"Everyone is very hot because the air conditioning is off," she said. In Cleveland, Olga Kropko, a University Hospitals labor and delivery nurse, said the hospital was using its back-up generators and had limited power. The park regained power a short time later. ``We sat there about 20 minutes and they finally came to walk us off,'' she said. In Massachusetts, Kim Hicks of Baltic, Conn., was on the Cyclone roller coaster at a Six Flags amusement park in Agawam when the power stopped. Lights flickered at state government buildings in Hartford, Conn. There were outages in northern New Jersey and in several Vermont towns. Some northbound trains from Washington, a city that did not lose power, turned around at Newark. Thousands of people streamed into the streets of lower Manhattan in 90-degree heat, and some subway commuters were still stuck underground hours after the blackout hit.Īmtrak suspended passenger rail service between New Haven, Conn., and Newark. In New York City, subways and elevators lost electricity or resorted to limited backup power. He said there are supposed to be backup systems to prevent blackouts from snowballing, and that "there have to be some tough questions asked." Pataki said more than half of New York State is without power. Traffic lights were out throughout downtown Cleveland and other major cities, creating havoc at the beginning of rush hour. Patrons filed into the afternoon heat carrying cups of tokens. The blackout closed the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, which 27,000 vehicles use daily, and silenced the gambling machines at Detroit's Greektown Casino. Flights also were halted for more than three hours in and out of New York LaGuardia, Cleveland and Newark, N.J., but those airports had reopened by 8 p.m. Nine nuclear power reactors - six in New York and one each in New Jersey, Ohio and Michigan - were shut down because of the loss of offsite power, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Bethesda, Md.įlights in and out of Kennedy Airport in New York, as well as airports in Toronto and Ottawa were grounded, leaving passengers stranded. Terrorism is not the cause of the outage, the president said. Bush said, state and local officials have not asked the federal government for much help as of yet. The president told reporters in San Diego: "I have been working with federal officials to make sure the response to this situation was quick and thorough, and I believe it has been."īut, Mr.
President Bush said Thursday evening that people affected by the huge blackout may not see their lives return to normal right away, but "slowly but surely we're coping with this massive, national problem." side of the border in the Niagara Falls region, setting off outages that spread over an area of 9,300 square miles with a population of roughly 50 million people. However, Canadian authorities said it appeared lightning had struck a power plant on the U.S. history, said a spokeswoman for New York Gov. There also were widespread outages in Ottawa, the capital.Ī power transmission problem from Canada was being looked at as the most likely cause for what some are calling the biggest electrical outage in U.S. In Toronto, Canada's largest city, workers fled their buildings when the power went off. The power outage affected a broad swath of the Northeast stretching west to Ohio and Michigan and into southern Canada, starting shortly after 4 p.m.
But he also cautioned "I don't want anybody to think that the power is going to be back for everybody in the next hour. Late Thursday night, before retiring for a short nap, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he expects "everything to be back to business" on Friday. 11 and may today be putting those emergency strategies to the test.
Will the gym have water? He hopes so.Īnd will the opening bell ring on Wall Street as usual? The determination is certainly there: a convoy of emergency generators was spotted overnight on its way down to the financial district, which made a slew of backup plans after Sept. One man started out across the Brooklyn bridge shortly after 5 a.m., on his way to his job at a Wall Street area gym, where he figures stranded New Yorkers are bound to take refuge hoping for a shower. And despite today's 90 degree weather forecast, some are facing the inevitable: saddling up in the most comfortable socks and shoes they've got, heading out on the long walk to work. But some folks will have to go to work anyway today.
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