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American Morning
Power Outage in London Starts Blame Game
Aired August 29, 2003 - 07:34 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.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In London this morning, commuters did not get a repeat of the blackout blues, but just as it did in the U.S., the power outage has started a blame game.
CNN's Paula Hancocks reports now from London.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The power cut lasted just 30 minutes, but the repercussions went on for hours here in London on Thursday. Hundreds of thousands of commuters were stuck on the underground. People could not get home, as there was gridlock on the roads.
The power is now very much back on and the underground is back to normal. So now the game is who to blame.
Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, is saying that it was an absolute disgrace and he's calling for an inquiry into why this happened and why London basically came to a standstill for a few hours on Thursday night.
Now, anti-privatization lobbyists are having a field day with this. They say the reason there were so many problems is because the underground is part privatized now. Also, the fact that electricity companies are now private, some people are saying, is a big problem.
I spoke to National Grid just a little while ago and they gave me the reason that they believe this power cut happened. They say they're still looking into it, but they think technical faults occurred on the transmission network. They say it was highly irregular. There were two separate incidents that happened coincidentally and it's extremely rare and not likely to happen again.
But, of course, some people are saying the fact that it is privatized now, the electricity system here in the U.K., and these companies are just for profit for their shareholders and for their chief executives, as opposed to pumping all the money back into the system itself, is to blame, as well.
Paula Hancocks, CNN, London.
COOPER: Well, we should also point out that things are getting back to normal today in London. That's from these pictures from this morning. A lot of people are just getting back on the streets. Britain's National Grid, which runs power lines there, says the blackout was not even vaguely on the scale of what happened here in the U.S.
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 29, 2003 - 07:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In London this morning, commuters did not get a repeat of the blackout blues, but just as it did in the U.S., the power outage has started a blame game.
CNN's Paula Hancocks reports now from London.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The power cut lasted just 30 minutes, but the repercussions went on for hours here in London on Thursday. Hundreds of thousands of commuters were stuck on the underground. People could not get home, as there was gridlock on the roads.
The power is now very much back on and the underground is back to normal. So now the game is who to blame.
Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, is saying that it was an absolute disgrace and he's calling for an inquiry into why this happened and why London basically came to a standstill for a few hours on Thursday night.
Now, anti-privatization lobbyists are having a field day with this. They say the reason there were so many problems is because the underground is part privatized now. Also, the fact that electricity companies are now private, some people are saying, is a big problem.
I spoke to National Grid just a little while ago and they gave me the reason that they believe this power cut happened. They say they're still looking into it, but they think technical faults occurred on the transmission network. They say it was highly irregular. There were two separate incidents that happened coincidentally and it's extremely rare and not likely to happen again.
But, of course, some people are saying the fact that it is privatized now, the electricity system here in the U.K., and these companies are just for profit for their shareholders and for their chief executives, as opposed to pumping all the money back into the system itself, is to blame, as well.
Paula Hancocks, CNN, London.
COOPER: Well, we should also point out that things are getting back to normal today in London. That's from these pictures from this morning. A lot of people are just getting back on the streets. Britain's National Grid, which runs power lines there, says the blackout was not even vaguely on the scale of what happened here in the U.S.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
