About 250 miles southeast of WKAR's studio in East Lansing is the town of Eastlake, Ohio. Ten years ago, an electric generation plant in that small Cleveland suburb went offline, triggering the largest power outage in U.S. history. The Northeast Blackout of 2003 affected 10 million people in Canada and 45 million Americans. Here in Michigan, more than two million homes and businesses went dark, mostly in metro Detroit.
Since then, many electricity providers across the country have invested in their own systems...including Consumers Energy, based in Jackson. Here to talk about the lessons learned from the great Northeast Blackout of 2003 is Garrick Rochow vice-president of energy delivery for Consumers Energy.