Some day, I hope we all learn the truth...
In the meantime, this from AP...
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newsday.com
Power outage affects much of upstate New York
By RACHEL KIPP
Associated Press Writer
August 14, 2003, 5:53 PM EDT
ALBANY, N.Y. -- A power outage that struck the northeast blacked out much of upstate New York Thursday afternoon, forcing prisons, airports and hospitals to rely on emergency backup power.
Outages from New York City to Lake George to Buffalo began shortly after 4 p.m. Power began to be restored to parts of upstate around 4:30 p.m., but large swaths of the state remained without power.
Shortly before 5:30 p.m., New York Gov. George Pataki declared a state of emergency "due to power outages across New York state," according to Pataki spokeswoman Lisa Dewald Stoll.
"Preliminarily we're looking at this as a possible transmission problem from Canada to the U.S.," Dewald Stoll said. She said the problem appeared to be in Canada, but she had no details.
"We're trying to pinpoint what the problem is," said Kate Doyle of the New York Independent System Operator, which runs the state's wholesale electricity market and monitors the state's power usage.
Officials at the ISO and the state Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, were in emergency meetings trying to determine what caused the widespread outages.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it was likely the blackout started in the Niagara Falls area and quickly spread.
Niagara Mohawk spokeswoman Kerry Burns said the cause of the outages was not yet known.
"Unfortunately, we don't have any answers," Burns said at a press briefing shortly after 5 p.m. "We don't have a full assessment of what the damage is."
Burns also said there were reports that power plants were down across the state but was unable to offer any information.
The ISO showed a real-time load of 24,811 megawatts shortly after 4 p.m., about 6,000 megawatts below New York's recorded peak usages, which typically fall in late afternoon on hot summer days.
About a half-hour later, the ISO's web site showed usage of only 5,750 megawatts.
Phone service in some areas was affected and cell phone coverage was also out sporadically.
Every prison except one in New York State reported a loss of power and switched over to backup generators, said state Department of Correctional Services spokesman James Flateau.
Several people were trapped in elevators in the Empire State Plaza in Albany, but most had been freed by 5 p.m. Thursday, Albany fire officials said. There was also a report of smoke in the Legislative Office Building, where lawmakers have offices. Firefighters didn't immediately find any sign of fire.
Pataki ordered state employees to leave the Empire State Plaza and Capitol and return to their homes. State corrections officers, who patrol the building, asked all other workers to leave.
Stoll said state troopers and National Guard personnel had been dispatched to key locations across the state. The Pataki aide said she did not know how many officers were involved.
Pataki was returning to Albany from a vacation on a farm he owns on the shores of Lake Champlain, not far south of the Canadian border, Stoll said.
The Pataki spokeswoman said state officials have been in touch with the White House, the federal Office of Homeland Security, state power officials and with Mayor Bloomberg.
St. Joseph's Hospital and University Hospital in Syracuse switched to backup generators. Officials at City Hall said two people were rescued from a stuck elevator there.
Onondaga County 911 Commissioner Steve Wisely said his office was bombarded with more than 800 calls in the first 45 minutes.
At Albany Medical Center, a spokeswoman said power went out for about five minutes but emergency generators kicked on and there was no disruption before power returned shortly before 6 p.m. Doug Myers, a spokesman at the Albany International Airport, said no flights were delayed as of 5:30 p.m. but that the airport and the Federal Aviation Administration tower was operating on emergency power.
Power outages briefly delayed afternoon races at Saratoga Race Course.
Rebecca Baldwin of Albany was with her sister trying to pay her tuition at Hudson Valley Community College when the power went out.
"It went clink, clink, clink, clink and then it went out," she said.
Maura Manning, who was having a post-work beer at the Leprechaun Pub in Malta, 20 miles north of Albany, said she initially thought terrorism was the cause of the power outage.
"It's very eerie," she said.
Other patrons also stayed at the pub, which had no power Thursday afternoon, with the lights off and the doors open. Ed Martin of Northumberland, out on the bar's deck, had been a student at SUNY Albany in a blackout in the 1960s.
Martin said he got stuck in an elevator for about an hour in one of the dormitory towers. "They finally somehow managed to get us out of there," he said. |
