Blackout Sounds Alarm for US as Power Supply Being Restored

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, August 16, 2003

Blackout Sounds Alarm for US as Power Supply Being Restored

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US President George W. Bush on Friday called the massive blackout that struck New York and other northeastern US cities a "wake-up call" to modernize the nation's power grid, as power supply to the regions was being restored.

The worst blackout in US history struck the country's northeastand midwest and parts of Canada on Thursday, cutting off power to New York City, Detroit, Cleveland, Ottawa, Toronto and a host of smaller cities in just nine seconds, leading to closure of six airports in the two countries and of seven US nuclear power plants.

The power failure also caused snarling traffic and the shutdownof public transportation and communication systems as well as big troubles to people's normal life.

In New York City, the power failure caused 60 incidents of serious fire, in one of which a resident died from heart attack and a fire fighter was injured, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Friday morning.

In Canada, the blackout cut power to about 10 million people insouthern Ontario with the transit system in Toronto ground to a halt, stranding thousands of commuters. Two people died of causes related to the blackout in the province of Ontario.

Speaking to reporters in Santa Monica Mountains north of Los Angeles on Friday, Bush, in California for campaign fund-raising, described the power grid as "old and antiquated."

"This is an indication that we need to modernize the electricity grid," Bush said. He called on Congress to pass a sweeping energy bill, which he said took into account the need to modernize the grid.

Bush urged investigators to find out why the outages cascaded so quickly through much of northeastern United States and the Canadian province of Ontario.

"We need to take a look at what went wrong, analyze the problemand come up with a solution. We don't know yet what went wrong butwe will," Bush said, assuring the nation that the blackout was notan act of terrorism.

On Thursday, Bush said the federal government is offering all the help local and state officials need to deal with the massive power outage.

"I have been working with federal officials to make sure the response to this situation was quick and thorough and I believe ithas been," Bush told reporters at a downtown hotel in San Diego during a two-day trip to California.

By Friday morning, power has slowly flickered on across the northeastern United States and parts of southern Canada.

The North American Electric Reliability Council, which monitorsthe power system, said that an approximate 41,100 megawatts of generated electricity, out of 61,800 megawatts lost, had been restored by early morning.

Power was fully restored to the New York City at 9:03 p.m. (0103 GMT) and the nearby Westchester County, with energy conservation urged. The Wall Street area regained power after 6 a.m. (1000 GMT), stock trading resumed as planned but stock markets suffered some effects of the blackout.

In Canada, power was partially restored in Ottawa, Toronto and parts of Ontario. So far, Toronto has regained 75 percent of its power supply and expects a full power restoration until the beginning of next week. Power will be restored in two-thirds of Ontario by late Friday.

Meanwhile, transportation was slowly recovering. Planes and trains resumed service Friday in the struck areas, but passengers had to face flight cancellation and delays. The power blackout hasreportedly forced US and Canadian airlines to cancel at least 1200flights.

Despite the fact that all the six airports affected resumed normal operations Thursday evening, some arriving flights were diverted to other airports, crowding those facilities.

Amtrak, one of the major railway service providers in the United States, resumed limited service between the two cities, butservice between New York and Boston remained out.

Meanwhile, the US Postal Service said Friday it is experiencingparticular problems moving the mail in the New York and Detroit metropolitan areas and mail may be slowed elsewhere also.

The power outage has forced a halt to production in 54 factories, in US states affected and Canada, of the three largest US automakers, Ford, General Motors and Daimler Chrysler. General Motors on Friday expressed the hope for a return to normal production by Monday.

US experts estimated on Friday the power outage may incur a total economic loss of between 25 billion and 30 billion US dollars per day.

Canada and the United States formed a joint task force Friday to investigate what caused the blackout. Investigators were concentrating on areas in upstate New York state and neighboring Canada. On Friday, one expert speculated the problem began in Michigan.

Officials were looking at a power transmission problem from Canada as the most likely cause, said a spokeswoman for New York State Governor George Pataki.

US officials declined to confirm the claim by a spokesman for Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien that the blackout probably was caused by a lightning strike on part of a power plant in the Niagara region of upstate New York.

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