Massive Blackout Hits Northeast Cities

Not that anyone is going to be able to read this thanks to the blackout, but we’ll note it anyway. . .

Mike Saltzman, a spokesman for New York Power Authority, a state-owned utility in White Plains, N.Y., said its two largest hydroelectric plants, including Niagara Falls and St. Lawrence-FDR, were operating. He said he did not know the status of 18 other smaller plants.

The blackouts rivaled those in the West on Aug. 11, 1996, when heat, sagging power lines and unusually high demand for electricity caused an outage that affected 4 million customers in nine states, one of the most severe outages in U.S. history.

A blackout in New York City in 1977 left some 9 million people without electricity for up to 25 hours.

“There is no evidence of any terrorism at this point,” said Michael Sheehan, deputy commissioner for terrorism of New York City’s Police Department. “We’ve talked to Washington and there are rumors, but none of them pans out.”