Superdome Suffers Blackout At Super Bowl XLVII

Super Bowl XLVII was halted for 34 minutes due to a power outage inside the Superdome in New Orleans, La.

The Baltimore Ravens were leading the San Francisco 49ers 28-6, when at the 13:22 mark of the 3rd quarter the majority of lights in the stadium went out. After the game in which Baltimore won 34-31, officials revealed that an "abnormality" in the power system triggered an automatic shutdown. There was no cause given for what triggered the shutdown. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, 52, described the incident as "an unfortunate moment in what has been an otherwise shining Super Bowl week for the city of New Orleans."

Fans watching the game on CBS had the time filled by sideline reporter Steve Tasker, for a short while. He then kicked it upstairs to The NFL Today host James Brown and analysts Dan Marino, Bill Cowher and Shannon Sharpe, who discussed the game up to that point.

Players on the field had to deal with the flow of the game being interrupted. Baltimore safety Ed Reed, 34, was just thirty minutes away from routing the 49ers when his team's momentum was stopped. "The bad part is we started talking about it," he said. "Some of the guys were saying, `They're trying to kill our momentum.' I was like, `There's two teams on the field.' But once we started talking about it, it happened. We talked it up." Baltimore quickly gave up 17 points when the game resumed in the third quarter.

For the Niners, the power outage turned out to not be a catalyst for the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history after all, but merely a footnote. "It just took us longer to lose," said San Francisco linebacker Ahmad Brooks, 28.

Watch a video of the lights going out below:

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