The Ripple Effect

[370 words] A relay was tripped at the Sir Adam Beck Power Station on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. The stage had been set when the relay was inadvertently set too low a few days before; it tripped at 5:16 p.m. on November 9, 1965. It was this incident that inspired the 1968 film, “Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?” By 5:27 p.m. New York City went down. An estimated 80,000 people were trapped in the subways, traffic lights went out and brought the streets to a screeching halt, 250 flights into JFK Airport were diverted. The entire Northeast Power Grid had gone down; the blackout covered 80,000 square miles and over 25 million people were without power—all because of a relay! We call it “The Ripple Effect.” As I was growing up, my grandfather had a pond behind his house. When we would visit on Sunday…