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Fla. power grid hiccup causes outages affecting up to 3 million people
Associated Press
Issue date: 2/27/08 Section: News
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Authorities said there were no safety concerns at the nuclear plant and were working to pinpoint the outages' cause. While many areas were hit hard, most of the outages were brief and only a few hundred thousand people lacked electricity for the evening commute home.
An equipment malfunction in a substation near Miami disabled two power distribution lines between Miami and Daytona Beach, and in response, the Turkey Point nuclear plant south of Miami stopped operating around 1 p.m., Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Kenneth Clark said.
"We don't know the nature of the equipment malfunction," he said.
A Florida Power & Light spokesman initially said its nuclear plant caused the outages to about a fifth of Florida's population. But the utility's nuclear spokesman, Dick Winn, later said grid problems caused both reactors at the plant to shut down between 1 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. Two coal-burning power plants at Turkey Point also shut down, authorities said.
"All the safety systems worked just like they were supposed to and both of those units are in stable condition right now," Winn said.
Power was already restored in some places by early afternoon and was estimated to be fully restored by 6 p.m.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez said the outages were technical, not criminal.
"It's a matter of just a cascading effect," he said.
The Homeland Security Department said the outages had no connection to terrorism, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the reactors automatically shut down as designed.
Florida emergency management officials said the outages cut power to about 2-3 million people, although FPL said the number was closer to 800,000.
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