Halftime show not to blame for power outage
NEW ORLEANS -- Beyonce put on an electric halftime at Super Bowl XLVII, but she did not knock out power to the Superdome.
The halftime show ran on its own generator and the stadium actually saw a reduction in power usage during Beyonce's set, according to SMG CEO and Senior Vice President Doug Thornton.
"The halftime show was running on 100 percent generated power. That means it was not on our power grid at all," said Thornton. "As a matter of fact, during the half time show, we were metering the amperage as we normally do and we had a drop in the amperage used because our house lights went down and we went to a dark house and there was no correlation that we can make with the halftime show because it was on 100 percent generated power."
The root cause of the "interruption in service" that caused a 34-minute delay during the third quarter Sunday is still under investigation, but only one minor injury has been reported thus far due to an escalator that stopped working during the blackout.
Thornton said the system actually worked as it was intended. A piece of equipment sensed a potential issue and cut power to part of the stadium to isolate it. The lengthy delay was due to the power grid needing to be de-energized and rebooted to bring power back to phone lines, headsets and other power sources.
He added that a fire alarm that went off in the press box shortly before the outage was not related to the blackout.
"It was a piece of equipment that did its job," said Thornton. "These are things that we drill for.
"It's an unfortunate circumstance during what had been such a great week to that point."
And that's the root cause of the question facing the NFL and New Orleans. By all accounts, the city had pitched a near perfect game all week to that point, only to have the power outage cast a pall over New Orleans' ability to land future Super Bowls.
"The most important thing is to understand it was a fantastic week here. This will not affect how people in the NFL view the week here in New Orleans," commissioner Roger Goodell said. "We know they have an interest in future Super Bowls. I don't think it will have any impact at all what will be remembered as a great week.
"I fully expect to be back here ... we want to be back here."
That's all well and good less than 24 hours after the event, but the fact is the Superdome is a 37-year-old building. Turner said the city has spent millions of dollars upgrading systems inside the Superdome, including the power grid.
"I think it's premature," he said when asked if the city, which also hosts the Sugar Bowl every year, needs to consider looking into a new facility. "We need to analyze what happened here. These are fixable problems.
Part of the stress now falls to New Jersey governor Chris Christie, whose state will play host to the 2014 Super Bowl at MetLife Stadium. Christie was in Goodell's suite when the power shut down Sunday.
"Yes, we've already had that conversation," Goodell said. "He's hard at work on that already."
The San Francisco 49ers staged a furious comeback after play resumed, reeling off 17 consecutive points. Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh didn't attribute the rally to the lengthy delay.
"I don't think it had anything to do with the lights. I think we made some mistakes mentally," Harbaugh said. "Their offense caught fire, which they're fully capable of doing.
"It probably gave them an opportunity to get their balance. But I'm not sure it would have taken that. There was really no doubt in my mind that they were going to do that at some point -- that they were going to start throwing counterpunches. They were throwing some haymakers at us, and they did a great job of that.
"I'm just proud that our team responded the way that it did."
