THE breakdown did not come all at oncenot like the cataclysmic nightfall that blacked out New York and most of the Northeast in 1965but it was no less eerie. House lights went out; furnaces sputtered and cooled; auto traffic jammed up at darkened intersections. Dog races were canceled because the electric rabbits would no longer run. Factories shifted to a four-day week, then a three-day week, laying off 1.6 million employees. Only the most essential services operated full timehospitals, water and sewage plantsand nobody knew how long they could continue.
A scenario for...