Starting at about 4:15 PM EDT, major losses of electric load occurred in the northeastern U.S. and Canada in the Eastern Interconnection. No cause is known at present, but the outages do not appear to be the result of a terrorist attack. The areas most affected center around the Great Lakes plus New York City, northern New Jersey and parts of New England. We do not know if these blackouts are related for sure, but it is likely. Con Edison in New York lost its entire system, it is not known when service will be restored. Immediate outages totaled about 28,000 MW, at this time 5-10,000 MW remain out of service. The power in Ontario is being brought back on line through connections with Manitoba. In Ohio, Perry Nuclear plant went off-line. Major transmission lines were out of service at the time of the disruption. It appears that ten nuclear plants went offline, probably as a result of fluctuations in frequency. Preliminary indications are that the problems may have started in either Ohio or the Niagara Falls area. Although the event was felt throughout the entire Eastern Interconnection, the south and midwest were unaffected. NERC is having regular conference calls among the NERC reliability coordinators and will provide additional information as we know more. We do not know the cause of the disturbances at present but will continue to evaluate the situation throughout the rest of the day and evening. 8/14/2003 6:13 PM