Did you see the latest, which purports to explain it, except this doesn't make sense either?
Blackout Pinned on Three Ohio Failures (claim they found "real" cause)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/965237/posts WASHINGTON (AP)--The failure of three transmission lines in northern Ohio was the likely trigger of the nation's biggest power blackout, a leading investigator said Saturday.
Experts are working to understand why the disruption spread throughout the Northeast and Midwest and into Canada, and was not contained.
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3 transmission lines simultaneously!!!
The more I read about the power grid, the more it becomes baffling why huge power outages like last Thursday occur
so rarely.
Just goes to show, things we take for granted, like electricity, are not simple at all.