This Day in History: Blackout Hits Northeast United States (August 14)

This Day in History:, Blackout Hits
Northeast United States.
August 14, 2003.
Power across the
Northeastern U.S. and parts of
Canada went out at 4:20 p.m. E.T.
In three quick minutes,
21 power stations serving more
than 50 million people shut down.
From Toronto to Cleveland
to Detroit to New York City,
cell phones, trains, elevators
and hospitals were affected.
Power was resumed in a
couple of hours for some.
For others, it remained
out for more than a day.
Less than two years after
the 9/11 terrorist attacks,
Americans were frightened that
the blackout was the another attack.
The outage was eventually tracked
to overgrown trees in Ohio. An outage caused
with the FirstEnergy Corporation
triggered a fateful chain reaction