Mistake triggers huge LA blackout

A utility worker overloaded an electrical circuit and caused a massive power blackout across much of Los Angeles on Monday. Some two million people were hit by the outage, which plunged busy intersections into chaos, jammed cars on the freeways and sent office workers streaming out of downtown buildings to mill about on sidewalks. Those trapped in elevators made frantic calls for help.

The utility worker "directed too much amperage into a circuit that did not have the capacity to handle it," said Kim Hughes, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The resulting power surge triggered a safety mechanism that shut the system down, Hughes said, knocking out power for more half the city's four million people as well as some surrounding communities and north into the San Fernando Valley.

Power was largely restored within 90 minutes, but the outage jangled nerves in Los Angeles one day after a masked man thought to be an al Qaeda associate threatened America's second-largest city in a videotape released on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

(2005-09-13 08:16:22 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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