iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — The Statue of Liberty’s bright lights went largely dark for several hours Tuesday night.
The famed statue was temporarily the victim of what officials called an unplanned power failure, before eventually regaining illumination shortly before midnight.
But while the cause of the outage was initially unclear, many on social media speculated that there was a connection between the darkness and Wednesday’s International Women’s Day, on which organizers have planned a large “A Day Without a Woman” protest against gender inequality.
Lights back on at Statue of Liberty after what the National Park Service says was a "temporary, unplanned outage." https://t.co/39ZNj6HiYi pic.twitter.com/5uhhPEg7Ni
— ABC News (@ABC) March 8, 2017
Women’s March, the coordinating organization for the national day of action, relished the symbolism by tweeting, “Thank you Lady Liberty for standing with the resistance and going dark for #DayWithoutAWoman.”
Thank you Lady Liberty for standing with the resistance and going dark for #DayWithoutAWoman ????
????: @randybals #StatueOfLiberty pic.twitter.com/D0JG9MmSRj
— Women's March (@womensmarch) March 8, 2017
Others followed suit on social media.
I'm sitting with @TamikaDMallory and just heard that #LadyLiberty went dark for #DayWithoutAWoman @womensmarch #IStrikeFor
— Carmen Perez (@msladyjustice1) March 8, 2017
But the National Park Service, which administers the famous landmark, said in a statement that “a portion of the lighting system that illuminates the Statue of Liberty experienced a temporary, unplanned outage tonight.” The statement added the outage “was most likely due to work related to an ongoing project to activate a new emergency backup generator that is part of our last remaining Hurricane Sandy recovery projects.”
The park service said they would be able to confirm the exact cause on Wednesday morning.
Some lights on the Statue were temporarily off tonight. Likely related to new emergency generator/Hurricane Sandy recovery project work.
— Statue of Liberty NM (@StatueEllisNPS) March 8, 2017
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