INDEPTH: POWER OUTAGE
Blackouts hit in 1965, 1977
Robin
Rowland, CBC News Online | August 14, 2003
The northeastern part of North America has been plunged into
darkness twice before, in 1965 and 1977.
The great blackout of 1965 began at 5:16 p.m. on November 9,
1965 at Niagara Falls, Ontario. By 5:27 when the lights went
out in New York, 30 million people in Canada and the northeastern
United States were without power. The blackout covered 207,000
square kilometers and lasted more than 13 hours.
That blackout was blamed on the failure of a power relay at
the Sir Adam Beck Station No. 2 in Niagara Falls.
A later investigation showed that the relay was set too low
to handle the power going along five lines into Ontario. When
the relay failed, it then overloaded a power station in Massena,
New York, which then cascaded through the rest of the northeast.
Power was restored to some areas by 11 p.m. that evening, more
by 2.a.m. the next morning and all power was restored by 6:30
that morning.
CBC.ca's Martin O'Malley tells The Current about his memories of the blackout of 1965. (Runs 8:13)
On As It Happens Bill Cameron talks to Jim Sparrow of George Mason University who has studied the blackouts.(Runs 8:13)
On July 13, 1977, lightning struck the Indian Point Power
generating station in the New York suburb of Westchester at
8:37 p.m. Again there was a cascading power failure, with
much of New York and its suburbs dark by 9:41 p.m.
Although the 1965 blackout had been largely peaceful, the
1977 New York blackout was marred by rioting and looting.
Firefighters had to fight 1,037 fires and respond to 1,700
false alarms. About 3,500 people were arrested.
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