadian power plant and the problem cascaded down the Eastern seaboard.
• The mobile phone networks were quickly swamped causing major communications problems.
• New York Governor George Pataki has declared a state of emergency for the state and deployed additional state police.

LINKS
Canada.com report
CNN report
BBC report

•Date: 14th August 2003 • Region: N.America •Type: Article •Topic: BC general
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