The Great Blackout of 1965 Essay - 1143 Words

On November 9, 1965, over 80,000 square miles were without power throughout areas of Canada and the Northeastern section of the United States. For as many as twelve hours, over 25 million people lived in darkness. This event is widely known as the Great Blackout of 1965. Although it occurred forty nine years ago, the Great Blackout of 1965 has had a major impact on how electricity operation systems work today, and has led to the formation of reliability councils such as the National Electric Reliability Council, now North American Electric Reliability Council, or NERC. Also, this large scale power failure has inspired many film writers to dramatize the Great Blackout. Background The blackout originated in an area around the Ontario- New†¦show more content†¦A staff member incorrectly set one of the protective relays on the Niagara transmission lines. The safety relay on the generator is made to trip the transmission line when it surpasses its set capacity of the line. The cool November air called for a higher demand in heating, lighting, and cooking. Since the safety relay was set too low, the transmission line reached its full capacity leading the line to trip (Blackout of 1965). Normally the trip would only affect the generator that had exceeded the power limit, but in this case, the trip created power surges which traveled to other transmission lines. At 5:16 p.m. a power surge traveled from the Robert Moses generating plant in Lewiston, New York. This power surge caused the already tripped Niagara line to transfer the power to other lines causing them to become overloaded as well. These new overloaded lines tripped, causing a train reaction un til only the Beck Station in southern Ontario remained. The excess power from the Beck Station transferred through more of these interconnected lines which become tripped as well (White). Nine months after the blackout it was reported that there was a larger-than-average birthrate in the hospitals surrounding New York City. Many people believe that the almost 12 hour blackout led to many conceptions. Conversely, the birth rate did not show a significant increase after the blackout. It is common afterShow MoreRelatedThe Northeast Blackout ( Of 1960 S1196 Words   |  5 PagesThe Northeast Blackout (of 1960’s) In the history of the world, there have come many such kinds of incidents that have changed the whole map of the history. In about every nation, there have occurred a lot of surprising events which distinguish that nation from the other one. So history of the world is so much rich when we take a close look at it. Like the other countries, the history of United States is filled up with many unrealistic events that when occurred, had surprised the whole world. 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