Did anyone else see show on history channel, last night monterybay area? Blackouts in Ney York City, '65 and '77. '65 caused by one switch,installed wrong...800,000 people stuck in subway. '77 caused by electrical storm....rioting and lotting within hours. Glad I am not in big city.

-- me (me@monterybay.com), November 07, 1999

Answers

I don't have a source for it handy, but I remember reading that only DAYS BEFORE the NYC '77 blackout, some bigwig for the power industry was swearing before a committee that nothing like the '65 blackout could EVER happen again, that cascading failures were a thing of the past due to new improved technology, etc., etc.

Yeah, right, and Y2K will just be a bump in the road....

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), November 07, 1999.

Me-

I saw it last night, it was a little spooky to watch. The part I really remember was that a large percentage of cops didn't show up for duty. I can't remember if thay said why that was, or if they tried to figure out why. My guess is that their families came first. The looying started almost immediately, and didn't end when daylight came. The fabric of society is exceedingly thin......

-- cavscout (time@is.short), November 07, 1999.

The "Fabric of Society" is an idea that exists in peoples minds only.

-- Earl (earl.shuholm@worldnet.att.net), November 07, 1999.

I also saw a show on the History channel once about the Johnstown Flood. Some one rushed down to the valley, where the town was, to warn them that the dam had developed cracks, and that it might burst. No one in the town budged. The damn had been fine for 100 years. Nothing could go wrong. A lifetime of no problems with that dam - they had developed complacency. Later that day,..when the dam broke, they all died. It was a chilling lesson on being complacent I think.

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), November 07, 1999.

I saw this too on the History channel last night. Found it eerie and scary. My husband pointed out, correctly, that this happened first of all in the summer, when people are far more likely to riot and loot. (Hot weather tends to make people crankier, I guess.) Also, as they stressed in the program, unlike the outage in 65, this one came during a particularly stressful summer in which the "Son of Sam" was still loose, killing people, the economy was sh*t,etc. Tensions were running high anyway, and this was the spark in the wagonload of hay. It DID bother me, though, that all that happened in just 26 hours of no electricity. Lemme say that again: JUST 26 HOURS OF THE POWER BEING OUT. THAT part scared me.

-- preparing (preparing@home.com), November 07, 1999.

Unfortunately, preparing, one must also extrapolate for "changin' times". The 1965 blackout was essentially violence-free, news articles even reported that New Yorkers -- in spite of their reputation -- lent helping hands during the crisis. 1977 was, of course, a different story.

I don't think that major cities today would be any better than 1977; in fact, I would think that the tendency towards problems would be much, much worse. And, unfortunately, without electricity and in the midst of a cold winter, certainly starting fires to keep warm would not be out of the question. Fires could easily then spread, accidentally or otherwise.

Just my two cents, pure (hopefully wrong) speculation....

54 days.

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.~net), November 07, 1999.

Even if the lights dont go out in Y2K, there will still be looting and riots beacause the Treasury Department is far from being compliant and what do you think welfare sub-class people do when things don't go their way, such as no welfare and food stamps on Jan.5 in their mailbox? Look at LA and Atlanta after Rodney King!! These parsites on the rear end of society from the bottom of the gene pool used the verdict as an excuse to do what they are raised to do from birth...act like a bunch of savages. Let the welfare checks, food stamps, and wicks checks stop coming and see what happens...the riots in previous history will look like baby showers compared to whats coming. If you live in a big city, then get out to the country before Jan. 1. It will be absolute chaos! And if the lights do go out, then it will 10 times worse than that...the inner cities will be nothing but burned out killing zones, with people resorting to even cannibalism when the food runs out. Do you think welfare recipents are preparing for Y2K? Stockpiling Food? Watermelons, chitlilings, and fried chicken necks are not long term storage items, if you know what I mean.

-- Survivalist (AK47inNC@aol.com), November 08, 1999.