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In each power station, watchers in the command center hunched day and night over consoles, scanning screens, dials, and gauges that monitored turbines and took account of current running back and forth over thousands of miles of lines. Such a network proved economical: "In times of normal demand for electricity the member companies [could] shut down some of their expensive steam-fed facilities and 'ride' on the cheaper current provided by hydroelectric generators." And on the whole, it was more reliable. If, for instance, a generator had to be shut down for maintenance or repair at an eastern Massachusetts station, power could be borrowed from New York or Wisconsin, for there was virtually no electrical distance between them. Power could be generated in New York and travel to New Jersey before arriving in Massachusetts if need be. While all this was being accomplished, people in Boston might notice nothing more than a momentary flicker of their lamps.

But for all the massive reach of electricity, the generation of electric power also stood in the same delicate balance as in 1910, when Edward Hungerford detailed the way a cloud could stress the power systems of New York City, for the need to maintain an equilibrium of supply and demand hadn't changed. There was more at stake, of course. The balance had to be maintained across numerous power stations, and—since electricity moved back and forth across the wires—surges, flow reversals, or disruptions at one power plant could have far-reaching ramifications and might ultimately affect the synchronicity of the entire system.

That synchronicity was essential. By 1965 all public utility generators east of the Rocky Mountains ran in sync with one another so that alternating current could be seamlessly switched from one generator to another throughout the system. You might think of their working sound as the music of our spheres, for if even one were to fall out of phase and begin spinning at its own speed, if its steady, precise humming became discordant—a wobbly song of its own—well, then...

A slight variation [could] be tolerated if it [was] soon brought into line. A major variation [would force] other generators to "hunt" for a new phase more aligned to the maverick's.... The out-of-phase current finally [would cause] other generators on the circuit to shut down. The more generators that cut off, the more that [would] follow suit. For any generator feeding current into the system at that point would be so overloaded that its safety devices, the circuit breakers, would bring it to a halt.

What goes on across the power grid, it's said, "is like a game of tug of war, which works as long as neither side—the generating stations and the load centers—wins. If one side falters, and the rope moves too far, everyone on the other side will fall down."

All through the brief daylight hours of November 9, 1965, the forty-two interconnected power stations between Ontario and Boston that made up the Canadian and U.S. Eastern Interconnection hummed along. There were no extraordinary demands on the supply: the weather was mild and the sky clear. As the sun set shortly before five o'clock, farmers in the countryside, with their fields all plowed under and their barns full of hay, were beginning the evening milking. In small towns, stores flipped over their Open signs and closed up shop. Everywhere, wives and mothers began preparing dinner while children sat transfixed in front of the TV watching The Three Stooges. City office workers, their day done, jammed the elevators, subways, escalators, streets, and trains. Car lights formed brilliant rivers down avenues and across bridges, their drivers obeying, anticipating, or trying to beat the red, amber, and green signals that had been directing the flow of traffic ever since the first four-way, three-color stoplights—based on controls used by railroads—were devised in the 1920s.

Nowhere were more people in transit than in New York City, when, at 5:16 P.M., more than three