Superdome Loses Power Mid-Super Bowl
In an incredibly high-profile snag in the midst of the country's most popular televised event, the Super Bowl was delayed in the third quarter Sunday by a power failure in half of New Orleans' Superdome.
Power was restored within about 35 minutes.
NFL officials asked players to stay on the field as the stadium tried to restore power. Lights gradually came back on, a few at a time, as Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers players stretched to try to stay loose.
Sideline reporter Steve Tasker informed viewers of the outage after a commercial break around 8:45 p.m. ET. He said it might be a few minutes before viewers would hear regular announcer Jim Nantz, because "half the power in New Orleans' stadium, the Super Dome here, is out."
He said the scoreboard and "almost a perfect semi-circle" of the lights around the stadium went dark. No one was reported injured.
The delay halted the momentum for the Ravens, who led the 49ers 28-6.
CBS's regular commentators were back on the team, dissecting the game, within minutes. They traded jokes about whether the outage was caused by Beyonce's light-filled halftime show or a "power surge" by the Ravens' offense.
More to come...
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