Power outage hits East Coast

By Ina Fried and Jim Hu
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
August 14, 2003, 3:38 PM PT

update A power outage struck New York and other East Coast cities on Thursday, shutting down companies, hitting airports and clogging cell phone service in certain areas.

The outage reportedly also affected the electric supply in neighboring New Jersey, as well as in Toronto and Ottawa, Canada, on Thursday afternoon local time. Other areas--such as Cleveland and Toledo in Ohio, and Detroit--also suffered a power blackout, according to television reports.

News outlets reported that the outage was the result of a failure in the Niagara Mohawk power grid. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told news outlets that the blackout could last into the evening.

In a televised press conference, Bloomberg said there is "no evidence of any terrorism whatsoever."

Internet performance tracker Keynote Systems said the outage has not slowed the Internet.

"At this time, 4:50 pm EDT, the Internet is performing normally and major Web sites in the U.S. are also performing normally, although a few of the news Web sites are showing slightly longer download times," Keynote spokesman Dan Berkowitz wrote in an e-mail.

Technology companies in New York such as IBM were affected.

"The power is out here at our New York-based facilities as it is everywhere," said Brian Doyle, a spokesman for IBM, speaking from the company's headquarters in Armonk, N.Y. "We have lights and computer connectivity powered by generators, but other than that, we are in the same boat as everyone else."

America Online spokesman Nicholas Graham said the company, the largest U.S. Internet service, had witnessed a dip in simultaneous users at 1 p.m. EDT. The count fell from 2.4 million members online to 2.1 million.

Graham, who is based in Dulles, Va., could not say whether parent company AOL Time Warner had evacuated its offices. Calls to New York-based representatives were not answered.

The outage was sending high call volumes through both cellular and landline telephone networks late Thursday. Sprint spokesman Dan Wilinsky said all the company's PCS and long-distance switching centers in the affected areas are up and running, using back-up power, but that the added volume is causing congestion on its networks.

Also, some individual cell towers might not be working, but Wilinsky said the company did not have an estimate of how many sites might be affected. In addition, Wilinsky said Sprint may block some calls to the East Coast at some point to ensure that emergency calls from the area get through.

"Customers are being asked not to call unless it is absolutely necessary," Wilinsky said.

Verizon Wireless said its network was also up and running, though some of its cell sites and switches are running on emergency generators. Like Sprint, the company said it is experiencing extremely high demand. It advised customers who are having trouble getting through to wait several minutes before re-dialing their call.

The outage brought a halt to all flights departing from both major airports in New York, as well as to flights departing from Newark, N.J.; Cleveland; Ottawa; and Toronto, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. All Northwest Airlines flights out of Detroit are also grounded, an FAA representative said.

Most flights into those airports are also being held up, except flights from the West Coast, according to another FAA representative. West Coast flights are permitted to take off, because power is expected to be restored by the time those flights are ready to land.

The Air Traffic Control System Command Center is fully operational, according to the FAA, and the travel halt is the result of an inability to power the security equipment used to screen passengers. The aviation agency said major delays are expected throughout the United States.

Companies outside the blackout area said they were working to assist customers affected by the outage. Greg Eden, a spokesman for storage giant EMC, said in the case of an outage, the company's gear typically has enough power to take all data stored in memory and write it to disk before powering down.

"Our customer service organization is fully engaged in the situation and in contact with affected customers," Eden said

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