Power Failures and Blackouts

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    ‘So Eager to Get Back’: Travelers Pour Into a Reopened Heathrow

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    Information boards showed that most flights would leave on time, but the lines at ticketing counters signaled that many travelers were in for more delays.Throngs of passengers anxious to get on their way surged into Heathrow Airport in London on Saturday, a day after a power blackout closed the airport and forced thousands to delay their trips.As information boards flickered back to life, an army of extra airport staff members, dressed in purple, sprang into action to help people as they walked through the terminal doors.Ganesh Suresh, a 25-year-old student who was trying to get home to Bangalore, India, was among those who secured a coveted seat on a Saturday flight. After his Air India flight was canceled, his parents booked new tickets on Virgin Atlantic, while he spent the night at a friend’s place in Birmingham, England.“I was so eager to get back,” Mr. Suresh said. He sheepishly admitted to yelling at his parents in frustration during the height of the shutdown chaos. “I might apologize to them when I get back.”Travelers, diverted or rebooked, arrived early, with trains and other transport routes to the airport reopened. A day earlier, the airport’s roads were empty except for police cars.A Heathrow representative said on Saturday that the airport was “open and fully operational,” adding that the extra flights on the day’s schedule could accommodate 10,000 extra passengers. At the airport, information boards showed that most flights would leave on time, but the snaking lines at ticketing counters signaled that many travelers were in for more frustrating delays.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Man Who Shot at Pipeline and Power Station Gets 25 Years in Prison

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      Cameron M. Smith, 50, a Canadian who wanted to bring more attention to climate change, was also ordered to pay $2.1 million in restitution for damage he caused in the Dakotas.A Canadian man who, in an attempt to raise awareness about climate change, used a high-powered rifle to fire shots at a pipeline in South Dakota in 2022 and a power station in North Dakota in 2023 was sentenced on Monday to 25 years in federal prison.The man, Cameron M. Smith, 50, who pleaded guilty last September in U.S. District Court in Bismarck, N.D., to two counts of destruction of an energy facility for the vandalism, was also ordered to pay $2.1 million in restitution.In July 2022, Mr. Smith used a high-powered Bushmaster rifle to fire rounds into a transformer and pump station that was part of the Keystone Pipeline in Clark County, in eastern South Dakota, according to court records. The act caused about $500,000 in damage and disrupted the pipeline, which carries oil from Canada through the United States, records show. Electrical service to some customers in North Dakota was also disrupted, prosecutors said.Ten months later, in May 2023, Mr. Smith again used a Bushmaster rifle to shoot at the Wheelock electric substation near Ray, in northwest North Dakota, causing about $1.2 million in damage, court records show. All energy facilities are federally protected, and damaging them can be deemed an act of terrorism if an attack is intended to “affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate,” according to the Justice Department. Judge Daniel Traynor of U.S. District Court in Bismarck, N.D., found that Mr. Smith’s actions had met that definition — a finding reflected in the sentence he handed down.Mr. Smith, whose lawyer said he is autistic, was an online marketer who was renting a small home on the Oregon coast at the time of his arrest. He was not working at the time.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Vast Storm Knocks Out Power in North Texas

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      The storm is expected to intensify, bringing the threat of blizzards, tornadoes and damaging winds across the central and southern United States.More than 380,000 customers in North Texas were without power on Tuesday morning as a powerful storm with strong winds swept across the region.The storm, part of a system that stretched from Iowa to Texas, was expected to strengthen as it moved east on Tuesday. Warnings were in place for blizzards in the Plains and severe storms across the South, with damaging gusts, hail and possible tornadoes forecast from eastern Oklahoma to Alabama.Flights into Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport were briefly halted, and about 10 percent of departing flights out of the airport were canceled as of Tuesday morning, according to FlightAware, which tracks flight data.A severe thunderstorm warning was in effect in Texas until 8:30 a.m. local time, including for the cities of Palestine, Fairfield and Buffalo, according to the National Weather Service.In southern Oklahoma, more than 20,000 customers were without power, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us. A mobile home in Ada, Okla., was destroyed after a possible tornado hit, according to KOCO-TV, a television station in Oklahoma City. More

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      Chile Declares Curfew as Power Outage Sweeps Across Country

