Massive outage jolts more than 50 million customers.(August 14, 2003)

The largest power outage in North American history took about nine seconds on the afternoon of Thursday, August 14, to hit some 50 million customers from New York to Michigan and parts of Canada. Disruption of air and rail travel, massive traffic snarls, stranded commuters, stalled elevators, and fear of a terrorist attack were among the immediate upshots.

Ford Motor Co. said the outage closed 23 of its 44 North American plants. Nine nuclear reactors automatically shut down, and, in several cities the loss of power meant residents faced a crisis because there was no electricity to pump water.

The cause was open to speculation in the hours immediately following the blackout, but terrorism was swiftly ruled out by officials. Big, cascading blackouts tend to be freak occurrences, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told the Wall Street Journal. "You would have to know the system in depth and pick just the right time to get a blackout of this magnitude," said Stephen Connors.

A detailed investigation into the cause is expected to take weeks, if not months.

For many industry insiders, the blackout came as no surprise. "The question is not whether, but when, the next major failure of the grid will occur." David Cook, general counsel for the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) told Congress two years ago, the Washington Post reported.

The Center for the Advancement of Energy Markets (CAEM) likewise predicted a major blackout in a report last year. The lack of a "sustainable consensus" on America's energy future shows the nation's energy leaders "have been asleep at the switch," said Ken Malloy, CEO of CAEM.

President George Bush called the blackout a "wakeup call."