Power outage hit 55 million people in the US and Canada 20 years ago

Key facts about the massive power outage in the US and Canada, which began 20 years ago on 14 August:

– The power outage began on Thursday, 14 August, at 16:11 local time (22:11 CEST), and power was fully restored in all affected areas, with a few exceptions, by around 10:00 local time (16:00 CEST) on Saturday, 16 August, according to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). The outage therefore lasted almost 42 hours.

– Seven US states were affected: New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Vermont. The outage therefore affected cities such as New York, Cleveland, Buffalo and Detroit. In Canada, the province of Ontario and the cities of Toronto and Ottawa were hit hardest. An estimated 55 million people were affected by the power outage. New York and its surrounding area were hardest hit, with more than 14 million people left without power. The outage affected an area of around 15.000 square kilometres in the western US and northwestern Canada. Damage was estimated at as much as six billion dollars.