Have you heard the number of states affected? This appears to be on the ground and not a cyber attack. Is that your analysis or does anyone have that information?
No. They just said it was in Sandiego and surrounding areas, in to Arizona, and some up the coast.
They may not have used the word speading. That was my take. Sorry.
This sounds like a plot of a NCIS show (rerun) I saw a few days ago - terrorists planed to take out three key transmission towers somewhere on the east coast. Three towers down would cascade and cause power outages throughout the entire east coast. Of course Gibbs and crew riddled the terrorist with bullets before he could trigger the bomb to the first tower!