as dusk fell there was about to be the largest black out in the history of
New York State.
All of New York State was affected as were areas in seven neighbouring states
and parts of Eastern Canada.
the
sequence
It begins at 5:16 with a 230-kilovolt transmission line close to Ontario, Canada
tripping.
This starts a sequence of events as overloaded lines begin to fail and a cascade
failure begins to overwhelm the system.
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Thousands of people are trapped in office
lifts. |
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Thousands of people are trapped in office lifts, buildings and trains (some
estimated 800,000 trapped in the subways) as they were making their way back
home from a long days work.
In the Pan-Am building (the largest office structure at the time) drastic measures
had to be taken to get passengers out of the lift system.
14 passengers were trapped in three lifts and at 11pm workmen had to cut out
a section of the wall to free five people trapped. A similar procedure was needed
to reach the other 9.
In all some 30 million people are affected by the blackout.
Planes found they had to circle overhead unable to land.
These had to be diverted to other areas sending tens of thousands of airline
passengers in directions they had not intended.
restoring
power
Although after a few hours most of the power was restored the situation was
problematic enough in some areas that food had to be taken to some subways where
an estimated 10,000 people remained trapped for longer periods of time.
The restoration of power was not easy as the first areas to be hooked back
up at 9pm were overloaded once more within 10 minutes.
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50,000 off-duty policeman were called
up to held keep order. |
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50,000 off-duty policeman were called up to held keep order along with some
10,000 National Guardsmen just in New York State.
The Fire Department radio's system failed between 5:30 and 8:30 and had to
keep in touch by telephone in most instances and walkie-talkie in some.
During this time Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn remained illuminated as
they were interconnected with the Public Service Electric and Gas Company of
New Jersey.
It had been the Consolidated Edison System which had collapsed.
isolation
policy
It was the inter-connectivity of the system which made the cascade affect possible
and once this was understood companies moved to isolate themselves from the
system and get their own piece of the grid up and running.
The Govt. owned Ontario Hydro Electric Commission isolated itself and got power
back to its 6 million users at 6:15pm.
The Ravenswood plant in Queens which provided 1.8million kilowatts of energy
(out of a total of 7.6million produced by the Consolidated Edison plants) began
to build up steam, as it fired up the auxiliary system for powering the generators.
role
of radio
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...appeals for New Yorkers to shut off
all appliances but their radio sets. |
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All through the night Consolidated Edison broadcast appeals for New Yorkers
to shut off all appliances but their radio sets as they struggled to restore
and maintain the power structure and get ready for the morning rush hour.
Initially the radio stations had been blacked out but at least 8 managed to
get back onto the air with their own auxiliary power within a quarter of an
hour, although with much reduced power.
All nine of the television stations were taken off the air.
There were a reported five arrests for looting. There was also some vandalism
but generally it seems the sort of chaos such an event would bring today did
not occur.
