Cities affected include New York; Boston, Massachusetts; Cleveland, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Toronto and Ottawa, Canada. The power outage occurred shortly after 4 p.m.
State officials said the Niagara-Mohawk power grid was overloaded. The grid provides power for New York and stretches into Canada. The officials said the outage is a natural occurrence and not related to terrorism.
Much of Midtown Manhattan and Wall Street was shut down. All area airports and the Long Island Railroad were also affected.
The Federal Aviation Administration grounded planes at all three New York area airports because the blackout affected security screening facilities. The FAA reported planes also were grounded at the Toronto airport. The airports were operating on backup power, officials said.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg confirmed the outage was not related to terrorism or an accident.
"The good news is, Con Ed's facilities have shut down automatically, which they're programmed to do," he said. "No damage was done to the Con-Ed facility."
Bloomberg said it was unknown how long the outage may last.
Thousands of people could be seen leaving buildings and walking into the streets. New York subways were reported stopped and people were trapped in the cars.
"We are going to have a situation where people are going to have to walk a long distance. They need to be careful," Bloomberg said. "Our advice is to go home, open up your windows, drink a lot of liquids."
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