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CNN Live Today
Cause of Blackout Still Unknown
Aired August 15, 2003 - 10:44 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The top question of the morning is what exactly caused this mass it blackout that blacked out homes and businesses across much of the eastern part of the United States?
Many questions being asked by authorities, many questions being asked by reporters, like our homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve, who's been trying to track down people who can give us some information about what happened at the very moment the power went out. Jeanne, what have you learned?
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon we heard Mayor Bloomberg this morning say that this started up in Canada. Last night, we had the Canadians saying it started in the U.S. It's going to take some time, the experts say, to get to the bottom of this, probably a matter of days.
But we have some gotten dramatic animation we can put up for you now that shows just how quickly all of this spread. This comes from Genscape, which is a firm that monitors the output of power plants for energy traders. What you're seeing here, see those red pulsating circles? That's indicating the plants as they go down.
Now this firm collects data every minute and they tell me four plants went down in the first minute, one in Michigan ,two in Pennsylvania, and one in New York. And things cascaded rapidly from there. As you watch this, two went down in the second minute, two more plants went down in the third, 13 others went down in the fourth minute, 21 in all.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that nine nuclear plants are among those that went down. Indications are that they did so because they lost the outside power that runs the operating systems of the reactors. This morning, some of them are again drawing power, but none of them are generating. The NRC says that's a multistage process that under normal conditions takes a day. And these, of course, are not normal conditions.
Most fossil fired plants have been restored to service and some of the big hydro plants never went down, including two big ones in New York state.
The North American Electric Reliability Council says that there was, at the height of this a loss of 61,800 megawatts of power and as of 8:00 this morning, 48,600 megawatts had been restored. So that represents a lot of progress.
But there are a lot of questions as you mentioned, Leon, or not only about how this started, but why it grew to such huge dimensions. There are supposed to be firewalls and redundancies in the system to prevent this from happening. They obviously did not work.
The Department of Homeland Security says to this point, it has given most of its attention to issues involving the protection of the power grid from cyber attack. Also, a lost attention to the physical protection of generating plants.
Clearly these events are going to bring a flurry of investigations and a number of reports from any number of quarters as officials across the federal government try to ensure nothing like this ever happens again, no matter what the cause may turn out to be. Leon, back to you.
HARRIS: And while we're waiting to find out what the cause was, Jeanne, I'm wondering if the people you've been talk to have anything at all to say about the fact that the site of the origination of this whole problem seems to change by the hour.
We've heard the first response -- we heard from Canadian officials yesterday was that it happened at a plant on the U.S. side of the border there. Then we heard later someone there say it might have been in Pennsylvania. Then later, it might have been Ohio.
The folks you've been talking to, do they have anything to say about that or about any concerns they may have about the fact they can't pinpoint that?
MESERVE: No, I haven't, actually heard anyone talk too much about the various theories on how this might have started. I am told it's going to be a difficult thing to pin down.
What they do, as I understand it, you have large area that's blacked out. They start restoring the power sort of from the outside back in and troubleshoot as they go, do an analysis and figure out exactly what the central focal point of all this is going to be.
It's a slow, arduous process. As I said the nuclear power plants are going to take probably more than a day to start up. It's going to take some time to get to the bottom of it -- Leon.
HARRIS: All right, good deal. Thank you, Jeanne. Jeanne Meserve in Washington.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 15, 2003 - 10:44 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The top question of the morning is what exactly caused this mass it blackout that blacked out homes and businesses across much of the eastern part of the United States?
Many questions being asked by authorities, many questions being asked by reporters, like our homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve, who's been trying to track down people who can give us some information about what happened at the very moment the power went out. Jeanne, what have you learned?
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon we heard Mayor Bloomberg this morning say that this started up in Canada. Last night, we had the Canadians saying it started in the U.S. It's going to take some time, the experts say, to get to the bottom of this, probably a matter of days.
But we have some gotten dramatic animation we can put up for you now that shows just how quickly all of this spread. This comes from Genscape, which is a firm that monitors the output of power plants for energy traders. What you're seeing here, see those red pulsating circles? That's indicating the plants as they go down.
Now this firm collects data every minute and they tell me four plants went down in the first minute, one in Michigan ,two in Pennsylvania, and one in New York. And things cascaded rapidly from there. As you watch this, two went down in the second minute, two more plants went down in the third, 13 others went down in the fourth minute, 21 in all.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that nine nuclear plants are among those that went down. Indications are that they did so because they lost the outside power that runs the operating systems of the reactors. This morning, some of them are again drawing power, but none of them are generating. The NRC says that's a multistage process that under normal conditions takes a day. And these, of course, are not normal conditions.
Most fossil fired plants have been restored to service and some of the big hydro plants never went down, including two big ones in New York state.
The North American Electric Reliability Council says that there was, at the height of this a loss of 61,800 megawatts of power and as of 8:00 this morning, 48,600 megawatts had been restored. So that represents a lot of progress.
But there are a lot of questions as you mentioned, Leon, or not only about how this started, but why it grew to such huge dimensions. There are supposed to be firewalls and redundancies in the system to prevent this from happening. They obviously did not work.
The Department of Homeland Security says to this point, it has given most of its attention to issues involving the protection of the power grid from cyber attack. Also, a lost attention to the physical protection of generating plants.
Clearly these events are going to bring a flurry of investigations and a number of reports from any number of quarters as officials across the federal government try to ensure nothing like this ever happens again, no matter what the cause may turn out to be. Leon, back to you.
HARRIS: And while we're waiting to find out what the cause was, Jeanne, I'm wondering if the people you've been talk to have anything at all to say about the fact that the site of the origination of this whole problem seems to change by the hour.
We've heard the first response -- we heard from Canadian officials yesterday was that it happened at a plant on the U.S. side of the border there. Then we heard later someone there say it might have been in Pennsylvania. Then later, it might have been Ohio.
The folks you've been talking to, do they have anything to say about that or about any concerns they may have about the fact they can't pinpoint that?
MESERVE: No, I haven't, actually heard anyone talk too much about the various theories on how this might have started. I am told it's going to be a difficult thing to pin down.
What they do, as I understand it, you have large area that's blacked out. They start restoring the power sort of from the outside back in and troubleshoot as they go, do an analysis and figure out exactly what the central focal point of all this is going to be.
It's a slow, arduous process. As I said the nuclear power plants are going to take probably more than a day to start up. It's going to take some time to get to the bottom of it -- Leon.
HARRIS: All right, good deal. Thank you, Jeanne. Jeanne Meserve in Washington.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
