Chain of Darkness--Memories of Silenced Alerts and the Great North American Blackout, Summer 2003 (August 2003)

Chain of Darkness--Memories of Silenced Alerts and the Great North American Blackout, Summer 2003 (August 2003)

On August 14, 2003, a major blackout in North America affected approximately 55 million people in the U.S. and Canada, making it the largest power outage in North American history. The cause was a software bug in the alarm function at FirstEnergy in Ohio. When a transmission line failed due to an overload, no warning was displayed, and the operators in the control room were unable to identify the anomaly. As a result, the power grid failure spread up the chain of events, paralyzing urban functions in New York, Toronto, and other cities. At least 100 people died as a result of subway stoppages, communication failures, and water supply disruptions. Restoration took up to several days and economic losses exceeded $10 billion. The blackout highlighted the fragility of the power infrastructure and the importance of monitoring systems, and triggered the 2005 Energy Policy Act to legislate operational standards for transmission companies. The silence of a single alarm shook the enti
re society.