New Orleans may be tempting fate.
Entergy, the power company based in New Orleans and at least partly responsible for the incident, is not hiding in shame. In fact, Entergy is a founding partner of the New Orleans Super Bowl Host Committee.
“The issue that caused the partial power outage at the beginning of the second half of Super Bowl XLVII was addressed in 2013 and the necessary repairs and upgrades were made at that time,’’ Entergy said in a statement recently provided to USA TODAY Sports. ”We discontinued using the protection relay equipment that led to the partial outage.’’
The whereabouts of the offending relay equipment is not publicly known and it is not available for public inspection. It was ‘decommissioned and taken out of service in 2013,” Entergy told USA TODAY Sports. Could that be fodder for Ray Lewis, the Hall of Fame linebacker?
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At the 2013 Super Bowl, Lewis helped the Baltimore Ravens stave off the San Francisco 49ers, who rallied after power was restored before the Ravens prevailed 34-31.
‘I’m not gonna accuse nobody of nothing — because I don’t know facts,’ Lewis said after that game, his second Super Bowl win. ‘But you’re a zillion-dollar company, and your lights go out? No. (Laughs). No way.’’
Lewis did not respond to USA TODAY Sports’ request for comment before Super Bowl 59.
Ray Lewis conspiracy theory: Does anyone believe him?
After the 2013 Super Bowl, Lewis expounded on his theory about why the power went out with 13:22 left in the third quarter and the Ravens leading, 28-6.
‘Now listen, if you grew up like I grew up — and you grew up in a household like I grew up — then sometimes your lights might go out, because times get hard. I understand that,’’ he said. “But you cannot tell me somebody wasn’t sitting there and when they say, ‘The Ravens (are) about to blow them out. Man, we better do something.’ … That’s a huge shift in any game, in all seriousness. And as you see how huge it was because it let them right back in the game.’
But Torrey Smith, a retired receiver who had two catches for 35 yards for the Ravens that night, said beliefs among NFL players are not always grounded in fact.
“You think about guys on the team, some of the guys believe the earth is flat,’’ Smith told USA TODAY Sports. “So I mean, you’re going to hear some crazy things at all times, especially when it happens in that type of moment.’’
On second thought, the power went out less than two minutes after Ravens speedster Jacoby Jones opened the second half with a 108-yard kickoff return.
Said Smith, “I mean, no one had been in a stadium where the power went out and then you have this crazy momentum and literally Beyoncé just performed (during the halftime show). And the thing that I always remember was Jacoby saying, man, this place didn’t even lose power when (Hurricane) Katrina hit. And that stuff was, I was like, oh, you do have a point.’’
And the 49ers?
‘We weren’t tripping,” said Frank Gore, who had 110 yards rushing and a touchdown for San Francisco that night.
What does Entergy say about the power outage?
ASM Global, the company that manages the SuperDome, and the Super Bowl Host Committee referred questions about the power outage to Entergy, which provided written statements.
One says, “Entergy New Orleans has worked closely with Caesars Superdome officials to install significant upgrades and additional redundancy to the stadium’s electrical and lighting systems.’’
In 2013, Entergy and other officials blamed the power outage on ‘an abnormality” that resulted in an automatic shutdown, partially cutting power. The lights went out on the side of the stadium where the San Francisco 49ers bench, TV and radio booths and press box are located. Backup generators kicked in before the power was restored, leaving some light in the stadium.
Later, Entergy announced a third party would be hired to conduct an assessment of the cause of the power outage.
As evidence of success, Entergy cited high-profile events held at the Superdome during a 12-year run without power outages. Those include the College Football Playoff, the men’s Final Four, WrestleMania, three nights of Taylor Swift concerts and, interestingly enough, a Beyoncé concert.
Beyoncé’s performance, coupled with Destiny’s Child members Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams at halftime of the 2013 Super Bowl, at the time fueled speculation that her powerful production resulted in the power outage.
Entergy has given no credence to that theory – or to any fear that a power outage could disrupt Super Bowl 59, where Kendrick Lamar is scheduled to perform.
“Entergy is prepared to deliver power to the Superdome and the entire city of New Orleans during Super Bowl LIX weekend,’’ the company said in a statement. “Entergy’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel Marcus Brown is the chair of the New Orleans Super Bowl LIX Host Committee, and Entergy’s teams have been working closely with the Host Committee, Caesars Superdome officials and city officials for over a year now.’’
Power outage sparked fear
On the radio broadcast for the 2013 Super Bowl, Kevin Harlan was doing the play-by-play and Boomer Esiason, the former Cincinnati Bengals quarterback, was doing the color commentary.
“He had this look on his face when the lights went out,’’ Harlan told USA TODAY Sports in a recent interview.
According to Harlan, Esiason’s concern stemmed from the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. An office for The Boomer Esiason Foundation on the 101st floor of the Trade Center’s North Tower was empty when the two airplanes hijacked by terrorists crashed into the twin towers.
The possibility that a terrorist attack caused the power outage also was a concern in the NFL control room, according to Frank Supovitz, then the NFL’s senior vice president of events.
“The law enforcement team that was up there, the security team that was up there, we’re looking after that question,’’ Supovitz said. “Did we have a terror attack? Was it a cyber terror attack? Was there a fire? Was there any danger to public safety?
“And happily, the answer to that was very quickly determined to be no.’’
Thanks to backup landline phones, Harlan said, he and Esiason were able to deliver the news to the radio audience.
“Now that I’m going over it, in my mind, I wouldn’t be lying if I said I wasn’t shaken by his reaction,’’ Harlan said of Esiason.
What happened on the Superdome field?
Steve Stelljes, the head linesman on the officiating crew at the 2013 Super Bowl, said he was on the Ravens sideline when the power went out. He recalled an exchange with head coach John Harbaugh.
“He comes over to me and he says, ‘What are you going to do about this?’ ” Stelljes said. “And I go, ‘Well, John, it’s real simple. I’m going to sit down and let the experts take care of it.’ ”
Whereupon Stelljes sat down, according to the linesman.
Solomon Wilcots, a sideline reporter for the TV broadcast, also said he interacted with Harbaugh as the players tried to stay loose. He said he pointed across the field at Harbaugh’s brother, Jim, then the head coach for the 49ers.
“I said, ‘Look at him. He’s got his guys over there, man. You better get your guys together and talk to ’em about what to anticipate when this game resumes,’ “ Wilcots said.
It was too late.
When the game resumed, the 49ers were rolling.
“I look back on it from a sports science standpoint now, for what I know now and didn’t know then,” John Harbaugh told USA TODAY Sports. “We didn’t get our guys ready the right way. We did some static stretching, rather than dynamic stretching. Now I’ve learned since then because the science has gotten better. But we didn’t warm our guys up the right way. And I think it hurt us. I don’t know if that’s why we sucked for the next 15 minutes.”
The 49ers pulled within two points in the fourth quarter, and the Ravens weren’t the only ones on edge.
Up in the NFL control room, Supovitz said, he braced for another possible power outage.
“It was like, ‘Clock, tick as fast as possible so we don’t experience this again,’ “ Supovitz said.
As Super Bowl 59 approaches, the clock is ticking again.