You might want to take a moment to light a candle, as the 21st anniversary of the northeast blackout of 2003 rolls around again today.
The event brought a widespread power outage throughout most of Ontario — and the northwestern and midwestern United States — on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2003, around 4:10 p.m.
What went wrong?
The cause was later blamed on the failure of an alarm system in an Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp. control room, which didn’t alert operators to the fact they needed to redistribute the energy load.
It was a hot day, which meant many residents had cranked up their air conditioners, and there was a high energy demand.
Three power lines outside the Cleveland electric company sagged from overheating, hitting some overgrown branches, which shorted out and sparked the outage.
More than 50 million people were impacted by the outage, reaching Toronto, New York City, Newark, Detroit, Ottawa, Buffalo, Wawa and more.
What was impacted?
Cellphone service was interrupted, homes and offices were out of power, airports closed, street lights weren’t working and gas stations were unable to operate.
Some areas in the United States lost power for only four to eight hours, but parts of Ontario experienced more than a day in the dark.
A state of emergency was called, as utility companies worked to bring power back online.
“The Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) directed the restoration of the Ontario grid as part of a co-operative effort with transmitters, generators and local distribution companies,” the IESO said on its website. “Restoration is a complex process, which starts with determining the extent of the disturbance, establishing restoration priorities, co-ordinating operations, and balancing generation and demand while maintaining frequency and voltage.
“The 2003 blackout tested emergency procedures and training for the entire industry — and required everyone, including consumers, to work together to bring power back online to the province safely and quickly.”