Cracks in the dream of a high-technology future appeared when the massive blackout, which covered the northeastern United States and most of Ontario, knocked tens of millions of people back to the pre-digital age.
For many people, it took lot of phone calls using landlines before it they discovered that the power outage was more than a local phenomenon - in fact, it covered some 15 million square kilometres.
For people using cellphones, it wasn't that easy - most cellphone relay towers, which use electricity, were knocked out, leaving owners with perfectly usable handsets that couldn't connect anywhere. A few towers had backup power, but not all.
Those whose cellphones remained operational suddenly found themselves in demand. On a Toronto street, a woman who identified herself only as "Tz-zik," was offering the use of her cellphone for $2 per call.
People wait to buy low-tech fuel in Windsor, Ont., on Friday. Photo: Brent Foster/Windsor Star/CP
"Look, power went out, we gotta make a hustle," said the 18-year-old. "It's awesome, we make fun out of every situation." She and her group of five friends proudly flashed the eight dollars they had made in the first five minutes of their campaign.
Internet sites
Worse, the Internet - which has been touted as a medium of last resort during a disaster - was rendered next to useless; though the Internet stayed up for the most part, many people couldn't even turn on their computers to get to it.
The only ones who could connect were those using battery-powered laptops with built-in modems and a dial-up connection to the Internet. And even then, when some areas got their power back, people still couldn't connect to the Net as random power surges knocked local nodes off-line.
Fortunately, most of the telephone system continued to work - often, however, without the extra features, such as caller display, which require an additional power source.
At Bell Canada, spokesman Andrew Cole said both telephone and Internet services remained uninterrupted. Bell's networks remain functional, he said, but as a result of the increased traffic, he said the company requested that customers not use their cellphones and landlines to and from affected areas except for essential purposes, and not to call the operator or 911 for information on the current situation.
Even those people who could connect to the Internet couldn't reach some Web sites. Globeandmail.com remained functional on reserve power, as did CBC.ca, the Toronto Stock Exchange, Google.ca and Canada.com. Several other news sites - Eye.net, Thestar.ca, Thespec.com - all were down when checked early Friday morning.
Radios led way
People found themselves forced to get their news in old-fashioned ways. Commuters who were sitting in gridlocked downtown traffic could at least listen to their car radios - but only certain stations.
In Toronto, for instance, the all-news station 680News was knocked off the air for a while before its owner, Rogers Radio, a division of cable-TV and Internet giant Rogers Communications, struggled to kick in emergency power. All the company's other radio stations - CHFI-FM, AM590 and Jack-FM - also experienced "brief outages," reported Chick McCoy, vice-president and general manager of Rogers Radio.
Like other AM-band radio stations, 680News had to rely on its own power to broadcast. FM-band stations, all of which broadcast from the CN Tower, required only enough power to get their signals to the transmitter - the tower's emergency power system ensured that all stations that could summon a signal could broadcast it.
The CBC TV News operation was forced into silence briefly Thursday as technicians scrambled with kick in emergency power and to find other ways to get its television signals across the country. Eventually, CBC Newsworld had to continue broadcasting through its Calgary bureau.
CBC-1 radio (99.1 FM) experienced an extended silence, during which reporters moved to CBC-2 (94.1 FM), from which the company managed to provide continuous coverage of the blackout.
The all-talk radio station CFRB, one of the authoritative voices of the Toronto radio scene, stayed on the air with its coverage of the event.
Digital systems
Many industries that have switched to digital systems were affected - especially those doing business on-line. Even if they had emergency back-up power, customers without power couldn't reach their services.
A number of airline flights were cancelled or delayed because of the blackout, leaving travellers to spend the night sleeping in waiting lounges or checking into hotels. About 1,000 people found themselves unexpectedly stranded in Winnipeg, which was not affected by the blackout, when six Toronto-bound flights were diverted to the Winnipeg International Airport.
As well, no planes took off for Toronto, Hamilton and Ottawa Thursday afternoon.
Disgruntled but orderly passengers stood in enormous lineups to reschedule flights or started working the phones to find a hotel room.
The blackout also emphasized the digital revolution's dependence on electricity, and how that dependence is putting an extra strain on the power system's ability to provide it.
In many stores without reserve power, sophisticated cash registers with stock-tracking barcode readers gave way to handheld calculators as clerks struggled to complete sales. In smaller grocery stores, which did not have backup power, owners were even more anxious to sell their produce before the lack of refrigeration spoiled it.
In Toronto, one darkened convenience store lit only by two candles was doing a brisk business. Shoppers queued for groceries while clerks calculated prices on a solar-powered calculator held under a flashlight.
There were no reports of major corporate failures.
Corporations
Large companies housed in corporate towers in Toronto went on emergency power almost immediately, and provided a few points of light on the city skyline after sundown. Aside from some loss of data on computers that had not been saved at the moment the power failed, central systems continued working. But with other systems down, most companies found it impossible to continue doing business and sent their employees home, ordering them not to come in today unless their work was critical.
The blackout also brought out business opportunists. The insurance industry is taking the opportunity to sell "cyber-risk" packages to companies whose insurance policies have not evolved along with their computer systems.
"Unfortunately, most companies are operating in a 21st-century threat environment with 20th-century insurance coverage," said John Spagnuolo, with the New-York-based Insurance Information Institute. "The dynamics of risk management have changed with technology."
Regardless of its product line or service, Mr. Spagnuolo said, "virtually all major businesses today rely on computer networks to function. But they need to recognize that network security risks are fundamentally different than traditional physical risks like fire.
"If a hacker or virus shuts down a network or destroys computer software or data, most businesses today have either limited or no coverage. Insurers have excluded these risks from standard commercial policies and are now offering standalone coverage. Whether your company conducts business over the Internet, stores customer data on servers or simply uses e-mail, it is at risk."
The sudden reliance on older technology has verified what a number of experts have been saying about our power system - that our networks are vulnerable.
A report published in 1996 by the U.S. Pentagon, concentrating on the prospect of a terrorist attack (which was quickly ruled out in Thursday's blackout) said that increasing deregulation and competition in the communications industry has created "an increased reliance on information systems to operate, maintain, and monitor critical infrastructures. This ... creates a tunnel of vulnerability previously unrealized in the history of conflict."
"The energy infrastructure is vulnerable to physical and cyber disruption that could threaten its integrity and safety," warned the U.S. National Energy Policy Development Group, under the chairmanship of Vice-President Dick Cheney, warned two years ago. "Disruptions could come from natural events, like geomagnetic storms and earthquakes, or could come from accidents, equipment failures, or deliberate sabotage."
The interdependence of many systems - including things as diverse as electric power, transportation, communications, water supply and banking - are also becoming more interdependent, raising the fear that they could shut down too, like Thursday's cascading power failures.
