Hawthorne High School - do you remember when the lights went out down the

Michelle Den Bleyker Newbie Offline Posts: 7 san antonio, texas Gender:	do you remember when the lights went out down the Mar 14^th, 2009 at 10:45pm does anybody remember when all the electricity went out down the whole east coast? It was in the late 60's I believe. Nobody ever knew what happened then. Does anyone remember or know what happened?
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atall64 Junior Member Offline Posts: 95	Re: do you remember when the lights went out down Reply #1 - Mar 15^th, 2009 at 2:08am My dad worked for Western Electric and was called in to work for two days. I seem to recall it was a heat wave and the whole grid went down.........
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bob nigra Gold Member Offline now Posts: 2735 Budd Lake, NJ Gender:	Re: do you remember when the lights went out down Reply #2 - Mar 15^th, 2009 at 1:49pm For some reason 1969 popped in my head when I read this.
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Michelle Den Bleyker Newbie Offline Posts: 7 san antonio, texas Gender:	Re: do you remember when the lights went out down Reply #3 - Mar 15^th, 2009 at 4:49pm My recollections was that it was winter, not in the summer
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Jerry Gould

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Re: do you remember when the lights went out down
Reply #4 - Mar 15^th, 2009 at 6:45pm

OK, this may just be an old man's memory playing tricks, but FWIW, I think there were two events... one was a *really big* blackout that really did involve the whole east coast (or at least the northeast), had to do with some kind of major trunk line failure coming down from Canada or somesuch... that was way back (want to say mid - 1960's - maybe '65?). I don't really remember it, I was a little kid, but I remember hearing about it. We lived in Warwick, NY at the time and it was dark for a long time. I want to say it was in the winter, but I'm not really sure.

Second time was more limited in scope, but more recent - I recall it pretty well. Would have been about 1976 or 1977, possibly 1978. It was a NYC blackout that didn't affect the part of North Jersey that I was in - which was a movie theatre in Wayne. It was summer, in the evening. We came out of the theatre and got into my car, and the car radio wasn't working. Turned out the radio was fine, but the broadcasting station was a victim of the blackout. It lasted quite a while. I remember stories of people walking across the bridges to get out of the city.

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Jerry (Art) Gould&&Class of '77

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atall64 Junior Member Offline Posts: 95	Re: do you remember when the lights went out down Reply #5 - Mar 15^th, 2009 at 7:04pm Ok. How about November 1965. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_1965
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Pat_Loftus

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Re: do you remember when the lights went out down
Reply #6 - Mar 15^th, 2009 at 10:03pm

When the entire east coast went dark, I was sitting in our bath tub (on legs) Grin

I just googled - east coast blackout - 1965 - here is part of it (You're GOOD Jerry)
The Northeast Blackout of 1965 was a significant disruption in the supply of electricity on November 9, 1965, affecting Ontario, Canada and Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, and New Jersey in the United States. Around 25 million people and 80,000 square miles (207,000 km²) were left without electricity for up to 12 hours.

The cause of the failure was human error that happened days before the blackout, when maintenance personnel incorrectly set a protective relay on one of the transmission lines between the Niagara generating station Sir Adam Beck Station No. 2 in Queenston, Ontario and Southern Ontario. Instead of the relay being set to trip and protect the line if the flow of power exceeded the line's capacity, it was set for a much lower value.

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nancyJ class1969 Gold Member Offline Posts: 1018 Gender:	Re: do you remember when the lights went out down Reply #7 - Mar 16^th, 2009 at 5:24pm Wonder if he lost his job over that whoops?
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Michelle Den Bleyker Newbie Offline Posts: 7 san antonio, texas Gender:	Re: do you remember when the lights went out down Reply #8 - Mar 18^th, 2009 at 8:13pm I bectcha his bottom dollar he did! Thanks everyone for all the info about it. I was real young and didn't know. We thought it was aliens! class of 1972
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june komjian teale

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Re: do you remember when the lights went out down
Reply #9 - Mar 18^th, 2009 at 11:15pm

I don't even recall that, but I have to chalk it up to having a "Senior Moment", as I seem to be the only one, (unless somebody can correct me on this), and that is the fact that I'm a much older woman, than 'you guys'. I'll be sending you a personal message, Michelle, as my daughter graduated in your class. (I married very young and Connie is my oldest child.)

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