[6] Others incorrectly considered the intense auroras to be associated with the Space Shuttle mission STS-29, which had been launched on March 13 at 9:57:00 a.m.[7] The storm caused significant interference to the United States power grid.

[citation needed] As midnight came and went, a mass of charged particles and electrons in the ionosphere flowed from west to east, inducing powerful electrical currents in the ground.

[13] The power failure lasted nine hours and forced the company to implement various mitigation strategies, including raising the trip level, installing series compensation on ultra high voltage lines and upgrading various monitoring and operational procedures.

Other utilities in North America and Northern Europe and elsewhere implemented programs to reduce the risks associated with geomagnetically induced currents (GICs).

[12] One of the few publicly reported military operations impacted was the Australian Army component of the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force which was deployed to Namibia at the time.

[14][15] On August 16, 1989,[16] another storm caused a halt of all trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange when three redundant disc drives all failed.

[18][19] After a technical conference and public comment, the final rule utilities must use for testing equipment and directing future research was published in September, 2016.