Friends Leigh Farrar, Gord Cameron and Shelia Garsnell work together on dinner by candlelight on Thursday, in London, Ont. (Dave Chidley/CP)
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The power began to flow in some parts of southern Ontario early Friday, but officials warned that it could be days before the electricity is fully restored after the biggest power outage in North American history.
Ontario Premier Ernie Eves has declared the entire province in a state of emergency and asked people not to go to work Friday if they can avoid it. He also asked the industrial heartland of the nation to shut down to "reduce demand" on the system.
Sections of Toronto, Oakville, Hamilton and Scarborough are among those with electricity Friday morning. About half of the province has restored power, and Mr. Eves said Friday morning that two-thirds of Ontario should have full power by 6 p.m.
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An Ontario Power Generation spokesman told globeandmail.com that all 80 generating stations run by the group were in safe mode as of 6:30 a.m. Friday, awaiting instructions from the Independent Market Operator, which will be directing power stations as they spark back to life.
"Some residents may have to go without power unfortunately for the whole weekend," Toronto's deputy mayor told a Friday morning press conference. "It's going to take longer than anticipated."
Mr. Eves denied Thursday that the province's dependence on imported power played any role in the blackout in Ontario.
"We've imported power — more than 10 per cent — on lots of occasions for the last 70 years in this province at peak times when demand goes up as high as it did today to 25,000 megawatts," he said. "We all pay the price when we're interconnected. There's no way of avoiding that, because all the jurisdictions in the northeastern part of North America interchange power."
Pentagon officials in Washington were quick to say the cascading afternoon blackouts in sweltering summer temperatures were not an act of terrorism. But into Friday there were still conflicting theories about why a 15,000-square-kilometre stretch of land was blacked out at about 4:15 p.m.
The Prime Minister's Office first said lightning had struck a power plant in the Niagara Region on the U.S. side of the border, but subsequently said there had been a fire at a Con Edison power plant in Niagara Falls, N.Y. A Department of National Defence official later said that it was indeed lightning that had wiped out power.
Everyone is asked to use all power sparingly, and to remember that restored power could easily go out again. Mr. Eves asked that air conditioning be turned off and that motorists stay off the roads until normality is restored. Bob Runciman, Ontario's Minister of Public Safety, warned that the system is "fragile" and that putting typical late-summer demands on it could cause failure and more blackouts.
The power quit without warning late Thursday afternoon in downtown Toronto. It was part of a cascading effect that saw the lights black out in huge swaths of Ontario and parts of the United States, leaving millions of people without power as officials warned some would stay that way for days.
Ottawa's Parliament Hill was forced to operate with only scant lighting. The clock on the Peace Tower keep ticking, but the everlasting Centennial Flame was snuffed out.
Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman asked citizens to conserve water over the next two days and applauded all those who were helping their neighbours. Police noted that they would be patrolling residential areas throughout the evening, but were happy that no major crimes had been reported.
In New York, with almost eight million people one of the largest cities in the world, was turned into a horn-blowing gridlock. Thousands of people streamed onto the streets of lower Manhattan following the blackout in a scene reminiscent of the first hour after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The streets were flooded with pedestrians who had no idea how they would get home; hundreds slept rough in Times Square, arising befuddled and grimy at dawn.
The blackout was more widespread than previous crises in 1965 and 1977. Today's society is also more dependent on electrical power.
With reports from Richard Bloom, Tara Perkins and Richard Mackie
