[RonDog]

Here is an UPDATE from Reuters:

U.S. Govt: N.Y. Power Outages Not Terrorism-Related
Thu August 14, 2003 05:14 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. power regulators said on Thursday that a massive power outage that hit New York City and other cities in the eastern United States and Canada was not caused by a terror attack.

The outage was caused by an outage at a Manhattan power plant which destabilized the power grid as far as Canada, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) spokesman Bryan Lee said.

"We have no indication that there is any terrorism involved," Lee said.

A massive power outage left sections of New York City, Detroit and Cleveland without electricity, witnesses said. The outage also brought two major eastern Canadian cities -- Toronto and Ottawa -- to a standstill.

"The thinking is that a fire at a generating plant in Manhattan destabilized the grid, which cascaded up the grid and took a loop around the Great Lakes into Canada," Lee said.

[aristeides]

What makes them so sure that the fire at the power plant on Manhattan could not have been caused by terrorism?

[Howlin]

CNN saying that Homeland Security IS looking into the outages, including whether it might have something to do with msblast.exe virus.

[MrConfettiMan]

If these outages continue into the evening, I fear terrorists may take advantage of the situation.