New York Blackouts of 1965, 1977and 2003
Different Social Reactions to the Great New York Power Failures
Jul 21, 2008
New York blackouts have an urban folklore of their own. They are seen as defining incidents in the history of the city and the citizen’s reaction is a reflection of the social barometer of the time.
9 November 1965
Regarded as the ‘good blackout’, the timetable of darkness was as follows:
5.15 pm the lights go out in Toronto
5.18 pm Rochester
5.21 pm Boston
5.28 pm New York City
The entire Eastern Seaboard went blank and power outage spread over an area of eighty thousand square miles, eventually effecting approximately twenty-five million people.
Caused by a single breaker being set too low on the Canadian side of Niagara, a rolling surge of power headed toward New York resulting in the critical closure of the Con Ed system.
La Guardia and JFK airports were closed and commuters were stranded in apartments, office blocks and traffic jams. Power was restored some thirteen hours later and there was an air of pride in how the city coped with its darkened streets, with little reported disorder.
Professor James Sparrow of the Blackout History Project feels the burgeoning Cold War may have had an effect.
“It’s something to do with the emergency context of war. The Cold War created a civic culture. By 1965 when the was starting to get hot, there was a broad sensibility of trust in authority, a general sense the government had things in hand.”
Survivors of the 1965 blackout reported an almost magical event as moonlight flooded New York. A rise in the number of births nine months later only added to the feel-good factor.
13 July 1977
In stark contrast, Time magazine billed 13 July 1977 as New York’s Night of Terror. The metropolitan area fell into darkness for twenty-five hours and the city descended into anarchy.
Fires spread throughout all five boroughs, thousands of shops were looted, there were almost four thousand arrests and damage costs were estimated at over $1 billion.
Four lightning bolts striking four separate pylons precipitated the blackout as the city simply disappeared from view.
Professor Sparrow says the reaction was indicative of the city’s growing civic unrest.
“It was literally New York’s darkest hour. It was going through a protracted fiscal crisis that was just squeezing the services out of the city. It was also a time when the industrial jobs that had been so important to the city’s economy had just fled to the Sun Belt.
New York was in an awful pinch and right at that moment, the lights went out.”
14 August 2003
A cascading effect following a generating plant in Ohio going offline was designated as the cause of the 2003 blackout. This inability of the system to cope with such incidents at times of high demand led to a fresh appraisal of the US electricity grid.
In terms of the city’s reaction, the power cut of 14 August 2003 had much in common with that of 1965. Once the possibility of terrorism was discounted, rivers of commuters and tourists walked the streets to their homes in relative calm.
Why was civil disturbance so low in comparison to that of 1977? Professor Sparrow sees the events of 11 September 2001 as significant to the citizen’s behaviour.
“There is still a crisis mentality that could explain why people behave responsibly.”
However, the authorities response, economic circumstance and simply better timing cannot be underestimated. Ten thousand troops were quickly on the streets, the economy was in ruder health and the lights went out during daylight hours, providing people with time to respond before darkness fell.
A Sign of The Times
New York City’s reaction to the blackouts of 1965, 1977 and 2003 mirrored the times during which they fell. Seemingly complex conurbations can be more fragile and susceptible to breakdown than appear likely, given a particular set of events.
References
The New York Times
 |
