Blackout Terrorism Possible

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Blackout Terrorism Possible
From S.F
8-18-03

Dear Jeff,

Here are some quotes from different stories from Michehl Gent, head of the North American Electric Reliability Council:

"Gent said he was fairly confident terrorism wasn't involved. "There's no evidence of a blow up or somebody breaking into something," he said." http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/heraldnews/top/j16what.htm

"And as hard as the federal government worked to rule out a terrorism tie, Gent said, "We'll continue to keep this possibility before us."

"Gent told CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson he considers the chance of any kind of terrorism remote and has narrowed the list of possible causes to two: either a system design flaw, or "some electric utility or operator was not playing by the rules."

http://216.239.33.104/search?q=cache:jp46_NNO8D8J:www.cbsnews.com/stories/ 2003/08/14/national/main568409.shtml%3Fcmp%3DEM8707+terrorism+gent&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Note that the second story URL (above) is a google cache URL. This is because the story has already been removed from the site. A little suspicious, no? There is a replacement story when you click on what is supposed to be the URL for the above-quoted story, and THAT story OMITS Gent's statement about keeping the possibility of terrorism open.

HERE IS THAT GOOGLE CACHED STORY:

Ohio Likely Outage Start Point 8-16-3

CBS/AP) A failure to contain problems with three transmission lines in northern Ohio just south of Cleveland was the likely trigger of the nation's biggest power blackout, a leading investigator said Saturday.

Experts are working to understand why the local line disruptions, some of which occurred an hour before the blackout reached its peak, were not isolated, allowing a cascade of power system shutdowns stretching from Michigan to New York City and into Canada.

"We are fairly certain at this time that the disturbance started in Ohio," Michehl Gent, head of the North American Electric Reliability Council, said in a statement. "We are now trying to determine why the situation was not brought under control after three transmission lines went out of service."

Gent said the transmission system was designed to isolate such problems and suggested that human error might have been involved in not containing the situation.

"The system has been designed and rules have been created to prevent this escalation and cascading. It should have stopped," said Gent in a telephone conference call.

Later, in a statement suggesting human failings for the events last Thursday, Gent said in the future "system operators ... will be extremely vigilant" when local transmission problems arise.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who is co-chair of a U.S.-Canadian task force that will look into the cause of the blackout, said it's still too early to pinpoint a cause.

"We're not going to prejudge where the problem is," Abraham told reporters in Albany, N.Y., on Saturday where he met with the governors of New York and New Jersey to discuss the blackout. "We're also not going to prematurely leap to conclusions."

Abraham said the task force is putting together investigative teams that will include experts from the government's research laboratories as well as private resources, to find out what caused the power grid breakdown and recommend actions to prevent a repeat.

Gent did not identify specifically the three power line failures that have become the focus of the NERC investigation. But other council officials said they were among five reported transmission failures in the Cleveland area during a period of just over an hour leading up to the blackout peak Thursday afternoon.

According to NERC, the first report came in at 3:06 p.m. EDT on Thursday and involved a 345-volt line that had "tripped" - or gone off line. That was followed by reports on other lines failing at 3:32 p.m., 3:41 p.m., 3:46 p.m. and 4:06 p.m.

Two minutes later, according to the NERC summary, "power swings (were) noted in Canada and the U.S." and three minutes after that power disruptions hit across eight states.

The transmission system in northern Ohio is operated by FirstEnergy Corp., based in Akron, Ohio. The company has declined to comment on the investigation.

"Those reviews have not even come close to being completed and we're not going to speculate," FirstEnergy spokeswoman Kristen Baird said Saturday before Gent's announcement.

Gent said he is confident the specific reason for the failures - and who is responsible - will be learned, but that it could take many weeks.

Among the things yet to be determined is the relationship between lines tripping in Ohio and unusual power swings that were observed in lines leaving Michigan and going into Canada and then back again, according to investigators.

There are more than 10,000 pages of data, including automatically generated logs on power flows over transmission lines, that need to be closely examined, said Gent. Complicating the matter, he said, is that at the time of the power breakdown "events were coming in so fast and furious that (some reports) ... weren't even being logged in a timely way."

Nonetheless, Gent said he is convinced that no data was lost and whatever was not recorded will be recovered.

"We will get to the bottom of this," he said.

Investigators had been focusing on a massive electrical grid that encircles Lake Erie, moving power from New York to the Detroit area, Canada and back to New York state. There had been problems with the transmission loop in the past, officials said.

Ohio's chief utility regulator conceded earlier Saturday that problems leading to the blackout may have started in that state.

"It appears the train left the tracks in Ohio but we don't know who's responsible," Schriber said.

"It doesn't mean it's the fault of somebody in Ohio," said Alan Schriber, chairman of the state's Public Utilities Commission. "It seems like some of these events may have been triggered in Ohio."

Schriber based his comments on the investigators' focus on the series of power line interruptions that occurred in the Cleveland area. Earlier, he had discounted reports that said Ohio may have been the starting point.

