Inside the Ravens-49ers 2013 New Orleans Super Bowl blackout

Editor's note: This story was originally published on Nov. 7, 2022.

NEW ORLEANS -- There was fear about a terrorist attack, an anxious sprint down 280 feet of stairs and uncertainty about a mysterious guy in a dark uniform who questioned referees on the field about what's going to happen next.

Super Bowl XLVII was supposed to be remembered for being the first NFL championship game featuring brothers as opposing head coaches -- theBaltimore Ravens' John Harbaugh vs. theSan Francisco 49ers' Jim -- or for being the final game of Ray Lewis' Hall of Fame career, but that narrative changed about midway through in a most unexpected way.

"It was the Super Bowl where the lights went off," John Harbaugh said recently. "The night that the lights went out in New Orleans will be remembered forever."

The Superdome lost half of its lights for 34 minutes, although it seemed like an eternity for those who were there. Once power was restored, the 49ers narrowed a 22-point lead to two when Colin Kaepernick scored on a 15-yard run with 9:57 left in the fourth quarter. But the Ravens were able to hang on for a 34-31 victory.

On Monday night, the Ravens return to the Superdome, where they face the New Orleans Saints (8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN2), nearly 10 years after the league's most infamous power failure.

"We've never learned, we've never gotten back to why this happened," former Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs said during a recent team reunion. "But it don't matter, because we got the ring."

This was a Super Bowl unlike any other, featuring an impromptu game of freeze tag, a motivational speech inspired by a Marvin Gaye song and conspiracy theories.

"I had a lot of questions then. I have a lot of questions now," Lewis said Wednesday. "Every time I turn on my lights at night, I think about that. How did the lights go out in the Super Bowl?"

Here is the story of the night of Feb. 3, 2013, as told by the people who experienced it:

'This can't be happening'

The Ravens took a commanding 28-6 lead after Jacoby Jones' record-tying 108-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to open the second half. Three plays later, Baltimore defensive tackle Arthur Jones sacked Kaepernick to set up a third-and-long before the power outage occurred at 7:38 p.m. CT.

34 minutes in the dark

Over 71,000 fans waited inside the Superdome, where the escalators had stopped working, credit-card machines shut down and the concourses were illuminated only by a small bank of emergency lighting. And since the 49ers' locker room was on the west side of the stadium, which was the side affected by the blackout, they had to stay on the field, and that meant the Ravens were required to stay on the field, too.

I turned to Jerome and said, "Do you remember the movie 'Die Hard'? Remember the FBI guys that came into the scene and took charge?" ... I said, "That's Agent Johnson from 'Die Hard'!" I don't know if the word is concerned, but that would be highly unusual for us to be dealing with somebody in a so-called uniform.

Conspiracy theories abound

Over the years, Lewis, Suggs and Jones have said they don't believe the blackout was an accident. Lewis even brought it up during his Hall of Fame speech. Suggs has suggested Goodell wanted to stop Baltimore's momentum. Jones offered another theory based on an underdog Ravens team that was about to run away with the victory.

Praying for a quick second half

The power company, Entergy, replaced cables and the switch gear to the Superdome six months before the Super Bowl. But in the week leading up to the game, CBS experienced irregularities in the electrical current during pregame rehearsals. The lights in the upper bowl also went out for no apparent reason during Beyonce's rehearsal, which led to her show being put on a separate generator. Still, it didn't prevent the blackout.

Doug Thornton, facilities manager for the Superdome: When you're in the control center like that and something happens, you start getting all these calls. The elevators and concessions are down. The 49ers' locker room is dark because it's in the west side. Then we get a call coming in, both teams want to leave the field, but they can't. The 49ers can't leave, so we can't let the Ravens leave. And I really think to this day, that's one of the reasons people in the stadium remained so calm, is because both teams stayed on the field.

Thornton: We had to get a message down to the PA announcer. What was interesting is because we weren't running on generated power in that NFL control booth, we literally had to tear the sheet of paper out of the book and run it down to the PA announcer in the booth.

Thornton: So in replacing the switch gear, it's important the equipment be calibrated so that it doesn't falsely sense an overload. But the electrical equipment was never properly calibrated, either by the manufacturer of the equipment or the power company. This was determined after a weeks-long investigation. Of course, everybody thought the power went out in the Superdome, when in fact the power went out a quarter mile away from the Superdome outside the building. So even though it wasn't our fault, it became our problem.

Thornton: We ran down from the very top of the building. It was 280 feet from the top down to the bottom of the stadium. We took the stairs down. We didn't want to take the elevator or the escalator. We just ran down the steps as fast as we could to get to the engineering room. There were probably 20 people standing around the two switch gears and staring at them. We said, "Don't touch anything. Leave it the way it is." We were all nervous, hanging on through the third and fourth quarter.

Thornton: The Super Bowl was flawless up to that point. And to have something happen that's beyond your control and that's out literally outside the building a quarter mile away that you had no knowledge about, it just made me sick to my stomach. I was so angry for weeks. I went into a depressed state, just thinking what could we have done.

'Still get a little nervous'

After Kaepernick's touchdown run -- the longest for a QB in Super Bowl history -- narrowed the deficit to 31-29, the 49ers missed the 2-point conversion. Baltimore's Justin Tucker added a field goal, and the Ravens gave up a safety with four seconds remaining, setting up one last play. Baltimore needed special-teamer Josh Bynes to tackle 49ers returner Ted Ginn at midfield as time expired to seal the franchise's second Super Bowl title. Before the Ravens kicked to Ginn, Flacco was overheard joking with teammates that they should run from the sideline to tackle Ginn to keep him from scoring the winning touchdown.

I realize it's like they probably kind of knew, "Oh he's got to go talk to Jim." It's not like a normal coach. You're not going to go over [and] shake a coach's hand, "good game." I really actually felt for him and what he was going through, because we're brothers and we shared a room together for 17 years. We talk all the time. And so I had to kind of get my courage up to go over and say hi, and it was good, but he was disappointed.