The Nation: WHY THE LIGHTS WENT OUT

How could a power system that many people thought was made fail-safe after the Northeast's great 1965 blackout plunge New York City into helpless darkness once again? It may take months of investigation to get the complete answer. But at week's end, an outline of the falling-domino sequence of failures that led to the total collapse had begun to emerge.

Like other major utilities in the U.S. and Canada, New York's embattled Consolidated Edison Co. (see ECONOMY & BUSINESS) not only has its own electrical generating plants but is plugged into a larger regional...

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