Facts on the Blackout in the East

Experts Asking Why Problems Spread So Far

I woke up this morning to a flashing alarm clock. The power had gone out sometime this morning. This did remind me of the story I read last night at the NYT about the blackout on the east coast. It had more detail than any other story I've heard or read, and they still didn't know exactly what caused it. A very telling fact is that "this whole event was essentially a 9-second event, maybe 10." There was no time for people to keep the parts from working as they are supposed to in an energy grid.

The bottom line is that there will be a bunch of outrage at a system that worked like it was supposed to. Does that mean that a blackout over most of the north eastern seaboard is a good thing? Of course not. But the system did work as designed. If you want something else to happen, then maybe it is time for a new system. So while politicians will rail on and on about how "this was never supposed to happen again," you can at least be thankful that it will take days instead of months to fix the problem.