Northeast blackout of 1965

The Northeast Blackout of 1965 was a significant disruption in the supply of electricity on November 9, 1965, affecting Ontario, Canada and Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, and New Jersey in the United States. Around 25 million people and 80,000 square miles (207,000 km²) were left without electricity for up to twelve hours.

Cause

The cause of the failure originated at the Niagara generating station Sir Adam Beck Station No. 2 in Queenston, Ontario. As was common on a cold November evening power for heating, lighting and cooking was pushing the system to its peak capacity. At 5:16 p.m. Eastern Time a small surge of power coming from Lewiston, New York's Robert Moses generating plant tripped a misset relay (designed to prevent the line from being overloaded) disabling a main power line heading into Southern Ontario at far below the line's rated capacity. Within seconds the other lines heading north out of the plant were overloaded by the extra power flowing into them and their relays also tripped, isolating Adam Beck from all of Southern Ontario. The excess power from Beck then headed into the interconnected lines heading south into New York State, overloading them as well and isolating the power generated in the Niagara region from the rest of the interconnected grid. The generators, with no outlet for their power, were automatically shut down to prevent damage. Within five minutes the power distribution system in the northeast was in chaos as the effects of overloads and loss of generating capacity cascaded through the network, breaking it up into "islands"; plant after plant experienced load imbalances and automatically shut down. The affected power areas were the Ontario Hydro System, St Lawrence-Oswego, Western New York and Eastern New York-New England. Maine, with only limited electrical connection southwards, was not affected.

Effect and aftermath

Power resupply was uneven. New York City was dark by 5:27. Parts of Brooklyn were repowered by 11:00, the rest of the borough by midnight. However, the entire city was not returned to normal power supply until nearly 7:00 a.m., November 10.

The blackout was not universal in the city. Some neighborhoods never lost power.

Following the blackout, measures were undertaken to try to prevent a repetition. Reliability councils were formed to establish standards, share information, and improve coordination between electricity providers. Ten councils were created covering the four networks of the North American Interconnected Systems. The Northeast Reliability Council covered the area affected by the 1965 blackout.

Popular culture

The events of the blackout were dramatized in the 1968 film Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?.

The blackout also helped inspire an episode of the American television series Bewitched. The episode, titled "The Short Happy Circuit of Aunt Clara," featured Aunt Clara attempting a spell to put out some lighted candles which inadvertently put out all the lights on the Eastern Seaboard. The episode was first broadcast on November 10, 1966.

The blackout is also featured in an episode of Quantum Leap ("Double Identity -- November 8, 1965"). In an effort to return to the future, Sam sets in motion fictional events that trigger the blackout.

The blackout is also featured (and parodied) in an episode of "Green Acres" in the first season episode entitled, "Double Drick" on 3/23/1966.

The myth of the blackout baby boom

A thriving urban legend arose in the wake of the Northeast blackout of 1965, in which it is told that a peak in the birthrate of the blackout areas was observed nine months after the incident. The origin of the myth is a series of three articles published in August 1966 in the New York Times, in which interviewed doctors told that they had noticed an increased number of births.

The story was debunked in 1970 by J. Richard Udry, a demographer from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who did a careful statistical study that found no increase in the birthrate of the affected areas.

See also

• List of power outages
• The cause and effects of this event were dramatised the Connections (TV series), by James Burke (Episode 1, "The Trigger Effect").

References

• Damien Cave, Imaginary infants as beacons of hope, 10/15/01, Salon.com, online