Gent said he wouldn't rule out that negligence by someone, somewhere might have been a cause. Investigators will have to determine whether some industry transmission standards might have been ignored, or perhaps simply conclude that the industry-crafted standards are inadequate.

And as hard as the federal government worked to rule out a terrorism tie, Gent said, "We'll continue to keep this possibility before us."

Gent told CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson he considers the chance of any kind of terrorism remote and has narrowed the list of possible causes to two: either a system design flaw, or "some electric utility or operator was not playing by the rules."

The rules, Attkisson explained, were adopted by the industry to try to keep the delicate balance of power; there's more electricity generated than lines to deliver it, so there's a constant fight to keep lines from overloading. As long as companies follow the rules there shouldn't be a blackout. But it turns out the rules are voluntary, with no real punishment for violators.

Gent promises there will be no whitewash, no matter which way the finger of blame points.

"We're going to get to the truth. If there's a company that's responsible at the bottom of this, it'll be highlighted," Gent said to Attkisson.

President Bush said the power breakdown showed "we need to modernize the electricity grid." But, he acknowledged, "Something like this isn't going to happen overnight."

Power grid experts were stunned at the broad reach of the blackout and the speed - a matter of seconds - in which it spread thousands of miles across New York and southern New England to the eastern sections of Michigan and into Canada.

"We never anticipated we could have a cascading outage" of this magnitude and speed, said NERC's Gent.

The problem should never have reached Manhattan, complained New York Gov. George Pataki, adding that the grid was supposed to be designed to isolate such problems. "That just did not happen," he said.


***********

And there is another very interesting story on the whole 'was it or wasn't it terrorism' question...

This following story was originally published on August 15th... which underscores what you always say about the first news reports immediately after an event always being the ones to watch closest.

I also find it odd that this story says: "... Michehl Gent... insisted terrorism was not involved." when, as I pointed out, Gent had said "We'll continue to keep this possibility [terrorism] before us."

Can you spell C-O-V-E-R-U-P ?

By the way, that line from Gent: "We'll continue to keep this possibility [of terrorism] before us." is NOWHERE on the web except for the cached google story above which will soon be gone...


The Terror Question

No Signs Of Deliberate Attack In Blackout, But Possibility Not Ruled Out

ABCNews.com 8-18-3

Despite official assurances to the contrary, could terrorists have exploited a vulnerable power grid to cause Thursday's massive blackout?

The cause of the failure remains a mystery, as power was gradually returning from the largest-ever blackout in the nation's history, affecting some 50 million people in areas from Michigan to New York.

And while there is no indication the power grid was sabotaged, some experts caution it is too soon to rule out any possible explanation, including cyber-terror.

"Anybody who says that they know what happened last night is lying," said Dick Clarke, an ABCNews consultant and former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure, and Counterterrorism.

"If it were a cyber-attack, you wouldn't know right away," added Clarke. "And you might never know."

A vulnerable system

Clarke said a series of simulated computer attacks on electric power grids four years ago were almost all successful, showing the vulnerability of the system.

Ironically, utility companies had just agreed on cyber-security rules days ago, said Clarke, although they had not implemented them yet.

Over the past two years, there have been numerous instances of what law enforcement officials called "credible intrusion events" in computers into the electric grid system.

In one, during the spring of 2001, the FBI detected hackers routed through China who were trying to invade the power grid in Florida. The sophistication of the hacker attack deeply concerned law enforcement officials, and new safety standards were implemented in response to the problem.

The National Academy of Science also warned of the dangers of a cyber-attack on US electrical systems. A skillful cyber-attack would not leave any obvious "footprints," or signs of deliberate tampering, experts warned.

Officials reject terror theory

There were various conflicting explanations in the first hours after the lights went out, but officials were unanimous in arguing there was no evidence of terrorism.

"The one thing I can say for certain is that this was not a terrorist act," President Bush said Thursday from California, where he was on a two-day fund-raising drive.

Many industry and government experts suggested instead an outdated and overloaded power grid system was probably at fault, though it was too soon to know what specifically went wrong.

A spokesman for Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said a lightning strike on part of a Niagara, New York, power plant probably caused the blackout. US officials, however, rejected the theory.

This morning, there was still no agreement even on where the power outage began.

Experts such as Michehl Gent, president of the North American Electric Reliability Council, insisted terrorism was not involved. The council is a nonprofit body formed after the 1965 Northeast blackout to prevent future power outages.

"We don't have any indication of blown-up equipment," Gent told Good Morning America today. "So we're almost certain that it is not terrorism of any kind."

Gent also insisted it was extremely unlikely a disgruntled employee or outside saboteur caused the calamity, but vowed the investigation would discover what went wrong.

"We will get to the bottom of this and fix it. We will not cover anything up," Gent said. "We'll name names and find out what happened."

- ABCNews' chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross contributed to this report.

Originally posted August 15, 2003


http://www.techtv.com/news/print/0,23102,3500872,00.html


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