After a series of four power cable failures, on 20 February 1998 Mercury Energy Ltd., the major distributor and retailer of electrical power to the city of Auckland, New Zealand, announced that it could no longer supply power to the central business district. The power crisis that followed lasted for more than five weeks and power supply was unstable well into May 1998. The Swedish Agency for Civil Emergency Planning ((5CB) commissioned the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) to study the Auckland power crisis. In this report we are giving an account of what consequences a power failure in an urban setting can cause. We also describe how different local actors managed the crisis, and present lessons that could be learned from the Auckland power crisis.