Blackout At A Glance
Areas affected by the power blackout:
NEW YORK:
Power had been restored by Friday morning to sections of all five New York City boroughs and almost all of upstate New York. Early estimates had 80 percent of the state without power at the height of the blackout. The New York Independent System Operator, which manages the state's electric grid, ordered utilities to initiate rolling blackouts during the day to save electricity. In New York City, bridges and tunnels were open, and trains on the PATH system were running from New Jersey, but subways were still down for the morning rush and no estimate was given for restoring service.
NEW JERSEY:
At the blackout's peak, more than 1 million homes and businesses in New Jersey were without power, but about 20,000 remained by midmorning Friday. Power was expected to be fully restored later in the day. Gov. James E. McGreevey declared a state of emergency, mobilizing 700 National Guardsmen and 300 extra state troopers. Northern New Jersey commuter railroads and buses announced limited to full service Friday.
OHIO:
The blackout left 1.4 million FirstEnergy customers without power at its peak. About 150,000 customers, most around Cleveland, were still without power early Friday. A utility spokesman said power was expected to be restored to all customers sometime Friday, but the company may have to institute rolling blackouts because of a lack of available electricity. Cleveland residents used bottled water to stay hydrated and clean Friday while the city struggled to restore water service to 1.5 million customers. Tanker cars filled with drinking water were ordered to fan out across the city.
MICHIGAN:
At the blackout's worst, power was out for 2.1 million customers from Detroit, in the southeastern part of the state, and west to the state capitol of Lansing. All but 130,000 customers had power restored by Friday morning. Detroit Metropolitan Airport remained open Friday, but with "very limited operations," spokesman Mike Conway said. Gov. Jennifer Granholm declared a state of emergency.
CONNECTICUT:
About 278,000 customers across Connecticut were without power at the blackout's peak. By midmorning Friday, about 26,000 customers remained without power. Gov. John G. Rowland issued an emergency plea Friday for Connecticut to save power after a state transmission line that runs from Southington to Kent and feeds southwestern Connecticut fizzled.
PENNSYLVANIA:
No major problems were reported in the state. More than 100,000 customers in northwestern Pennsylvania and some scattered areas of the rest of the state lost electricity or saw brownouts. Most areas recovered electricity shortly after nightfall Thursday, and by Friday morning power was largely restored, officials said. FirstEnergy, which reported about 80,000 outages at the peak, had restored power to all but 500 customers by Friday.
MASSACHUSETTS:
About 20,000 customers lost power in western Massachusetts at the peak of the blackout. All had service restored by Friday. Boston escaped the blackout, and state officials and power suppliers said Massachusetts was spared the worst of the blackout because the state's power grid operates independently from New York's. Still, customers were warned to conserve power to prevent further blackouts. International flights bound for New York from Israel, Italy and elsewhere were diverted to Boston's Logan Airport, creating a rush on hotel rooms.
VERMONT:
A quick shutdown of transmission lines from New York averted major outages in Vermont. A small section of northern Vermont near the Canadian border lost power briefly, but it only affected a few thousand customers. Richard Thompson, the Swanton town administrator, said it was ``no different than a winter storm.''
CANADA:
Blackouts were reported in Toronto, as well as Ottawa in the province's eastern region and in much of Ontario. Ontario Premier Ernie Eves declared a state of emergency for the province and asked any nonessential or non-emergency workers to stay home Friday. Electricity slowly returned Friday in the affected swath of southern Ontario where most of the 10 million residents live. Eves said electricity generation was at 50 percent capacity Friday morning and expected to reach two-thirds capacity by the end of the day. In Sudbury, Ontario, 210 miles north of Toronto, more than 100 miners at a Falconbridge nickel mine stayed overnight in underground lunchrooms because the outage halted elevators to bring them to the surface. They were brought up Friday when elevator service was restored.