Outage hampers business

Rachel Beck

Friday, Aug. 15, 2003 | 9:14 a.m.

NEW YORK -- The biggest blackout in U.S. history couldn't silence the opening bell on Wall Street today, but business owners from Manhattan through the Midwest still worried about technical glitches and more outages today.

Even as Mayor Michael Bloomberg was ringing the 9:30 a.m. opening bell above the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, phone service remained out at some companies, and many employers were advising workers to stay home. In New York, the subways still weren't running for the morning rush, and some commuter rail lines were also shut down.

Boris Kozak, a stock broker with A.G. Wellington, waited early today to get into his office building across from the New York Stock Exchange. He expected only two or three of his 16 employees to show up for work.

"I'd like it to be normal day but unfortunately that's not possible," he said.

The power went out in New York and parts of Canada and the upper Midwest soon after 4 p.m. Thursday, moments after New York's financial exchanges closed for the day. But countless other businesses were forced to lock up early.

Much of North America's automotive manufacturing was paralyzed as plants lay idle this morning. More than 35 assembly and other plants operated by General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., the world's two largest automakers, were affected by the cascading blackout, and factories run by DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group and Honda Motor Co. also were idle.

GM's towering world headquarters in downtown Detroit was dark this morning, and spokesman Pat Morrissey said more than a dozen of its plants were closed, and only skilled trades and maintenance personnel were reporting for the first shift. No decision had been made on the second.

"We'll reassess and determine our next step as the day goes on," said Ford spokesman Ed Lewis.

While the NYSE and the Nasdaq Stock Market were able to resume trading this morning, the open of American Stock Exchange was delayed due to air conditioning problems. Investors in Asia and Europe largely shrugged off the news of the massive blackout.

From Wal-Mart stores in Canada to gas stations in Ohio, the blackout crippled retailers. But by early today, shops slowly began to open again, providing much needed food and other supplies to shoppers.

Lowe's, the nation's second-largest home improvement chain behind Home Depot, sent out generators to stores in affected states on 12 trucks that left late Thursday night from various distribution centers in the Southeast. The retailer also has two trucks carrying batteries and flashlights heading to Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Airlines largely resumed service after the industry found itself practically frozen when the nation's busiest air corridor, New York's three area airports, went dark.

"Every airline in the world flies into and out of New York," said Delta Air Lines spokesman John Kennedy. The blackout also had also closed airports in Toronto Montreal, Detroit and Cleveland.