2003年美加大停電 / The 2003 Big Blackout in Northeast America

On August 14, 2003, a cascade failure of the power grid along the northeastern seaboard of America plunged many US and Canadian cities into darkness and complete chaos. Our household was among the 55 million people affected by the power outage.

I remember driving my family to Gatineau across the Ottawa River looking for food because Hydro Quebec was not affected by the power outage. After supper, while crossing the Champlain Bridge, I was suddenly struck by the darkness that was once the City of Ottawa. There were no street lights. Whole neighbourhood was submerged in darkness. I had difficulties finding my own street as all the familiar landmarks disappeared. Except the occasional flickering of flashlight through some windows, every house looked almost the same and I had no idea where home was.

Eventually we managed to find our way back to where we live and spent the night under the faint glow of some candles I had found in the basement. Within the next few days, electricity in the national capital region was mostly restored and we were back to an electricity-dependent civilization.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia ".... Ottawa-Gatineau is a special case in that it is divided by a provincial boundary and the Ontario and Quebec grids are not synchronously connected. Gatineau had power. One may have seen the drastic cutoff of areas still having power when they were crossing the Portage Bridge between Gatineau and Ottawa – the cutoff was at the provincial line. Street lights on the bridge were still lit on the Quebec side of the structure ...."

Related Link: The 2013 Big Blackout in Northeast America

起因

俄亥俄州的一家電力公司沒有及時修剪樹木，導致在用電高峰期，高壓電纜下垂，觸到樹枝而短路。隨後，俄亥俄的一家發電廠因此下線，骨牌效應因而產生。

過程

2003年美加大停電是指2003年8月14日美國東北部部分地區以及加拿大東部地區出現的大範圍停電。這是北美歷史上最大範圍的停電，受影響的人估計在加拿大有1000萬（三分之一的人口）在美國有4000萬。美國8個州以及加拿大的安大略省的電力中斷。

美國東部時間2003年8月14日下午4:12到4:15，首先在克利夫蘭、托萊多、紐約市、奧爾巴尼、底特律以及新澤西州的部分地區報告發生停電，然後蔓延到紐約市的五個區以及長島與威契斯特郡、新澤西州、佛蒙特州以及康涅狄格州的部分地區，安大略省南部的大部分地區，包括多倫多、漢米爾頓以及溫索爾。估計受影響地區大約有24,000平方公里（9,300平方英里）。至少有21間發電廠在停電間關閉。

在很多地區，大部分必要的服務仍然持續運行，雖然在一些城市後備服務不能馬上供應。電話系統在很多地區仍然保持暢通，但是由於大量的人向家裡打電話，使得很多線路超負荷運轉。手機服務業一度因為服務上用完了後備電源而中斷。電視和電台在備用電源的支持下仍正常運作。在直到黃昏還沒有恢複電力的地區，人們可以以肉眼看到銀河和人造衛星，由於城市的光污染，這些在未停電時是不可能看到的。