Massive Blackouts

CNN is reporting massive blackouts:

Major power outages reported in New York City, other parts of Northeast, Cleveland, Detroit and other cities. Details soon.

Does anyone know anything about this? I am in suburban Cleveland but we aren’t having any problems – I guess if you have no electricity you can’t tell me about it via the Internet, now can you?

MSNBC has the story:

A fire at a major New York power plant caused cascading blackouts throughout the Northeast, the Midwest and eastern Canada late Thursday afternoon, knocking out electricity to millions of people in New York, Toronto, Detroit, Cleveland and elsewhere.

FEDERAL POWER REGULATORS did not identify the power plant, but CNN reported that a fire had been reported at a transformer at the Consolidated Edison plant in New York City. Most of the affected cities are linked on the same regional power grid.

Officials of the Homeland Security Department said there were no indications that the blackout was the work of terrorists.

The evening rush hour was just beginning in the East, and NBC correspondents described scenes of pandemonium as thousands of New Yorkers streamed into streets where traffic signals were not operating.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said it was crippled. Buses, trains and subways were not running. WNBC-TV reported that fire crews were heading down into the subways to check on thousands of stranded passengers.

Jim Tsumi of Riverdale, N.Y., was sitting on the shoulder of Highway 495 leading to the Lincoln Tunnel.

“I got no hope getting home tonight,” he said, pointing across the river at Manhattan, where the West Side Highway and a two-mile traffic jam were clearly visible. “It’s like 9/11 again. I hope this is nothing big.”

NBC News is reporting no evidence of terrorism.