Investigators say Superbowl blackout likely caused by overdue Entergy bill, Gregg Williams, or alcoholBy Damian Tatum
Levee Outage Outrage WriterA team of electrical and civil engineers tasked to investigate the 35-minute power outage that interrupted the globally-televised Superbowl have determined the embarrassing blackout was caused either by a bill dispute with Entergy, sabotage by former Saints Defensive Coordinator Gregg Williams, or massive drinking by fans.
Doug Thornton, senior vice president of SMG, which manages the Superdome, said Monday that all three theories had strong evidence supporting them, but the investigation will not rest until the truth is determined.
“It’s true that we were almost 25 days late in paying our electric bill. It is also true that Superdome Operations Manager Chad Wilken was overheard during halftime attempting to pay the $204,001.29 bill over the phone with Tom Benson’s Black Card. But we have not yet confirmed that Entergy dispatched a worker to shut the Dome down,” Thornton said.
“We aren’t pointing fingers. We just aren’t sure. Of course, Entergy is SUPPOSED to give you a 28 day grace period,” he added, pointing reporters to the clearly highlighted “Past Due” date of February 6 on the stadium’s power bill.
Entergy spokeswoman Yolanda Pollard said Thornton’s theory is unlikely, since Entergy has never been known to send anyone anywhere ahead of schedule.
“If they had three days left to pay, we wouldn’t have shown up until April. Maybe. As it was, it took 35 minutes to turn the power back on when we noticed it was shut off. The worker was on break,” Pollard said.
She said Entergy’s most likely theory involved security camera footage showing a suspicious, pudgy figure wearing a windbreaker and Saints visor entering the substation adjacent to the Dome moments before the blackout occurred.
“After the power went out, the figure crept onto West Stadium Drive, checked his phone, and then did 40 celebratory up-downs. We’ll let you draw your own conclusions,” she said.
Pollard helpfully noted that Superbowl attendees were able to see that the game had lost power if they had installed the Entergy smartphone app.
“It’s free for iPhone and Android, and will tell you absolutely nothing while your precious battery drains away,” Pollard said.
“Both those theories are plausible,” said James Brandi, a master electrician heading the team contracted by the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District to get to the bottom of the fiasco.
But in fact, Brandi said, the Superdome had just paid to install expensive new equipment to prevent just such an outage from occurring.
“Are we really supposed to believe that an oversight on payment or a security lapse caused millions of dollars’ worth of state-of-the-art electrical equipment to shut off like the lights on an Endymion float?” Brandi asked.
“Instead, it’s more useful to ask what you really remember about that night. How much had you had to drink? Do you really remember the lights going out, or did everything go dark for a while?
“And do you remember the lights coming back on, or did you suddenly just wake up and discover the game was playing?”
Brandi said hard engineering evidence proves all 70,000 people in the Superdome, and hundreds of millions more around the city and world, simply blacked out from the quantity of beer, nachos, wings, pizza, shots, chips and dip they had consumed during the Superbowl festivities.
“This wasn’t an engineering failure,” Brandi said. “It was just the natural result of the greatest party in the history of Western Civilization.”
“Best Superbowl EVER,” he added.
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