Power outage stops Super Bowl for 34 minutes - WCIV-TV | ABC News 4 - Charleston News, Sports, Weather

Power outage stops Super Bowl for 34 minutes

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Authorities have ruled out terrorism and dismissed reports of a fire as a cause for the power outage at the Superdome that delayed the Super Bowl for 34 minutes.

FBI Special Agent Michael Anderson said terrorism was not the cause of Sunday night's outage.

In addition, New Orleans Fire Department spokesman Michael Williams said no fire was reported before, during or after the power outage at the Superdome.

Officials of the utility company supplying power to the Superdome say the Super Bowl outage occurred when sensing equipment detected an "abnormality" in the system.

A statement from Entergy and the Superdome said Sunday that a piece of equipment monitoring electrical load sensed the abnormality and opened a breaker, partially cutting power.

The statement said backup generators kicked in before full power could be restored.