My hosting company is in Michigan, so I assume it is running on backup power. The entire Niagara grid appears to have crashed around 4:15PM EST. The current theory is that a ripple effect from a ConEd power plant fire is the cause.

NEW YORK (AP) - A huge power blackout hit U.S. and Canadian cities Thursday, driving workers in New York and Toronto into the streets, shutting subways in blistering heat and closing four nuclear power plants in Ohio and New York state.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said there was no evidence of terrorism as a cause. "Probably a natural occurrence which disrupted the power system up there," he said, referring to a power grid based in the Niagara Falls area.

The FBI was checking into the extraordinary outages but had no immediate information about the cause, said spokesman Bill Carter in Washington. Blackouts stretched from New York City as far west as Detroit, at least.