Some of the following documents are available as Adobe Acrobat PDF's.

General Information

• Final Report (PDF 853 KB) on Implementation of Task Force Recommendations (Issued Oct. 3, 2006) and For press release information  Go>
• Report on Competition v. Reliability per Rec. 12 of Aug. 2004 Blackout Investigation Final Report (Issued July 2006).  
• Draft Report on Implementation of the U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force Recommendations(PDF 2.3 MB) June 22, 2006.   
• Notice of June 22 Conference For Public Review of Draft Report on Implementation of the U.S. - Canada Power System Outage Task Force Recommendations.
• Competition & Reliability in North American Energy Markets — Technical Workshops in the U.S. (September 15, 2005) (ZIP 8.2 MB) and Canada (September 28, 2005) (PDF 396 KB)
• Is Our Power Grid More Reliable One Year After the Blackout?
• Final Report on the August 14th Blackout in the United States and Canada
• The August 14, 2003 Blackout One Year Later: Actions Taken In The United States & Canada To Reduce Blackout Risk (PDF 236 KB)Hi-res version (PDF 791 KB)
  
• For more information go to the US Department of Energy or the Natural Resources Canada websites.  

Before and after satellite photos of August 14 blackout
Before: August 13, 2003 (NOAA/DMSP)	After: August 14, 2003 (NOAA/DMSP)

Statements & Comments

• Public comment period open until 5:00 PM, June 29, 2006 on Draft Report on Implementation of the U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force Recommendations (PDF 2.3 MB).  Public comments can be submitted to blackoutimplementationstatusrpt@energetics.com.
• April 5, 2004 - Secretary Abraham Releases Statement on Final Blackout Report (PDF 238 KB)
• Summary of comments from Forum and Email (PDF 171 KB). January 12, 2004 - This Excel file is a summary of all comments and recommendations received by DOE on the Blackout Report via email and the Blackout Forum as of 1-12-04.
• Industry Technical Conference on August 14 Blackout Presentations (ZIP 8.2 MB) and Transcript (PDF 396 KB) 12-16-03
• Summary of comments from meeting (PDF 121 KB). December 16, 2003 - This Excel file is a summary of all comments submitted at the 12-16-03 meeting.

What Happened?

August 14 and 15, 2003 - The northeastern U.S. and southern Canada suffered the worst power blackout in history. Areas affected extended from New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey west to Michigan, and from Ohio north to Toronto and Ottawa, Ontario. Approximately 50 million customers were impacted, and the economic costs will be staggering.

• The outage in the news
  • New York Times coverage (ongoing coverage)
  • Washington Post: "Blackout 2003" (ongoing coverage)
  • Canada's National Post (ongoing coverage)
  • August 15, 2003: Slate.com, "This Was a First-World Blackout"
  • August 21, 2003: The Economist, "Bring me your powerless masses"
  • August 27, 2003: Energy Pulse, "a forum for experts, professionals, and thought leaders in the global power industry": a number of articles, including "Asking the Right Questions about the August 14th Black-Out"

• North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) press releases: a history of the event
  • August 14, 2003:Preliminary Disturbance Report (PDF 33 KB)
  • August 15, 2003:Power Outage Update (PDF 39 KB)
  • August 16, 2003:Power Outage Update (PDF 46 KB)
  • August 17, 2003:Electric System Update (PDF 39 KB)
• History of previous major power blackout events
  • 1965 blackout George Mason University, Blackout History Project
  • 1977 blackout George Mason University, Blackout History Project
  • March 2003: Business Week, "Power Plays"