http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/2406544/detail.html POSTED: 4:24 p.m. EDT August 14, 2003 UPDATED: 7:51 p.m. EDT August 14, 2003 Most of southeast Michigan remains in the dark as nightfall starts to settle into the state. The mayor of Detroit Kwame Kilpatrick told Local 4 that power should be back to most customers in southeast Michigan "before dark." And a spokesperson from Detroit's main supplier of electricity said power will return gradually. Local 4 reported that power came back around 7:45 p.m. in Farmington, Farmington Hills, Rochester, Rochester Hills, Lake Orion and Oxford. Other areas are still without power. A wide area of power failures include most of metro Detroit and the outage is more widespread than just southeast Michigan. The main outage happened around 4:14 p.m. Thursday. Parts of Toledo, Ohio, are already starting to get power back. A spokesman from DTE said he believes the outage to southeast Michigan came from Ontario. Tony Early of DTE said about 2.1 million customers in southeast Michigan are affected by the outage. He said it will take hours before power starts coming back to customers and it could be into Friday morning. "As we start to bring the system up, we don't want to overload the system. It will be a very deliberate process. One of the issues Friday will be that it is going to be a very hot day. We are urging customers to shut off their electrical equipment and turn off the air conditioning," Early said. Power plants in Bell River, Monroe and the Greenwood site have experienced damage, Early said. Some areas are also experiencing a shortage of water. "Some power pumping stations are out and they may be starting to lose water pressure," Early said. Power outages have been reported in New York, Cleveland, Syracuse, Utica, Albany, N.Y., plus areas of Connecticut, Ohio, Toronto and Ottawa. The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel closed once power was lost. The Federal Aviation Administration said Detroit Metropolitan Airport remains open. But a woman answering the phone at the facility said air traffic has slowed. Gov. Jennifer Granholm was meeting with emergency officials at state police headquarters in Lansing. Employees were evacuated from the state Capitol building in Lansing shortly after the outage began. People who work at Detroit's City-County building will not have to report Friday, Local 4 reported. The building will be closed. Officials are advising residents to boil any water they may be using as a safety precaution. Many street lights are out in many parts of southeast Michigan causing traffic problems. Drivers are advised to treat lights as a four-way stop. The blackout apparently was due to natural causes and there was no sign of terrorism, officials in New York and Washington said. Macomb County has declared a state of emergency telling residents to not leave their houses unless it is an emergency situation and reduce usage of electricity. Power Returning To New York The power is "starting to come back" in some areas, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "We will be starting up power in the city," Bloomberg said. "It will take a decent amount of time -- hours not minutes -- and nobody can be any more specific than that." Television footage showed masses of pedestrians pouring onto the streets in 90-degree heat amid massive traffic jams caused by stoplight failure. Travel was crippled throughout the affected areas when the outage struck at about 4 p.m. ET. (Full Story.) New York City Hall has been operating on a backup generator and has power, and all major airports and subway systems in the area are blacked out. Shortly before 5:30 p.m. ET, New York Gov. George Pataki declared a state of emergency. In northern Ohio, businesses and residents are reporting power outages from Toledo to Cleveland (Full Story On Cleveland). Portions of Connecticut, including Hartford, also have experienced power losses. WNBC-TV in New York reported that the outage likely was triggered by an overload at the Niagara Mohawk power grid near Buffalo, N.Y. Bloomberg said the facility has been shut down, calling the overload a "natural occurrence." "I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that there is no evidence of terrorism," Bloomberg said. Niagara Mohawk, a National Grid USA company based in Syracuse, N.Y., provides electric service to about 1.5 million customers and natural gas to about 540,000 customers in upstate New York. Stay tuned to Local 4 and ClickOnDetroit.com for more on this breaking story. <[EMAIL PROTECTED] nder.co.uk> To: "DJ Entropy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <313@hyperreal.org> cc: 08/14/03 06:14 PM Subject: RE: (313) Power outages > Man, this is the kind of thing that makes Alex Jones seem like a prophet. > I worry about all my fellow ravers. I hope people are OK, maybe we can get some reports of what it was like? It's strange to say the least that so many cities got knocked out at around the same time, 4pm. I don't want to believe it, but my heart is not feeling good about this. People treat like animals. :-( Take care people.
