Just wanted to emphasize that it wasn't Niagara Falls' fault!

I thought I had caused it as well - I turned on the fan next to the computer and it started making funny noises like I was changing from low to high speed and back again. Then dad called and as he talked ot my brother, lights flickered both in the basement (where my brother was) and my dad's office - dad said "Uh oh... this doesn't sound good." Then we heard about all the power outages.

My boyfriend was flying up from DC - luckily his flight was fine and out of 2 'boards' of flights at 9:45PM, only 3 flights were cancelled and 2 delayed, so I think that's pretty good!

I am bothered by the economic consequences of this tragic unforseen event as it might cause NY alone half a billion dollars.

This "Canuck" was without power for over 8 hours Thursday when it first went off shortly after 4 pm --- and our power went off a couple of times Friday for 3 hours or so each time with the rolling/rotating blackouts. I just heard that for the Canadians affected by the blackout (virtually all of Ontario --- only a couple of small pockets of Ontarians have not been affected) the rotating/rolling blackouts will continue for the entire weekend and possibly well into next week before power is fully restored.

As a dairy farmer, we do have a generator --- a necessity for us --- Things have therefore been somewhat more normal for my family than many people as a result, but it's still no picnic.

This just in: (from cnn.com) Northeast blackout probably caused by failure of three Ohio power lines, says head of electrical power watchdog. Details soon.

Well, you know how that South Park song goes "Blame Canada! Blame Canada!" - hahaha

What I think it more important to figure out is not where this all first started but why it was able to cascade over such a wide area. My understanding is that individual power stations often overload and trip, but that we never know it because other stations fill in the shortfall. There is constant sharing of power between different power companies, and this is what the media is referring to as the "North America Power Grid". What is troubling, is that the overloading and shut down of power stations was able to continue in a domino effect.

I am in southwestern Ontario and we weren't too put out by being without power for several hours, other than my car gas tank was almost on empty. I am very dependent on my car. I had trouble finding an open gas station the next day once some of the power was back on. Ended up finding one, but there was a long line-up. The whole while I was thinking how much this reminded me of war-time rationing and utility failures during the Yugoslavian wars in the early 1990s. This kind of gives us a little taste of what citizens in Kabul or Baghdad must be putting up with for weeks and months on end.

Astrix is right - some poor soul will be landed with all the blame as both governments pass the responsibility down the line. However look on the bright side think of the stories you will be able to tell your children and grandchildren of that momentous night (I expect there will be a peak birth rate in about 9 months just as there was when the Uk had it's power strike and long periods without electricity!