Northeast Blackout of 2003 - Immediate Impact

Immediate Impact

According to the New York Independent System Operator (or NYISO) – the ISO responsible for managing the New York state power grid – a 3,500 MW power surge (towards Ontario) affected the transmission grid at 4:10:39 p.m. EDT. From then through about 4:40 p.m. EDT, outages were reported in Cleveland, Akron, Toledo, New York City, Westchester, Orange and Rockland Counties, Baltimore, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Binghamton, Albany, Detroit, and parts of New Jersey, including the city of Newark. This was followed by other areas initially unaffected, including all of New York City, portions of southern New York state, New Jersey, Vermont, Connecticut, and most of Ontario, Canada. Eventually a large, somewhat triangular area bounded by Lansing, Michigan, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, the shore of James Bay, Ottawa, New York, and Toledo was left without power. According to the official analysis of the blackout prepared by the US and Canadian governments, more than 508 generating units at 265 power plants shut down during the outage. In the minutes before the event, the NYISO-managed power system was carrying 28,700 MW of load. At the height of the outage, the load had dropped to 5,716 MW, a loss of 80%.

Within the area affected, about 200,000 people continued to have power – in the Niagara Peninsula of Ontario; the easternmost corner of Ontario (centred on Cornwall); the portion of New York state including parts of Albany and north and west of Albany; a small pocket of mid-east Michigan; the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and small pockets in New Jersey. The unaffected area was protected by transmission circuit devices at the Sir Adam Beck Hydroelectric Power Stations in Niagara Falls, at a switching station of the hydroelectric power station in Cornwall, as well as central New York state. Philadelphia and the surrounding mid-Atlantic areas were also completely unaffected because PJM disconnected them.

Essential services remained in operation in some of these areas. In others, backup generation systems failed. Telephone networks generally remained operational, but the increased demand triggered by the blackout left many circuits overloaded. Water systems in several cities lost pressure, forcing boil-water advisories to be put into effect. Cellular service was interrupted as mobile networks were overloaded with the increase in volume of calls. Major cellular providers continued to operate on standby generator power. Television and radio stations remained on the air, with the help of backup generators, although some stations were knocked off the air for periods ranging from several hours to the length of the entire blackout.

It was a hot day (over 31 °C or 88 °F) in much of the affected region, and the heat played a role in the initial event that triggered the wider power outage. The high ambient temperature increased energy demand, as people across the region turned on fans and air conditioning. This caused the power lines to sag as higher currents heated the lines.

In areas where power remained off after nightfall, the Milky Way and orbiting artificial satellites became visible to the naked eye in metropolitan areas where they cannot ordinarily be seen due to the effects of particulate air pollution and light pollution.

Most of the Amtrak Northeast Corridor service was interrupted, as it uses electric locomotives; electrified commuter railways also shut down. Via Rail in Canada was able to continue most of its service. The power outage's effects on international air transport and financial markets were widespread. The reliability of the electrical grid was called into question.