Publié : 14 Août 2003, 23:07CITATION
August 14, 2003
Transportation Systems Disrupted; No Initial Sign of Terrorism, Officials Say
By DAVID STOUT
Electricity went out across broad regions of the East and Middle West this afternoon, shutting down trains and subways and sending people into the streets from New York City to Detroit.
The series of blackouts began around 4 p.m. as lights, air-conditioning and transportation went out in New York, northern New Jersey, parts of Long Island and Connecticut and as far west as Detroit and into parts of Canada, including Toronto.
There was no immediate indication that the string of blackouts was linked to terrorism, but that possibility was not being discounted in Washington, where Tom Ridge, the Homeland Security Secretary, was meeting with his top advisers.
There were no power failures reported in Washington or any of its Maryland and Virginia suburbs.
The Cable News Network quoted a federal emergency-management official as saying, ``We have no absolutely idea what this is.'' Whatever it was, it created instant problems for transportation coordinators. Airports were closed across much of the East this afternoon, and controllers were busy rerouting flights.
Just before 5 p.m., Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City said he had been told by upstate authorities that the power failures were due to an overload on the Niagara Mohawk Power Grid, which supplies power to much of the Northeast. There had been an earlier part of a fire in a Consolidated Edison power plant in Manhattan.
Whatever the cause, on an afternoon that was hot and hazy across much of the East and Midwest, the blackout caused thousands of people to pour into the streets of New York, calmly but with some bewilderment, as many of them would have to find new ways to get home -- and cope with lack of air-conditioning once they got there.
There were no immediate reports of panic or looting. Some public buildings were operating on emergency generators.
This afternoon's series of failures recalled those of July 1977, which plunged New York City into blackness on a sweltering summer evening, and that of November 1965, when a domino-effect string of failures darkened lights and halted the engines of transportation across much of the East.
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August 14, 2003
Transportation Systems Disrupted; No Initial Sign of Terrorism, Officials Say
By DAVID STOUT
Electricity went out across broad regions of the East and Middle West this afternoon, shutting down trains and subways and sending people into the streets from New York City to Detroit.
The series of blackouts began around 4 p.m. as lights, air-conditioning and transportation went out in New York, northern New Jersey, parts of Long Island and Connecticut and as far west as Detroit and into parts of Canada, including Toronto.
There was no immediate indication that the string of blackouts was linked to terrorism, but that possibility was not being discounted in Washington, where Tom Ridge, the Homeland Security Secretary, was meeting with his top advisers.
There were no power failures reported in Washington or any of its Maryland and Virginia suburbs.
The Cable News Network quoted a federal emergency-management official as saying, ``We have no absolutely idea what this is.'' Whatever it was, it created instant problems for transportation coordinators. Airports were closed across much of the East this afternoon, and controllers were busy rerouting flights.
Just before 5 p.m., Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City said he had been told by upstate authorities that the power failures were due to an overload on the Niagara Mohawk Power Grid, which supplies power to much of the Northeast. There had been an earlier part of a fire in a Consolidated Edison power plant in Manhattan.
Whatever the cause, on an afternoon that was hot and hazy across much of the East and Midwest, the blackout caused thousands of people to pour into the streets of New York, calmly but with some bewilderment, as many of them would have to find new ways to get home -- and cope with lack of air-conditioning once they got there.
There were no immediate reports of panic or looting. Some public buildings were operating on emergency generators.
This afternoon's series of failures recalled those of July 1977, which plunged New York City into blackness on a sweltering summer evening, and that of November 1965, when a domino-effect string of failures darkened lights and halted the engines of transportation across much of the East.
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