New York, Aug 16: The biggest blackout in US history couldn't silence the opening bell on Wall Street on Friday, but business owners from Manhattan through the Midwest still worried about technical glitches and more outages on Friday. Even as mayor Michael Bloomberg was ringing the 9:30 am opening bell above the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, phone service remained out at some companies, and many employers were advising workers to stay home. In New York, the subways still weren't running for the morning rush, and some commuter rail lines were also shut down.
Boris Kozak, a stock broker with A.G. Wellington, waited early Friday to get into his office building across from the New York Stock Exchange. He expected only two or three of his 16 employees to show up for work.
"I'd like it to be normal day but unfortunately that's not possible," he said.
The power went out in New York and parts of Canada and the upper Midwest soon after 4 pm on Thursday, moments after New York's financial exchanges closed for the day. But countless other businesses were forced to lock up early.
From Wal-Mart stores in Canada to gas stations in Ohio, the blackout crippled retailers. Phone lines were overloaded, ATMs didn't work in affected areas and power outages at nearly a dozen airports plunged the nation's air travel into disarray.
Much of North America's automotive manufacturing was paralysed as plants lay idle Friday morning. More than 35 assembly and other plants operated by General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor, the world's two largest automakers, were affected by the cascading blackout, and factories run by DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group and Honda Motor also were idle.

GM's towering world headquarters in downtown Detroit was dark on Friday morning, and spokesman Pat Morrissey said more than a dozen of its plants were closed, and only skilled trades and maintenance personnel were reporting for the first shift. No decision had been made on the second.
"We'll reassess and determine our next step as the day goes on," said Ford spokesman Ed Lewis.
The American Stock Exchange, NYSE and Nasdaq reported minimal interruption after the close of trading. All had backup power generators, and the power was restored to Wall Street after 6 am Trading at the American Stock Exchange was delayed because the trading floor wasn't air conditioned, but Nasdaq was open.
"We have not received reports of major disruptions," at banks or other financial institutions, said US Treasury Department spokesman Rob Nichols. Bureau Report