Huge power failure hits Canada and US. Outages affect area with about 50 million people. Power failure in the most powerful country of the world. Transportation snarled traffic lights went out; trains stopped on tracks. The worst power failure in US history millions of people stranded in darkness, stifling heat and traffic. The power outrage began shortly after 4 p.m. EDT and moved west. The cascading blackout shut power plants from New York to Michigan in a matter of minutes, stranding sub-ways commuters for hours, jolting elevators to a stop and temporarily freezing traffic at major Airports. About 377 flights were canceled. At-least 1 million people in Cleveland Ohio were affected. They lost both power and water services. The mayor of Cleveland urged people to boil water as four of their water pumping stations failed because of the power failure. Governor of Michigan declared state of emergency in the state. Black outs were also reported in Toronto, Ottawa and Ontario.
So who to blame? We don’t know yet Canadians are blaming US and US are blaming Canadians. The black out set off fingers pointing on both sides of the border. At one stage Canadian authorities said it appeared lightning had struck a power plant on the US side in the Niagara Falls region, setting off outages that spread 9,300 square miles but US officials quickly disputed that. It’s the act of terrorism or not who knows? It could be cyber terrorism, difficult to track down. Bill Richardson the energy secretary believes that Mohawk Niagara utility is over loaded. President Bush said that this grid delivery system must be modernized. Many questions yet to be answered.
The failure created little panic for some people, business remains usual for some, but for others it’s the recall of 9-11. The people of third world are used to of that power failure drama and miseries but a big town like New York its quite amazing .On broad-ways 22 shows went dark, their normally blazing marquees unlighted. Many of the games were canceled. After the failure the primary concern for New Yorkers was getting home. The city’s side walks and bridges turned into rivers of wandering people and streets became choked with halted traffic.
Watching all that fiasco, I keep thinking about third world countries. Recently I went to Pakistan and experienced the routine power black out in Karachi, nothing new for us, right. We all are used to of the routine load shadings and every day power break outs. But for my kids who are born here in America it was a nightmare. They became so miserable that before the power went out they were not ready to come back but after that they were so ready to come back.
After watching this entire mellow drama one question quickly popped back into my head how the heck did our ancestors lives without electricity? May be back then life was so simple that we don?t need such high technological recreations in our lives. So we couldn’t get in trouble as much as we are in now.
