A safer, smarter grid
THE THREAT OF CYBERATTACK CALLS FOR A MANUAL BACKUP
UNLESS YOU THINK TREES ARE secretly waging war on humans, the great Northeastern blackout of Aug. 14, 2003, wasn’t caused by an attack. When a transmission line in northern Ohio began to sag because of the intense summer heat, it tangled with the branches of a nearby tree, causing the wire to trip offline. One thing led to another in a perfect storm of equipment and human failure, and in barely four hours, more than 50 million people in the northeastern U.S. and Canada had lost power, including New York City. Power wasn’t fully restored for days, and the blackout, the
