It Wasn't Beyonce: Super Bowl Outage Traced To Relay Failure
NEW ORLEANS (CNET) – Don't blame Beyonce for this one.
New Orleans utility company Entergy said today that the power outage at the Super Bowl was caused by a problem with an electrical relay device, not by the singer as many people have joked.
The device was specifically installed to protect the Superdome equipment in the event of a cable failure between the switchgear and the stadium. However, the relay, which has functioned fine at events like the New Orleans Bowl and Sugar Bowl, "triggered, signaling a switch to open when it should not have." That, in turn, caused the partial outage.
Entergy said it has removed the device and new replacement equipment is being evaluated.
A partial power outage at New Orleans' Superdome stopped Sunday's Super Bowl game early in the second half for about 34 minutes. The Baltimore Ravens ultimately defeated the San Francisco 49ers, 34 to 31. Various theories emerged about what caused the outage, including joking speculation that Beyonce's halftime show overwhelmed the stadium's systems.