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      President Gabriel Boric said electricity was being restored, but the situation remained unstable. Chile’s government imposed a curfew and declared a state of emergency in response to a sweeping blackout that cut electricity to most of the country including the capital, Santiago, on Tuesday.The massive outage, which began in the afternoon, affected eight million households across the country, from the northern port city of Arica to Los Lagos in the country’s south, officials said. In Santiago, it knocked out traffic lights, stranded people in elevators and shut down the subway network.Hours later, the government announced a curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. in the regions affected by the outage. Schools in those regions will be closed on Wednesday, with about 300,000 students affected, officials said.“Today has been a difficult day for millions of countrymen,” Gabriel Boric, the president, said at a news conference on Tuesday night.By late Tuesday, power had been restored to about four million households, Mr. Boric said. But he warned that the recovery was slow and unstable, and the situation remained precarious.He blamed the country’s power companies for allowing the outage to occur and for not restoring power earlier, adding, “This is outrageous.” The outage was caused by failure of a transmission system, officials said.Soldiers and national police officers were sent to affected regions, officials said, and in Santiago, helicopters circled above the city.Emergency services, hospitals, prisons and airports across the country were operating on backup electricity systems and generators, the national disaster agency said.John Bartlett More

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      Strong Storm in San Francisco Brings a Tornado Warning

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      Less than two weeks after a tsunami warning, residents were jolted awake before 6 a.m. to consider a new potential disaster scenario.Powerful storms swept through parts of Northern California on Saturday, knocking down trees, causing widespread power outages and prompting weather officials to issue what they said was the first-ever tornado warning for San Francisco.The warning blared from cellphones around 5:45 a.m., jolting residents across the city from their sleep and into the sudden realization that many had long prepared themselves for what to do in the case of a sudden earthquake, but not a tornado.And it came less than two weeks after a similar alert echoed across the Bay Area warning of a different kind of disaster scenario: an impending tsunami that forecasters worried could strike along a vast stretch of the Northern California coast.That warning had been spurred by an earthquake in the Pacific Ocean and briefly caused a panic as people sought to get to higher ground. The warning was canceled a little more than an hour after it was issued.The tornado warning on Saturday, which was in effect for about 30 minutes, was urgent: “Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room,” it read in part.“That is the first time that we’ve issued a tornado warning for San Francisco,” said Crystal Oudit, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the Bay Area. She said the service had done so after seeing conditions that tend to favor tornadoes as the storm approached the city.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At North Carolina Churches After Helene, a Time to Grieve and a Time to Hope

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      Worshipers gathered on Sunday, many for the first time since the storm decimated their communities, “to cry and pray and process.” As people headed toward First Baptist Church Swannanoa on Sunday, it was impossible to forget what had happened to their small mountain community in western North Carolina. Scattered across the landscape were broken pieces of life before the remnants of Hurricane Helene barreled through: chunks of asphalt, shredded trees, fragments of home foundations. Nearby, a search-and-rescue team clambered over debris. Yet the 11 a.m. hourlong service offered a respite — a chance to worship, to step away from the grief and to soak in shared encouragement and resilience. The church had invited congregants from another nearby church, whose building was destroyed, and encouraged those who had lost their Bibles in the storm to take one from the church. Melody Dowdy, 46, who is married to the senior pastor of First Baptist, hugged congregants and held back tears. “We’ve tried to create a haven of hope,” she said. More than a week after the storm ravaged much of western North Carolina, many storm survivors trickled back to houses of faith — worshiping in parking lots and parks, next to mud-filled sanctuaries, and in churches with pews and Bibles but, in some cases, without power or water.“There is just so much desperation. Lives have been obliterated,” said Winston Parrish, senior pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Asheville, where dozens of emergency workers from across the country are staying. “We needed this moment on Sunday to cry and pray and process.”In a region steeped in religion, churches right now are more than just a place of worship. Faith leaders of many denominations have transformed their buildings and parking lots into command centers and shelters for emergency workers, and into distribution points for those in need. There, groups hand out water and food and organize deliveries of supplies to stranded communities.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hurricane Helene Aftermath: 6 Issues Across the Southeast

