Top 10 most significant reported outages worldwide
1. No gift from Santa. An ice storm that pummeled Michigan the weekend of Dec. 21 left
more than 500,000 customers in the dark. Some 150,000 of those remained powerless
on Christmas Day, with full restoration not projected until Dec. 28.
2. Deep freeze. A deadly blizzard of historic proportions pounded the Northeast on Feb. 8,
bringing more than 3 feet of snow to some areas and cutting power to 650,000 homes
and businesses, including 350,000 across Rhode Island.
3. Rain, rain, (wouldn’t) go away. Massive rainfall and flooding caused outages in
Mississauga, Ontario on July 8, leaving 560,000 customers in the dark.
4. Fire power. Smoke from forest fires caused a transmission line to seize up on the 4
of July, knocking out power to 500,000 people in Montreal.
5. Taken by storm. A Midwestern storm packing strong winds and heavy rain pounded
Detroit on Nov. 17, leaving 450,000 customers without electricity. The storm, which
packed wind gusts of up to 70 mph, knocked down trees and power lines across
Michigan.
6. Gone with the wind. A powerful windstorm knocked out power to 350,000 in Montreal
Nov. 1. The storm caused two electrical currents to surge in front of one home, where
the owner filmed an incredible “fireball” of electricity on the power lines outside. A highly
charged orb passes in front of his house and then seems to explode when it reaches the
next electric pole.
7. Significant storms = sustained outages. On June 21, Twin Cities, Minn., faced a level
of power outages that was “one of the highest we’ve ever faced,” according to the utility
president, after strong storms caused massive outages. Some customers were expected
to be without power for up to six days, even though 1,000 technicians were called in
from Ohio, Nebraska, Missouri and Iowa to help.
8. Pounded power poles. A summer storm brought down at least nine power poles in
Borrego Springs, Calif., on Sept. 6, leaving 1,200 customers without power for 48 hours.
The extent of the damage made the repair process lengthy.
9. Windy City woes. More than 300,000 Chicago customers lost power on June 24 after a
major storm system, moving at about 60 mph, resulted in severe thunderstorm and
tornado warnings.
10. Rain check on power. Torrential rain was blamed for blacking out 300,000 customers
on July 8. Environment Canada said some parts of the GTA were drenched with more
than 100 millimeters of rain, trouncing the previous one-day rainfall record of 29.2 mm in
2008 for Toronto and even beating the 74.4 mm monthly average for July.
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