The Northeast: The Disaster That Wasn't

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utility-company employee. What is clear is that most of CANUSE's members were not able to quarantine themselves fast enough to save their own systems. Some utilities' officials argue that total quarantine is impossible, given 1) the obligations of a member to come to the aid of its pool, and 2) the speed at which a cascade travels. Nonetheless, Maine was the only New England state completely unaffected by the blackout. It was able to cut off its single, 115-kilovolt line to CANUSE in time. The Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland system escaped because its seven connections to CANUSE blew in time. Con Edison had no automatic cutoff system that protected it in the emergency.

Yet, in the view of many power experts, the problem goes far beyond breakaways, centering on the whole question of how to perfect the pool systems so that they can absorb major disturbances without being pulled down. Only two things seemed certain at week's end. It had been, as Texas' Democratic Representative Walter Rogers, chairman of the House Interior Committee's power subcommittee, wryly noted, "a hell of a flick." And it could well happen again.

Thin on Research? Thus, the blackout may have proved a timely warning. "Think what one Russian with a pair of pliers could do," mused Northern Ontario Natural Gas Co. Chairman C. Spencer Clark. To others, it was a reminder that bigger systems may invite bigger blackouts, unless they are made more reliable. The suspicion among many was that the utilities, in their increasing reliance on pools to meet the ever-rising U.S. demand for power—it has doubled in every recent decade—have cut themselves thin on research and development that might have prevented last week's debacle.

Predictably, the interconnection—or grid—system of itself came under fire. Whatever its virtues or failings, Vermont's Republican Senator George Aiken suggested, "we should construct our power system so that if one egg goes rotten, the others won't." Another clear lesson to many experts is that vast, interlocking grids need to be policed more closely. Under existing law, the Federal Power Commission is empowered only to regulate interstate wholesale electric-power rates, issue permits and licenses for hydroelectric power plants, and perform other bookkeeping chores. The power companies themselves decide what lines will be linked together and how.

Clearly, also, the grids need fail-safe mechanisms to ensure against massive, crippling interruptions of power. Texas' Representative Rogers, for one, envisions "a three-way buffer," consisting of a secondary system to take over if the primary power supply fails, and yet a third backup system in the unlikely event that the secondary supply fails.

As last week's near disaster demonstrated, it is up to man to protect himself not only against the mindless obedience of the machines he has created but also against the capricious disobedience of the energy that he has enslaved. Most Americans were shocked by the number of airports, subways, commuter trains, hospitals and highways that lack auxiliary power systems. Without such elementary precautions, another massive blackout, say in midwinter, could prove far more calamitous than "a hell of a flick." As it was, for most of those who slogged through it, memories of 1965's