Score one for small-scale distributed power

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Power Outages Hit
New York, Other Cities

NEW YORK -- A massive power blackout hit U.S. and Canadian cities Thursday,
closing nuclear power plants in Ohio and New York state, driving workers in
New York City and Toronto into the streets, and shutting subways in
blistering heat. The blackout apparently was due to natural causes and there
was no sign of terrorism, officials in New York and Washington said.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it was likely the blackout
started in the Niagara Falls area and quickly spread.


Reporting by Stacy Forster and Carl Bialik of The Wall Street Journal
Online, with contributions from the Associated Press and Dow Jones
Newswires.



"It was probably a natural occurrence which disrupted the power system up
there and apparently for reasons we don't know it cascaded down through New
York state over into Connecticut, as far south as New Jersey and as far west
as Ohio," he said.

A senior law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
the Federal Bureau of Investigation had determined the blackout was a
"natural occurrence" and there was no evidence of terrorism, and that the
Homeland Security Department agreed.

Power was slowly returning to New York state by 6 p.m., about two hours
after the outage, Mr. Bloomberg told reporters at City Hall. Still, he said
it would be "hours, not minutes" before power was fully restored to New York
City. In New York, the blackout affected subways, elevators and airports,
including John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports.

Many Workers Are Stranded

Thousands of Manhattan workers were sent home early from work into the
90-degree heat, but many had no easy way of getting home.

At the Canal Street subway station downtown, streams of people emerged
covered in grime.

Anthony Daliva, a computer technician from New Jersey who works downtown,
was among them. He described being on the train when it stopped right past
the station. After being trapped for about an hour in what he described as
incredible heat -- and darkness except for emergency lights -- he and others
climbed between the trains and up a ladder on the side of track toward the
street light. His blue shirt and khaki pants were covered in dirt.

Near Canal Street, Erika Pietsch, a TV producer who lives in Astoria,
Queens, across the East River, said she had to evacuate her building. "I'm
trying to figure out my plan of attack to get home," she said.

Traffic lights were out. Mike Greenfield, a construction estimator, was
stuck in traffic on Watts Street near the Holland Tunnel, where police were
directing traffic. Mr. Greenfield was coming back from Queens headed west to
Freehold, N.J., and says he is used to bad traffic. "It's like this
everyday," he said.

Ralph St. Pierre said he was on the subway in between stations when the
power went out and the train stopped. He said he followed the conductor out
of the tunnel. Later, people could be seen streaming out of subway stations.

Several ice-cream stores in Manhattan said they wouldn't be giving away
their goods, which are melting without power for refrigeration. "I don't
want to give it out," said Steven Chan, proprietor of a Baskin Robbins in
the Lower East Side neighborhood. "Otherwise, there would be a riot."

In Toronto, Canada's largest city, workers also fled their buildings after
the blackout hit shortly after 4 p.m. EDT. 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 Corrections.

In Albany, N.Y., several people were trapped in elevators in Empire State
Plaza, but most had been freed by 5 p.m. People in New York City lined up 10
deep or more at pay phones, with cellphone service disrupted in some areas.

Mike Saltzman, a spokesman for New York Power Authority, a state-owned
utility in White Plains, N.Y., 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.

"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 center
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 okay than what caused it," a police
spokesman said at the center.

Nuclear Reactors Shut Down

Four nuclear power reactors -- two in New York and two in Ohio -- reported
they were shut down because of the loss of off-site power, according to the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Bethesda, Md. They were the two Indian
Point reactors in New York state, and the Perry and Fermi nuclear power
plants in Ohio.

The North American Electric Reliability Council, an industry group
responsible for monitoring the integrity of the system, said the power
outages were "widespread and appear to be centered around Lake Erie,
although they are affecting the entire eastern interconnection."

"We do not know the cause at present but will continue to evaluate the
situation," said Ellen Vancko, speaking for the council.

Planes Are Grounded

The Federal Aviation Administration instituted airport ground stops at
Cleveland, Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark, N.J. That meant planes from other
cities heading to those four airports could not take off. However, air
traffic control facilities had backup power, and planes already in the air
could land at those airports, said Laura Brown, speaking for the FAA.

At the Homeland Security Department, spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said federal
officials were still gathering information and had not determined a cause.

The department "is working with state and local officials and the energy
sector to determine the cause of the outage as well as what response
measures may be needed to be taken," he said. He said everyone should
"listen and heed the advice of the local authorities."

Verizon Communications Inc., the largest local telephone company in the
northeastern U.S., said its network is operating normally and has not been
affected by a widespread power outage.

Securities regulators were optimistic that U.S. markets would open as
scheduled Friday. "There's no talk about not opening," said Annette
Nazareth, Securities and Exchange Commission market regulation director.
Power was in place through the close of trading Thursday and Mr. Nazareth
said the Depository Trust Co. had cleared trades for the day before power
failed.

The blackouts rivaled those in the West on Aug. 11, 1996, when heat, sagging
power lines and unusually high demand for electricity caused an outage that
affected four million customers in nine states, one of the most severe
outages in U.S. history.

A blackout in New York City in 1977 left some nine million people without
electricity for up to 25 hours.

Updated August 14, 2003 6:08 p.m.






Belinda Wong-Swanson, Principal
Innov8 LLC, 624 Agua Fria, Santa Fe, NM 87501
www.innov8llc.com
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