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CNN Live Sunday
What Caused Blackout?
Aired August 17, 2003 - 16:00 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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: As life inches closer to normalcy after last week's massive blackout, still lingering, reminders of the outage. Garbage cans are overflowing with spoiled food. Tap water in some parts still need boiling. And there's the cascading flood of questions asking how this happened. CNN's Michael Okwu joins us now from New York with the very latest, where I know a whole lot of questions are still unanswered.
MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lots of questions, Fredricka. The t-shirts are already on sale. "I survived the blackout of '03." The question is, who's going to survive the finger pointing that's going on at this hour? Right now, investigators are focusing on three transmissions -- transmission lines in northern Ohio that failed just about an hour before the outage occurred.
Now, First Energy, the company that owns those lines, says that their system picked up a failure but an alarm system failed to go off. In addition to that, investigators are saying that a grid also should have contained this problem in a localized area. In the meantime the energy secretary, Spencer Abraham, is calling for new legislation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SPENCER ABRAHAM, ENERGY SECRETARY: We need to pass an energy bill that gives the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the authority to impose mandatory reliable standards. This is the people who use the system have to adhere to high standards of conduct or be punished if they fail to do so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OKWU: Now, Abraham is scheduled to meet with his Canadian counterpart later on this week in Detroit. It's unclear, at this point, whether it was a human error involved or whether there was some sort of technical glitch. We also understand that representatives from the North American Reliability Council will be meeting with representatives from the Homeland Security Department at some point today in Washington -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks very much, Michael Okwu in New York.
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 17, 2003 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: As life inches closer to normalcy after last week's massive blackout, still lingering, reminders of the outage. Garbage cans are overflowing with spoiled food. Tap water in some parts still need boiling. And there's the cascading flood of questions asking how this happened. CNN's Michael Okwu joins us now from New York with the very latest, where I know a whole lot of questions are still unanswered.
MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lots of questions, Fredricka. The t-shirts are already on sale. "I survived the blackout of '03." The question is, who's going to survive the finger pointing that's going on at this hour? Right now, investigators are focusing on three transmissions -- transmission lines in northern Ohio that failed just about an hour before the outage occurred.
Now, First Energy, the company that owns those lines, says that their system picked up a failure but an alarm system failed to go off. In addition to that, investigators are saying that a grid also should have contained this problem in a localized area. In the meantime the energy secretary, Spencer Abraham, is calling for new legislation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SPENCER ABRAHAM, ENERGY SECRETARY: We need to pass an energy bill that gives the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the authority to impose mandatory reliable standards. This is the people who use the system have to adhere to high standards of conduct or be punished if they fail to do so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OKWU: Now, Abraham is scheduled to meet with his Canadian counterpart later on this week in Detroit. It's unclear, at this point, whether it was a human error involved or whether there was some sort of technical glitch. We also understand that representatives from the North American Reliability Council will be meeting with representatives from the Homeland Security Department at some point today in Washington -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks very much, Michael Okwu in New York.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
