3rd Anniversary of Blackout

Monday, August 14, 2006 Download  RSS  Short URL  Share

Three years ago Monday, North America suffered it's largest electricity blackout ever. 40 to 50 million people were affected by a loss of power that was first sparked by a problem in Northeast Ohio. Millions of dollars have since been spent and officials say they are better prepared. ideastream's Mark Urycki reports.

It was a Thursday - 87 degrees, and a lot of people were running air conditioners. The electricity load was high but not a record. Around 1:30 PM, FirstEnergy’s generating plant in Eastlake shut down. Shortly after 2:00 a sagging power line hit a tree in Walton Hills which caused a 345 kilovolt line to close down. A similar event happened in Parma. Power surges and voltage sags begin cascading and the entire electrical grid in seven states and two provinces began shutting down. By 4:30, 254 power plants were offline.

Elevator Lady: I was trapped…

Jane Campbell: ... people stranded at airport…

Conan O’Brien: We have no audience - just like my early shows…

A U.S.-Canadian task force put much of the blame for the blackout on FirstEnergy, saying they failed to trim trees enough and their computer system was faulty and undermanned. The task force reported to Congress that the company could have isolated the blackout to Northeast Ohio, had it reacted in time. Since then, says FirstEnergy Spokesman Ellen Raines, they’ve made some major investments.

Ellen Raines: We have completely renovated our transmission control center, $22 million on new computer systems, rebuilding it to a state-of-the-art control center as good as or better than any in the country.

FirstEnergy also implemented what they called a zero tolerance policy to trimming trees around electric lines. That has angered residents throughout the region who thought the company was being unreasonably aggressive in cutting trees.

One of the most serious problems caused by the 2003 blackout for Clevelanders was the shutdown of city water pumps.

Jane Campbell: The boil alert will be extended to Sunday…

They had no generators, but City Utilities Director Julius Ciaccia thought they had a pretty redundant water system.

Julius Ciaccia: In addition, our systems are piped as such so we can take a plant down. But we never anticipated a total system outage as we experienced during the blackout.

The water department shelled out $25 million on generators. The sewer system also bought generators - about $30 million worth.

The big question among federal officials after the blackout was the stability of the electrical grid connecting all the states. Raines says changes have been made there as well, making it easier for them to monitor electric flows on their lines from other companies

Ellen Raines: One of the big issues of the day three years ago was the large amount of electricity that was crossing our system that we weren’t aware of, because there was a contract for it to go through some other utility system. But electricity doesn’t follow contracts, it follows the laws of physics.

While it cost millions, Julius Ciaccia said the blackout has better prepared them with the lesson that they should expect the unexpected.

Julius Ciaccia: We are very dependent on the electric companies ability to supply electric, so in these days of heightened days of terrorism and security it’s even brought a new meaning to security around the inter-dependency of various utilities.

FirstEnergy officials say this summer they experienced two days of record demand for electricity with only minor problems. Mark Urycki, 90.3.