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      The worst fallout from the hurricane is in western North Carolina, but at least five other states are grappling with their own intractable problems. More than a week after Hurricane Helene made landfall as a Category 4 storm, state officials across the Southeast are scrambling to repair damaged electrical lines, roads and bridges affecting tens of thousands across the path of destruction.Helene wreaked havoc from Florida to the Appalachian states after making landfall on the Gulf Coast on Sept. 26. The worst fallout is still in western North Carolina, where, in addition to the mass wreckage of destroyed buildings, teams are searching for dozens of missing people, some areas have no potable water, cellphone communication remains spotty, more than 170,000 customers still don’t have power, and hundreds of roads are closed. But at least five other states are grappling with their own intractable problems from impassable highways to ruined farmland.President Biden, who surveyed the storm’s toll this week, said Helene most likely caused billions of dollars in damage, and he asked Congress on Friday to quickly replenish disaster relief funds to help. Here are some of the biggest current issues in the Southeast:In North Carolina, an untold number of people are still missing.The remains of a home in Swannanoa, N.C.Loren Elliott for The New York TimesIn the western part of the state, many families’ greatest concern is their unaccounted loved ones. But looking for them in mountain-ringed towns and rugged ravines has been a daunting task for search teams, and the effort has been hampered by poor cell service and widespread power losses.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      More Than 400 Roads Closed in North Carolina After Damage From Helene

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      In addition to the power outages caused by Helene that have crippled the western part of North Carolina, swaths of roadways in the region were largely impassable on Saturday, prompting alerts from transportation officials that warned drivers to stay out of their vehicles.“The damage is so severe, we are telling drivers that unless it is an emergency, all roads in Western North Carolina should be considered closed,” Aaron Moody, a spokesman for the North Carolina Department of Transportation, said in an email.A photo released by the department showed a large section of roadway missing from a mountain pass.The department said that any civilian car on the road would hinder emergency responses. More than 400 roads were affected by the closure alert, including two major arteries for the region: Interstate 40 and Interstate 26, which Mr. Moody said were too damaged for cars to pass.Maria Whitehead, 51, was in Tennessee with her husband when Helene tore through Brevard, N.C., on Friday. Her two younger children were there, staying with Ms. Whitehead’s parents. After learning their children were safe, she and her husband embarked on a circuitous route on Saturday to find any way home.“We’ve studied the maps, we’ve got some local intel about a couple of routes that we can try tonight,” Ms. Whitehead said. “Otherwise, we’ll probably double back and stay with friends in Greenville, South Carolina, and try again tomorrow.”Landslides near Old Fort, N.C., about 20 miles east of Asheville, blocked off Interstate 40. A statement on Friday from the office of Gov. Roy Cooper said that people should shelter in place unless they were seeking higher ground.On Saturday night, the North Carolina Department of Transportation posted on X, with capitalization for emphasis: “We cannot say this enough: DO NOT TRAVEL IN OR TO WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA.” More

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      ‘I’m in Trouble Now’: North Carolinians Face Dangerous Floods From Helene

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      As the Swannanoa River swelled and overflowed from heavy rains brought by Helene, residents of Asheville, N.C., described moments of fear and anxiety amid dangerous flooding in their region.On Friday morning, Janetta Barfield, a 58-year-old nurse at a hospital in Asheville, managed to drive across a high bridge over the river after working a night shift. But then she was met with deep water on the other side of the bridge.She tried to drive through the road that had turned into a lake after seeing another car pass. “If he could do it, I could too,” she remembered thinking at the time.Instead, “I almost drowned,” she said in an interview on Friday — her S.U.V. stalled out, and water quickly seeped into her car and rose to her chest.“I’m in trouble now,” Mrs. Barfield thought to herself in the moment.As she sat in her car, a police officer “got me and pulled me across the water,” she said.After Mrs. Barfield was rescued, she walked down to the river’s edge three times to look for her car and saw box trucks, propane tanks and islands of trash floating in the water. But her S.U.V. was nowhere in sight.Across North Carolina, about 800,000 customers were without power Friday night, with the outages concentrated in western parts of the state. The Asheville Police Department put in place an overnight curfew until 7:30 a.m. on Saturday. The police did not immediately respond to requests for updates on damages and possible injuries or deaths.Asheville, a city of about 94,600, became something of a black hole for cell service on Friday. In the afternoon, about 50 people gathered by Buncombe County Public Library’s main branch in the city’s downtown to use its Wi-Fi.Miranda Escalante, a 38-year-old bartender, was there, trying to reach her family. She knew her sister in nearby Waynesville was safe, but couldn’t get in touch with her father in the community of Swannanoa, which also suffered from powerful floods.Not knowing how her father was faring was “very scary,” Ms. Escalante said. More