Power Outages Delay Steelers-49ers Game, Leave Fans In The Dark

A pair of power outages “struck Candlestick Park Monday night, causing delays for the 49ers and Steelers in their high-profile, nationally televised game,” according to CSNBAYAREA.com. The first "snafu occurred 20 minutes before" the scheduled 5:40pm PT kickoff; the second hit at approximately 6:42pm local time. In each case the stadium “was thrown into total darkness.” During the delay, suspended Steelers LB James Harrison tweeted, "If I cant play then can't nobody play... Lights out!" 49ers President & CEO Jed York tweeted, “Electric atmosphere tonight" (CSNBAYAREA.com, 12/19). The 49ers said that “off-site transformer problems may have caused that outage -- as well as another blackout later in the game.” In S.F., Al Saracevic in a front-page piece notes ESPN's aerial video “showed an explosion just outside of Candlestick right before the scheduled start, leaving the park in the dark and delaying the start of the game for nearly half an hour.” 49ers officials “asked the media to send out Twitter messages and e-mails to readers, hoping to inform the crowd about the problem and keep everyone calm.” Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which provides the electricity for the stadium, said that Candlestick “was the only customer affected by the power outage, but it wasn't sure of the cause.” All told, the start of the game “had been delayed 20 minutes,” and the second quarter “was delayed 16 minutes.” The NFL said that “if the game was unable to be completed, it would have been finished today, possibly even in Oakland.” NFL Senior VP/Government Affairs Jeff Miller said, "It was a good thing the emergency lights worked. And it was good that the 49ers had a good evacuation plan, just in case" (S.F. CHRONICLE, 12/20).

TAKING IT IN STRIDE: In San Jose, Mark Purdy writes when the entire stadium “was plunged into blackness, the crowd appeared to be largely peaceful.” And somewhat “remarkably, players and spectators took the interruptions in stride as the ESPN television crew scrambled to fill time, continuing to feature blimp shots of a black void where Candlestick was supposed to be.” 49ers Dir of Corporate Communications Steve Weakland at halftime said, "There are more questions than answers. We have asked PG&E to assure us and the NFL that this will not reoccur." Purdy writes whatever “spawned the darkness, the entire episode had to be an embarrassment for San Francisco civic officials, who failed in their attempts to convince the 49ers that the team should build a stadium in the abandoned Hunters Point shipyard just north of Candlestick.” South Bay officials “were quietly smiling” (SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, 12/20). ESPN's Mike Tirico noted Candlestick Park is one of the "oldest stadiums in the National Football League and there’s a lot of conversation going forward." Tirico: "As a matter a fact, we are very close to getting a shovel in the ground for the new stadium in Santa Clara.” He later said following the second outage, "Embarrassing night for the city of San Francisco and Candlestick Park.” ESPN's Chris Berman said at the beginning of halftime, “A little bit of embarrassment for what was supposed to be really a celebration of a return to prominence, if you will, of the San Francisco 49ers” (“Steelers-49ers,” ESPN, 12/19). The AP’s Janie McCauley writes "MNF" nearly became a "Monday Night Fiasco when everything went dark -- twice" (AP, 12/20). The Santa Rosa Press Democrat’s Phil Barber tweeted, “49ers fans finally know how it felt for Raiders fans: game was blacked out locally for a while” (TWITTER.com, 12/19).