This Day in History:, Blackout Hits Northeast United States.
August 14, 2003.
Power across the Northeastern U.S. and parts of Canada went out at 4:20 p.m.
E.T.
In three quick minutes, 21 power stations serving more than 50 million people shut down.
From Toronto to Cleveland to Detroit to New York City, cell phones, trains, elevators and hospitals were affected.
Power was resumed in a couple of hours for some.
For others, it remained out for more than a day.
Less than two years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Americans were frightened that the blackout was the another attack.
The outage was eventually tracked to overgrown trees in Ohio.
An outage caused with the FirstEnergy Corporation triggered a fateful chain reaction
