Cyberterrorism. Beyoncé. A disgruntled San Francisco 49ers fan. They each held the spotlight this past week as everyone speculated what caused the blackout during the second half of this year’s Super Bowl matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers in New Orleans.
The blackout at the Super Bowl stopped the game for more than a half-hour.
The actual cause of the power outage? A relay. That’s right — the component meant to protect power going to the Superdome from cable failure was, in fact, the very source of this enormous catastrophe.
New Orleans-based Entergy Corporation took blame for the incident, though they couldn’t exactly put a finger on what caused the relay to go down. This isn’t much of a surprise since devices like this do fail fairly often according to Shabab Mehraeen, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Louisiana State University, who adds that the component itself is actually the subject of much academic research; specifically, the interaction of relays with the complex electrical systems they regulate.
Earlier in the week, officials from Entergy and SMG, the company that manages the stadium on behalf of the state of Louisiana, came out and said that they believed the problem started with the switching gear, which is housed in a separate building near the stadium. The Superdome has a direct line that feeds from a nearby Entergy power substation into this building, whereupon the line splits into two cables that then get sent into the Superdome. After taking a closer look at things, they realized the switching gear wasn’t the source of the problem, but in fact, the system’s relay.
Upon making the announcement, company representatives were quick to point out that the same relay worked just fine a few weeks prior during another major sporting event, the Sugar Bowl, as well as several other events before that too.
News of the failed relay comes as Entergy officials prepare to go before a committee of the City Council today to answer questions about the outage.
Story via: The Associated Press
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