Super Bowl goes dark as Superdome loses power
February 5, 2013, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
AN American football championship Super Bowl week that had gone so smoothly for New Orleans suddenly turned bizarre when everyone was watching.
The lights went out on the biggest game of the year.
The outage, blamed on an unspecified "abnormality" in the Superdome stadium's power system, was an embarrassment for New Orleans, which was hosting its first Super Bowl since 2002 and was eager to show off how it has been rebuilt since Hurricane Katrina.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu called Sunday night's outage "an unfortunate moment in what has been an otherwise shining Super Bowl week for the city of New Orleans." He said he expected "a full after-action report from all parties involved."
The Baltimore Ravens had been cruising along with a 28-6 lead in the game when, without warning, the power to the Superdome suddenly shut down early in the third quarter, plunging parts of the 38-year-old stadium into darkness and leaving TV viewers with no football and no explanation why.
For 34 minutes, the players tried to stay loose, the fans milled about in darkened corridors, and stadium officials scrambled to figure out what went wrong. The Ravens barely hung on for a 34-31 victory over the San Francisco 49ers. "It really hurt us," Baltimore player Vonta Leach said. "We had lot of momentum."
There is sure to be some fallout for the city and the Superdome - especially since New Orleans plans to bid for the title game in 2018, the 300th anniversary of its founding.
Escalators stopped and credit-card machines shut down, though auxiliary power kept the playing field and concourses from going totally dark.
"We sincerely apologize for the incident," Superdome spokesman Eric Eagan said.
The lights went out on the biggest game of the year.
The outage, blamed on an unspecified "abnormality" in the Superdome stadium's power system, was an embarrassment for New Orleans, which was hosting its first Super Bowl since 2002 and was eager to show off how it has been rebuilt since Hurricane Katrina.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu called Sunday night's outage "an unfortunate moment in what has been an otherwise shining Super Bowl week for the city of New Orleans." He said he expected "a full after-action report from all parties involved."
The Baltimore Ravens had been cruising along with a 28-6 lead in the game when, without warning, the power to the Superdome suddenly shut down early in the third quarter, plunging parts of the 38-year-old stadium into darkness and leaving TV viewers with no football and no explanation why.
For 34 minutes, the players tried to stay loose, the fans milled about in darkened corridors, and stadium officials scrambled to figure out what went wrong. The Ravens barely hung on for a 34-31 victory over the San Francisco 49ers. "It really hurt us," Baltimore player Vonta Leach said. "We had lot of momentum."
There is sure to be some fallout for the city and the Superdome - especially since New Orleans plans to bid for the title game in 2018, the 300th anniversary of its founding.
Escalators stopped and credit-card machines shut down, though auxiliary power kept the playing field and concourses from going totally dark.
"We sincerely apologize for the incident," Superdome spokesman Eric Eagan said.
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