Bono Mack Calls For Details Of Outage

Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Palm Springs, called on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission today for a detailed explanation of the reason behind a power outage that left 5 million people in the dark.

The Sept. 8 outage, which was caused by a series of errors at a substation in Arizona, left residents in that state, as well as Southern California, New Mexico and Northern Baja Mexico without electricity, including .

Bono Mack addressed a letter Monday to FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff.

"I hope you will provide me with a full analysis of this unfortunate event. Specifically I’d like to learn how this could happen, and what safeguards are necessary to prevent similar cascading blackouts in the future,'' Bono Mack wrote.

The congresswoman said her concern is to find ways to "best protect our nation’s critical infrastructure."