Unknown Problem Fries Power Grid Across West

Electricity and phone service were knocked out Tuesday for more than 1.5 million customers from Canada to the Southwest after power lines failed in a rapid chain reaction on a record-hot day.

The blackout snarled traffic, forced hospitals and air-traffic controllers to use emergency measures, briefly darkened flashy casinos and shut off air conditioners as temperatures soared into the 100s in some areas.

Outages were reported in at least eight states from Southern California to Colorado and into Canada, as the disruptions spread through the West. Utility officials could not immediately explain what caused the outages, which came amid heavy power usage in the heat wave.

At the center of the outage were three 500-kilovolt transmission lines that extend from the hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest down to the Southwest. The lines combined can supply up to 2.2 million homes. At one point, all three lines were knocked out, but authorities were unsure whether the lines caused the outages or were affected by a problem elsewhere.

A spokeswoman for the Bonneville Power Administration, which oversees the power grid in the Pacific Northwest, said authorities believe the problem originated in the Rocky Mountain states.

The blackout highlighted the vulnerability of the power grid in the West, where a major problem in one area can quickly lead to outages elsewhere.

“Having an interconnected system really makes for more efficient use of our natural resources and keeps the cost down,” said BPA spokeswoman Lynn Baker. “But it means when something goes wrong, it can cascade through the system.”

A number of power stations were knocked off-line - including four 500 megawatt coal-fired power plants at Rock Springs, Wyo., the Jim Bridger Power Generation Station in Wyoming, the Idaho Power Hell’s Canyon plant on the Snake River in Idaho and the Pawnee power plant in Brush, Colo.

The outage affected parts of Oregon, California, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada as well as the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, said Perry Gruber, a spokesman for the BPA in Oregon.

Most hospitals and emergency services were able to switch to auxiliary power. Federal Aviation Administration officials in Seattle said air traffic controllers were able to use backup power generators.

More than 700,000 Idaho Power customers were blacked out in southern Idaho, northern Nevada and eastern Oregon for at least two hours.

In Boise, most offices and state agencies sent employees home and banks locked their doors. Traffic was snarled at intersections where lights no longer worked.

Most utilities managed to restore power later in the afternoon. The outages, which also affected telephone service in some areas, were spotty and some areas were not affected, even within cities that had blackouts.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: AREA UNAFFECTED Spokeswomen for Washington Water Power Co. and Kootenai Electric Cooperative Inc. said their systems were not affected by the outages. But Dana Anderson of WWP said the company’s switchboard in Coeur d’Alene lit up when emergency officials were advised of possible brownouts by their counterparts in Boise. “There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” she said. Kootenai’s Catherine Parochetti said the cooperative takes most of its power off a line from Grand Coulee Dam that was unaffected. - Bert Caldwell

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Associated Press Bert Caldwell Staff writer