Blackout had no effect locally

Friday, Aug. 15, 2003 | 9:46 a.m.

The blackout that knocked out power to roughly 50 million people in the Northeast and parts of Canada on Thursday did not affect Southern Nevada.

The effects from the massive power outage caused a ripple rather than a wave of impacts to Las Vegas and Southern Nevada. There were no blackouts here and only 17 airline flights were delayed.

"It's unlikely the outage in the Northeast would affect Nevada Power customers," company spokeswoman Sonya Headen said late Thursday.

The blackout brought down the Northeastern power grid, hitting cities from New York to Detroit and into Canada.

The Western grid, which serves Nevada, is not connected to the Eastern one, Headen said.

"The system is designed to protect itself from power surges," she said.

However, Southern Nevada is not immune from regional power problems, such as a Western blackout seven years ago, Headen said.

High temperatures, sagging power lines and unusually high demand for electricity caused an outage on Aug. 10, 1996, that affected 4 million power customers in nine Western states, including Las Vegas, Headen said.

That outage stretched from Oregon to San Diego and east to Texas and parts of Mexico. The outage lasted up to 10 hours in some areas.

In Las Vegas the 1996 outage occurred on a Saturday, when most people were at home and not in rush hour traffic or in their offices. Las Vegas Strip hotels continued operating on backup power generators.