US - Florida hit by power outages

A major transmission line has failed in Florida causing massive power outages for thousands of people. WPLG Miami reports that 680,000 people have lost power while CNN (domestic) have said that up to 4 million people had been affected across the entire state. There are severe traffic problems compounded by the failure of traffic lights. The outage hit Miami and surrounding areas at 13:04 local time [18:04 UTC]. A spokeman from Florida Power & Light said that the cause of the outage was not yet clear and power may take some hours to restore. In 2005 over 6 million lost power after hurricane Wilma hit Florida and some remained without power for several weeks.

According to some reports the outage may have been triggered after a reactor at Turkey Point nuclear power station was shutdown for safety reasons. Other reports say that the power station was shutdown because of the power outages [Reuters]. Nuclear power plants require off site power supplies in case of emergencies. As such it may well have been a precaution to shut down the plant after power failures started to occur elsewhere.