#107 The Great August 2003 Blackout

I was sitting in a music class at Lakeside that day in mid-August when shortly after 4 p.m. the lights went out. We assumed it was local, and the instructor continued. When I got home about 5 p.m. I heard it was northern Ohio. I removed our uncooked dinner from the oven and we went out to eat at a local restaurant that had gas stoves. Only coffee wasn’t available.

Even though we were then at the start of what later was known as the great blackout cascade affecting huge areas of the United States and Canada, our power returned in 4 hours. Other areas of the country suffered for days. Now the interim report “Causes of the August 14th Blackout in the United States and Canada” (November 2003) provides some interesting analyses, conclusions and a good look at possible security problems.

C/Net found this quote within the report: "While the very largest provider networks--the Internet backbones--were apparently unaffected by the blackout (in North America), many thousands of significant networks and millions of individual Internet users were offline for hours or days," the report stated. "Banks, investment funds, business services, manufacturers, hospitals, educational institutions, Internet service providers, and federal and state government units were among the affected organizations."

Related stories at C/Net.